Shchi is a traditional dish of Russian cuisine. This soup can be made with cabbage, cabbage seedlings, sorrel, or even nettle. But nevertheless, it is cabbage soup that is cooked most often. Try some tried and tested recipes with fresh kale, meat or lean.
Correctly cooked cabbage soup has a characteristic sour taste. If fresh cabbage is used for their preparation, tomatoes, apples, pickled mushrooms will add the necessary sourness. The addition of onions, aromatic roots and herbs is required, giving the soup the necessary richness. Cabbage soup can be cooked in meat broth or made lean. The finished soup should be seasoned with fresh sour cream.
Try lazy beef cabbage soup. Rinse 500 g of beef brisket, cover with boiling water, add onion, peeled and halved potatoes, celery and parsley roots. Bring the broth to a boil, remove the foam, add 10 black peppercorns, bay leaf and cook for about two hours, until the meat is tender. Take out the brisket and vegetables, strain the broth. Cut the meat and set aside.
Peel a head of cabbage weighing 700-750 g from external leaves, remove the stalk. Put the head of cabbage in cold salted water for half an hour. Then remove the cabbage, pour over with boiling water and cut into rather large squares.
Finely chop 2 onions, cut carrots, potatoes, parsley and celery into strips. Chop parsley, celery, dill and marjoram, cut the tomato into quarters. Put the onion, roots, carrots and tomato in the broth, add the cabbage and cook until the vegetables are soft. Place 8 finely chopped garlic cloves two minutes before the end of cooking. Salt the cabbage soup, turn off the stove, add chopped herbs and let the soup stand under the closed lid for a quarter of an hour. Pour it into warmed plates, add chopped meat and fresh sour cream to each. Such cabbage soup is especially tasty with black bread.
If desired, you can add a couple of tablespoons of buckwheat to the cabbage soup for a richer taste.
The cabbage soup cooked with the addition of apples has an interesting taste. Choose aromatic sweet and sour fruits, for example, Antonovka. Rinse 750 g of beef brisket, put in a saucepan and cover with boiling water. Add whole parsley root, small carrots, and halved onion. Boil the broth for 2 hours, then strain it, discard the roots, and chop the meat. If you want to make lean cabbage soup, cook the root broth by adding a couple of peeled and halved potatoes.
Calculate the amount of water depending on the desired thickness of the cabbage soup. Medium thick cabbage soup requires no more than 350 ml of water per serving.
Add 750 g of fresh cabbage, stripped of outer leaves and chopped into squares, to a saucepan of broth. Chop 1 carrot and 1 small turnip into strips, chop the onion. Place vegetables in broth and cook for 15 minutes. Then add the apples, cut into strips (6-8). After 5 minutes, add chopped dill and parsley, 8 black peppercorns and bay leaf. Salt the cabbage soup and cook until the apples are tender. If desired, the apples can be boiled in a separate bowl, and then put them in the cabbage soup along with 1 glass of the resulting broth 5 minutes before turning off the stove. Let the cabbage stand under the lid for 15 minutes. Then pour them into warmed plates and season with sour cream.
