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Russian Borscht

A hearty soup made with navy beans, beef, bacon, beets, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, and optional kielbasa, finished with butter and sour cream.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 25 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Timeabout 1½ hours

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the beans and beef broth

  1. Cover beans with water and allow to soak overnight.

  2. Cook beans until tender.

  3. Drain beans and set aside.

  4. Place beef, bacon and water in large soup pot.

  5. Bring to a boil.

  6. Skim fat from surface.

  7. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion and salt.

  8. Cover soup.

  9. Simmer over low heat for about 1½ hours.

  10. Remove meat from soup.

  11. Set meat aside.

  12. Strain soup into another pot.

Prepare the beets

  1. Scrub beets for soup.

  2. Cook beets in boiling water until tender, about 45 minutes.

  3. Drain beets and discard water.

  4. Cool beets.

  5. Peel and cut each beet into eighths.

  6. Scrub small beets.

  7. Grate small beets.

  8. Cover grated beets with water to soak.

Finish the soup

  1. Add cooked beets, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, beef and bacon.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer 45 minutes.

  4. Cut kielbasa into chunks.

  5. Add kielbasa and navy beans to soup.

  6. Simmer 20 minutes more.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beets
Provide the earthy body, sweetness and deep red colour that define the soup.
Beef
Adds rich savoury flavour and body to the broth as it simmers.
Red wine vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the soup and balances the sweetness of the beets.
Navy beans
Add starch and a creamy texture, thickening the soup slightly as they break down.
Tomatoes
Add acidity, body and a fuller tomato flavour to the broth.
Potatoes
Add starch that gives the soup substance and a softer, heartier texture.

The step that matters

Strain the broth before adding the vegetables. Straining removes fat, bits of meat and aromatics so the broth stays clear and clean-tasting. Adding the beets and acidic ingredients to a properly strained base keeps the flavours balanced.

Flavor stand-ins for the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, beef, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion):

  1. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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