Photo: AA Newton
The sweaty season is just around the corner and unfortunately it’s not going anywhere that fast. Turning on the stove may be a deal breaker, but let’s face it: you can only eat that much salad before you need something more substantial.
This is where cold borscht (or chlodnik) comes into play. First, let’s take a moment to appreciate the beauty that is happening here – look at this color! But this is not about style over substance: Cold borscht is so filling that I regularly say out loud: “Wow, I’m stuffed” after I’ve sanded down a bowl. It’s also very easy to do. If you can put in about 15 minutes of hands-on effort cooking, peeling, and dicing some beets, you are in business. With a serving of cold borscht in the fridge, you’re just a handful of side dishes away from an ice-cold, deeply refreshing meal that will keep you full for hours.
But above all, cold borscht is delicious. It might be nothing more than turnips and the water they are boiled in, but with the help of generous spices and garnishes, a humble bowl of watery turnips turns into a mosh pit of various textures and flavors. There’s a lot going on here and everything is good: sweet, juicy beetroot, crunchy cucumbers, hot spring onions, herbaceous dill and enough salt and acid to pucker your mouth a little – but it won’t, because the sour cream rounds everything out. It’s absolutely flawless. Here’s how to do it.
How to make cold borscht (chlodnik)
Photo: AA Newton
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For the soup:
- 1-2 pounds of beetroot, all about the same size
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of table salt, plus more to taste
- 2 tbsp sugar, plus more to taste
- 1/4 cup of vinegar or lemon juice, plus more to taste
Serve:
- Diced cucumber
- Sliced spring onions
- Chopped fresh dill
- Freshly cracked black pepper
- Sour cream, crème fraîche or Greek yogurt or a vegan equivalent (I used homemade cashew cream)
- Hard boiled eggs (optional)
Scrub the beets well under running water. Put them in a saucepan, add enough cold water to barely cover them, and cook until the tip of the knife slides easily into the center of the beets. Cooking times will vary depending on the beet size and your method, but here are some general guidelines:
- Stovetop: 20-30 minutes for smaller beets; 40-50 for larger ones
- Instant pot: 3-5 minutes at high pressure with manual release for smaller beets; 8-10 for larger ones
- Microwave: 5-8 minutes at high output for smaller beets; 10-15 minutes for larger ones
When the beets are cooked, transfer them to a plate or bowl and let cool completely. Reserve the cooking liquid. Peel the cooled beets with your fingers, then grate or dice as desired. (I like a 1/4-inch cube.) Place the beets in a large mixing bowl and add enough of the reserved cooking liquid to cover them.
Now for the fun part: Season the beet mixture vigorously with salt, sugar and an acid of your choice. (Beets can hold an almost alarming amount of all three, so don’t be shy.) If it starts to taste like pickled beet brine, you’re done. Place the bottom of the soup in the refrigerator overnight so that it is completely cooled.
To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top with a handful of cucumbers, spring onions and dill, a dollop of fermented dairy products (or non-dairy products) and a generous shower with freshly cracked black pepper. A halved hard-boiled egg is a delicious (and beautiful) finish, but it’s not required. This magical dish – pretty much just vegetables and flavored water – is a truly filling meal on its own.
An earlier version of this story spelled it “borsch”. We changed it to “borscht”, not because the former is wrong or because of the guy in the comments, but because it Googles better.
