On Holy Evening - with fish, on Christmas - without potatoes: how to cook festive borscht

Elena Shcherban, perhaps, knows more about borscht than anyone else in Ukraine. She is an ethnologist, has been researching the traditional Ukrainian food culture for more than 20 years, Doctor of Historical Sciences. And for 8 years in a row it has been holding a unique festival "Borshchik in a Clay Pot".

At the first festival, only 10 borscht were presented, at the eighth - already 80, which means that at the 10th anniversary festival, 100 varieties of this cult Ukrainian dish will be prepared. With mushrooms, fish, apples, lemon and honey - no recipe is repeated. So, in the "Lyalina Svetlitsa" in Oposhnya, Poltava region, you can get into a real borsch kingdom.

How to cook borscht for Holy Evening

January 6 is also the Nativity Fast, and therefore all the dishes on the festive table in Holy evening should be lean. No exception is made for the "king" of the feast - borscht. But this does not mean that you will be eating tasteless "slurry". Festive lean borscht should be rich in ingredients.

His Elena Shcherban advises to cook from several types of beans - red, purple, multi-colored. It should be boiled separately.

You will also need two types of beets - fresh and pickled. Cut them into strips and fry them well.

Prepare vegetable broth separately from potatoes, carrots, salt, bay leaves, allspice.

Put in it first fried beets, then cabbage, cooked beans, fried onions and carrots, dried and frozen mushrooms, garlic and onions. And simmer it all over low heat with the lid closed, for an hour and a half.

Mushrooms can be replaced with fish - dried, smoked, fried.

"The tench was considered the best fish for the festive borscht",

- says Elena Shcherban.

How to make the right borscht for Christmas

For Christmas, borscht was also prepared. But since the Nativity Fast was over, there was necessarily meat in it - pork ribs.

According to Elena Shcherban, there are no potatoes or cabbage in the classic Christmas borscht. Its main ingredients are meat, beet kvass, a lot of fried onions and carrots and, of course, dried pears.

"In some regions, for example, in the Lviv region, cherry syrup was added to Christmas borscht for a brighter taste,"

- says the ethnologist.

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