Red borscht with mushrooms
Sourdough Beet: 1 kg of beet, slice of wholemeal bread, 2 l of water Borscht: 2 a cup of pickled beetroot leaven, a large portion of soup vegetables without carrots and cabbage, 5 medium-sized red beetroots, 3 a dag of dried porcini mushrooms, a glass of red wine, salt, sugar, lemon juice, a small bay leaf, 1 clove of garlic, 3-4 allspice grains, 2-3 peppercorns, a bunch of green chives, 1 ½ liter of water
Peel the beets, wash thoroughly, pour cold water in a wooden or earthenware vessel, toss a slice of wholemeal bread and leave it on 3-4 days in a warm place. After this time, both the beetroots, and the resulting leaven, are usable.
By making soup, wash the mushrooms under running water, pour two glasses of water and soak for several hours, and then boil it in the same water.
Wash and peel the greens and beetroots, slice the beetroots into thin slices, pour water (1 l), add allspice, pepper, bay leaf. Cook 30-35 min., then strain the broth. Pour the decoction into it, in which the mushrooms were boiling, and beet leaven. Season with salt to taste, sugar, red wine, lemon juice and a crushed garlic clove, which after 15 min. must be removed. If the borscht color was not very vivid, grate a small red beetroot on a fine grater and squeeze out the juice, which color the soup. Before serving, the borscht can be sprinkled with chopped green chives. Serve with dumplings, yeast dumplings stuffed with mushrooms or cabbage.
