The recipe: Traditional Russian Borsch (борщ) is a soup of Ukrainian origin that is popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. In most of these countries, it is made with beetroot as the main ingredient, giving it a deep reddish-purple color. In some countries, tomato is used as the main ingredient, while beetroot acts as a secondary ingredient. You can also make Borsht vegetarian by excluding the meat. Since very young age, I have been eating soups in my family for lunch and dinner and Borsch was one of my favourite soups. Today I want to share with you a recipe that has been passed to me by my mother, who is the biggest inspiration to me. I live in London, and every time I make the soup, it brings me back to my home country! This recipe serves 6 people. It takes about 40-60 min to make this soup. You can make this for dinner or lunch, its perfect food for any occasion. I like to have meat in my soup, so its more filing and I use pork ribs. Alternatively if you don’t eat pork, you can replace it with beef! The ingredients you will need are the following:

• – 2 medium carrots
• – 2 medium potatoes
• – 1 tomato
• – 1 head of garlic
• – 1 onion
• – 1 head of white cabbage
• – 4 beetroots
• – 1 kg of pork ribs ( or beef )
• – 2 cubes of beef or chicken stock

To make this delicious and easy soup you need to do the following:

• Step 1 : Boil the water with 2 cubes of stock

• Step 2 : Prepare all the vegetables. Cut the potatoes into cubes, grate the carrots, cut the onion with garlic and beetroot. Cut the cabbage and into strips and slice the tomato.

• Step 3 : Place the ribs into the boiling water

• Step 4 : In the meantime, fry the onions, garlic and carrots together. Add salt and pepper to taste.

• Step 5 : Add some vegetables to the soup, first add the cabbage, then beetroot, carrots, onions and garlic and mix. Add more salt and pepper if needed.

• Step 6 : Boil for 20 min and then add potatoes and tomato. This is to ensure potatoes don’t over cook and become soggy.

• Step 7 : Boil for another 10 min on medium heat and serve.
• Step 8 : Add sour cream to your soup ( you can also add dill)

Hot borscht is a hearty soup. It is almost always made with a beef or pork broth. It may be eaten as a meal in itself, but is usually eaten as an appetizer with dark rye bread in Russian countries. I hope you enjoyed this recipe. Borsch can be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days.