Corned beef borscht

A few years ago I made a borscht recipe with corned beef that we really liked, but I combined a couple recipes and never remembered what I had done. That was one of the promptings to start this blog, to try not to lose things like that again. I originally got the idea for using corned beef from the "Wintry Ukrainian Borscht" recipe in Molly O'Neill's The New York Cookbook. I'm pretty sure this was at least half of the basis of my previous attempt. Mark Bittman's borscht was fine, but not as interesting.

Tonight I made an attempt to find something similar to that original. I started with the Burp! corned beef recipe, and used the broth to make borscht, loosely based on Barbara Kafka's recipe for "Red Russian Soup - The Meat Version". I liked roasting the finished corned beef for half an hour, and I added halved potatoes for the last hour of simmering to put in the oven as well. It was still tender, but not as soggy as straight boiled corned beef.

It was good, though the beet to cabbage ratio was a bit low (we had four beets left).

This was also good for using up vegetables we had: the only thing we had to buy was fresh dill. The leftovers seem to take up as much room as the vegetables we took out, though.

Corned beef borscht

While the corned beef is simmering, cover 4 whole beets, trimmed and scrubbed, with cold water and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 45 minutes until tender, then remove from heat and allow to cool. Reserve the cooking liquid and remove the skin from the beets (it will slip off easily). Cut the beet into matchsticks, or grate.

Add to the corned beef broth (which already includes garlic, carrots, onions, celery, tomato paste, sugar, beer and spices) about 2/3 of a cabbage, coarsely shredded. Simmer for 20 minutes and add the reserved beets. Simmer for 20 minutes more, add 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, pepper (the broth is already salty from the corned beef, so don't add salt before tasting it), dill, and the strained beet liquid. Stir and remove from heat. Serve with the corned beef and potatoes.