perfidy

I don't suppose the preponderance of Texans we count among our member- and readership will have much use for this recipe, but for those of you in more northerly climes, this is recipe comes directly from my heart to you. It is a fairly simple* fall and winter soup, perfect for those nights when you can get a pleasant buzz on and fart a lot at home contentedly while the freezing wind whips the trees outside.

Vegetable Borscht with Barley

This simple vegetarian vegetable soup has a surprising depth of flavor - earthy, sweet, green, warm, and tangy. It is almost more like a stew than a soup as presented, thanks to the amount of vegetables. If you want a thinner soup, feel free to add more stock and kick up the dill and caraway a tiny bit to amplify their flavor. I like it this way, though. It takes me back to an imagined ancestry in the great sweep of Eastern Europe from Swabia and Poland all the way to Romania, sort of a Swabopolskiczechohungariromanimoldovan cuisine. Or just call it Fake Transylvanian for short. Stay tuned for my Thai-Italian fusion cuisine!

If you wish to use canned beets, you can, but nothing tops roasted beets for complexity. Frozen vegetables are absolutely okay in this soup, but be sure to par-cook any greens beforehand so they don't make the soup bitter.

3 medium carrots, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 large onions, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced (vary to taste)
2 tsp dill seeds
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp dried thyme (more if stock contains no thyme)
1/2 cup hulled barley (the brown stuff preferably, not pearl)
6-8 cups lightly- or un-salted beef, chicken, or vegetable stock or water (at least some of which stock)
1 medium head green cabbage, shredded
6 medium beets (total 8-12 oz), roasted, peeled & diced
other vegetables as desired: green beans, turnips, turnip greens, kale, etc., I wouldn't use potatoes but you certainly may)
1/2 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1 T vinegar, red wine or cider
salt
pepper
vegetable oil

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and 1/2 tsp salt. Sweat until onions are translucent, about 7 minutes. Add caraway, dill, and thyme, reduce heat a bit, and cook about 5 minutes more.

Add liquid and barley. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Add cabbage, beets, and other vegetables and cook for about 20 minutes more. If necessary, add more liquid to cover. Adjust salt at this time.

Add pepper, vinegar, and parsley and cook 5 minutes. Taste and adjust one last time before serving.

This recipe could easily be converted for omnivores by the addition of maybe a pound of cubed stew meat browned in the pan prior to adding the aromatics and cooking until tender prior to adding the cabbage.

Serve with, oh, maybe a side of potato or sauerkraut pierogis fried with onions, or bread and butter and cheese, plus definitely lots of cold beer or Reisling for an authentically faux-Eastern Bloc experience. Now I'm hungry.

[wik] * About that word, simple. Of course this recipe is simple; it's a soup! But like so many things, "simple" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as "easy." Stir-fries are simple, but the entire vocabulary of cooking them is fundamentally different than what Western cooks innately do. And baguettes- they are one of the easiest recipes for good bread going, but they sure aren't simple. Chess is easy too. Bouillabaisse isn't that hard, but there sure as hell is a trick to getting it to taste anything like the sublime fish soup of coastal France.

And, I suppose, no recipe is simple if you don't have a sense of how big "dice" should be, or what "salt to taste" means when you're standing over the pot with the saltshaker, or what a simmer is. So, I take it back, the word "simple."

[alsø wik] Comrade Hall asks how to roast beets. Easy! First, you need to kill your beets. As unfortunate as this is, beet flesh deteriorates very rapidly after death, so you must buy live ones. They are fast, slippery and surprisingly strong little buggers with a lot of fight in them, so this is often a challenge. The traditional method is to stuff one into a sack, grab it by the tail, and beat its head against a hard surface until it stops fighting. Then beat it some more because the treacherous little bastard might be faking. Then, the gutting. Trust me; the payoff for all this is delicious.

Oh wait, wait. Sorry, that was eels.

Beets.

First you need to kill your beets.

No. Damn.

Always buy beets with the greens attached. If the greens are sturdy and healthy, you've got to vegetables for the price of one. If not, they are still a guarantee that the roots are strong and fresh and not old, woody, and tasteless. For this recipe, one or two "bunches" will do, whatever your market or local dirt farmer calls a "bunch."

Remove the greens, leaving 1/2 to 1 inch of stem. Set greens aside to cook or pitch as necessary. Scrub beets gently to remove clinging dirt (though you will eventually peel them, dirt on the beets can contribute a dirty flavor (as opposed to earthy) to the final product) and pat dry. Do not peel at this time. Place beets on a layer of foil. At this point, if desired you can hit them with a little vegetable oil to promote fast cooking**. You can also slip some thyme and salt and pepper in the mix if so desired. I usually don't. Fold the beets up well into a rough packet, whatever you can manage. If you must divide the beets into two separate packets in order to close the foil around the beets, do so. Repeat with a second layer of foil, making sure that the beets are tightly wrapped - we want the steam, for the most part, to stay in. This goes double for the sugar-rich purple juices which will blacken in a second if they get free into the oven, and will stain the hell out of your clothes, hot-pads, and anything else they come near.

Place your double-wrapped beets on a baking sheet and place in a well-preheated (which means, "at temperature for at least 20 minutes with the door closed") 350-degree oven. Beets always take longer than you expect, so smallish to medium size ones will take about an hour, and very large ones can go 90 minutes or more. They are done when a paring knife penetrates to the middle with practically no resistance. (Beets will tend to stay a little harder than other vegetables thanks to their cell-wall makeup.)

Remove from oven, and cool until you can handle them. Then, under running water slip the skins right off with your fingers. Voila.

In case that was too much info, here's the executive summary:
Cut off greens
Scrub
Wrap tightly in double layer of foil
350 degrees, 1 hour to 90 minutes
Cool, peel, enjoy.

** As you know, fats transfer heat more efficiently than water or air. So, by rubbing the skins of the beets with fat you are theoretically aiding the transfer of heat from the oven to the interior of the vegetable. Whether or not this effect is detectable in shortened cooking time is debatable. It probably helps a bit. On the other hand, always oil your baked taters, because the skin will turn out nice and browned and chewy, all of which probably does help the potato's inside to cook.