Beetroot is by far my favourite vegetable and in my opinion, very much underused. I’ve met people who have only ever had pickled beetroots out of a jar, which is a real shame. Roasted beets are the absolute best, but serve beetroot to me in pretty much any form and I’ll be happy. 

This recipe has been adapted from a book called Mamushka, by Olia Hercules, which I own and would recommend to anyone. (There is an online link to this recipe) This is the third recipe I’ve made so far from the book and they have all been delicious so far.  As this one contained beetroot, it was a no brainer for me. 

I departed from the recipe in that I didn’t make my own beef stock and instead included some leftover beef brisket that we had in the fridge and it turned out wonderfully, but you could just omit and use vegetable stock to make it vegetarian. The original recipe also contained kidney beans, but Kieran doesn’t like them, so I left it out. 

Ukranian beetroot borshch

Adapted from Mamushka by Olia Hercules

• 200 g 7 oz beetroot, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 200 g 7 oz potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 onion (finely chopped)
• 1 carrot (peeled and roughly grated)
• 1 red pepper (cored, deseeded and chopped)
• 1 tbsp tomato pure
• 1 beef tomato (skin discarded, roughly grated)
• ½ small white cabbage (shredded)
• 500 g cooked roast beef ((I used leftover brisket))
• sea salt flakes and freshly ground
• black pepper
• beef (or vegetable stock cube)
• 1 onion (peeled but kept whole)
• 1 bay leaf
• 2.5 litres (4 pints cold water)
• To serve:
• 100 ml 3½ fl oz soured cream
• ½ bunch of dill (chopped)

1. To make the base of the soup, simply place the beef, beef stock, whole onion, bay leaf and water in a large saucepan. Season the water lightly and cook over a low heat for 1 hour. Skim off the scum with a spoon from time to time.
2. Add the beetroot and potatoes to the stock, season well with salt and pepper and cook over low heat for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat the sunflower oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and carrot and cook over a medium heat, stirring, for about 5–7 minutes until the carrot is meltingly soft and is about to start caramelising. This is a distinctively Ukrainian soffritto technique called smazhennya or zazharka.
4. Add the red pepper and tomato purée to the onion and carrot and cook it out for 2 minutes, then add the grated fresh tomato or fermented tomatoes, stir and reduce slightly before adding all of this to the broth.
5. Finally, add the shredded cabbage to the broth and cook for about 7 minutes until cooked through.
6. Serve with a dollop of soured cream, chopped dill and pampushky (Ukrainian doughnuts).