Borscht with dried crucian carp and mushrooms
PREPARATION
1 hour
PORTIONS
6 servings
COMPLEXITY
easily
Once my husband’s mother shared with me some delicious memories from her childhood. Their family lived in the Chernihiv region at the time, in a very picturesque area. The Desna River flowed not far from the house, and in the summer her father and brothers were constantly fishing. There was so much fish that my mother dried crucian carp, tench, and pike in the wood oven and put them in bags, and then cooked incredibly delicious borscht with dried fish all winter long, including on Christmas Eve.
I decided to find dried fish made in the same way — in a wood oven where you burned straw — and cook borscht from my mother-in-law’s memories.
Ingredients for a 3-liter pot
- 3–4 dried crucian carp
- 10 gr of dried porcini mushrooms
- 100 gr of beans
- 3 potatoes
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 beetroot
- 200 gr of cabbage
- 3 tbsp. of tomato paste
- 1 tbsp. of apple cider vinegar (you can add beetroot kvas as well if you have it)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Oil for frying
- Bay leaf and allspice
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Cooking method
Cover dried porcini mushrooms with water and leave to soak overnight.
Cover the beans with water as well and leave to soak overnight.
Drain the water from the beans and cook them after boiling for 20–30 minutes, depending on their size, until half-cooked. Then drain the beans.
Cut the porcini mushrooms and strain the water in which they were soaked.
Put the boiled beans, diced potatoes, and chopped mushrooms in a saucepan with water and put to boil.
Meanwhile, prepare the other vegetables. Chop the onion, grate the carrots and beets on a large grater.
Pour oil into a frying pan, add the chopped onion and simmer for 5 minutes. Then add the carrots and beets and simmer for another 5 minutes. Add vinegar, tomato paste and spices, mix everything well and leave for another 5 minutes to cook.
Add the stewed vegetables, chopped cabbage and strained water from the mushrooms to the potatoes and beans. Add salt to taste and cook the borscht until done.
Turn off the stove, add three dried crucian carp to the pot, cover with a lid and leave the borscht to infuse for several hours or until the next day.
I do not put the crucian carp at the beginning, because the fish overcooks and the final result looks unaesthetic. If you add the fish at the end, it retains its shape and beautiful appearance. If you want, you can make a broth using fish, strain it, and then continue cooking the borscht.
