In the Ukraine, the Sklar family worked as caterers; if there was going to be a big occasion, like a royal wedding, the Sklar family would arrive on the site weeks ahead to prepare the feast. So, Sabina is from a family of cooks.
Ask anyone whoever ate her cooking, they will roll their eyes and joyfully sigh as they describe their favorite dishes. When I invited family members to voice over old Hinko family movies and the topic of Grandma's cooking came up, there was spontaneous tribute to her culinary mastery. This is fifty years after the last forkful of her cuisine crossed anyone's palette.
As a young boy, I stood in her kitchen and watched her cook. She'd give me little odd jobs. If I had been four or five years older I would have been cooking with her. But it didn't work that way, she died and her recipes mostly died with her. That didn't keep family members from pooling scraps of information they had gathered from her in an effort to save the recipes. The borscht recipe is one of two or three that Hinko family members salvaged. And I'm happy to share it with you.
There are a couple of ingredients that will take some doing; one is the veal neck bones, very difficult to find (go directly to a specialty butcher) and if/when you do find them, they cost a small fortune. While making inquiries at the butcher, ask his or her advice on something you may use as a substitute. The point is to make a delicious stock. Second thing is the dried mushrooms. Some of those imported from Poland have the right flavor. Go with your most trusted source. If you can't find a high quality Polish import, do some research to find a high quality accessible source of dried mushrooms. Others preparing this recipe have had good results with dried porcini.
Stock
One pound veal neck bones, cook in 3 quarts of water and skim after water boils.
Add:
One onion
1/2 Cup celery
1 carrot
Dried mushrooms
Cook for one hour or until bones fall apart.
OK, those are the 1971 instructions for the stock. I'll tell you what I did; I made more stock and then reduced it so I had a rich tasting stock. I strained, chilled and skimmed it. Then put it back in the pot and resumed the 1971 recipe:
Strain (already did that) and to the stock add 2 cans of beets, slivered or coarsely grate fresh beets.
Again, time out. I never once saw my Grandma use fresh beets. For good reason; you can't count on them. The flavor is all over the place and could ruin the soup. So I would definitely go with the canned, but if you are generally considered by your friends to be an exceptionally lucky person and you are determined to use fresh beets, go for it. If you roll snake eyes, it has the same effect that rancid pine nuts have on pesto--throw it down the drain.
Simmer about one hour.
There are two more steps:
--Sour Cream Thickening
--Dumplings
In the 1971 recipe, Sour Cream Thickening comes first, then it says further on down the page you should first do the dumplings. That's pretty funny. So I'm going to save you that dark comedic moment when you realize you've ruined the soup and run through the dumplings first.
Dumplings
Scrape meat off bones (if not enough meat, grind up boiling beef).
Grind all meat in Food Chopper
Another note: The dumpling texture was a point of contention for years after the 1971 recipe was distributed. We all remembered the original and there was something about the methodology spelled out in the 1971 recipe that wasn't quite hitting it. Here is what I did; I scraped the meat off the bones, I added some additional meat. I pulled the meat apart with a couple of forks and then chopped it with a very sharp knife. I think this came closer to Grandma's dumpling texture.
Resuming recipe.
Add:
3/4 Cup flour
1 egg
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon oil
Salt
Mix: form into dumplings with hands, add to borscht BEFORE sour cream mixture (now you tell me)
And then my mother hand-wrote on the flip-side of the recipe sheet, New Improved Borscht Dumplings
Pick meat from bones, grind with coarse blade of Food Chopper, pick mushrooms from stock strainings (I agree 100% with this, I'm certain my grandma used the mushrooms in the dumplings), Also grind one-half pound fresh mushrooms, mix with one pound fresh ground veal, 1 and a 1/2 cups flour, 2 eggs, 2 Tablespoons of oil, 2 Tablespoons of water, salt and pepper. Form into Dumplings with hands, cook in borscht for 10 minutes.
I know why my Mom is extending the yield; everyone always wants more of these dumplings in their bowl.
Sour Cream Thickening
1 Pint Sour Cream (the real 100% stuff, you do not want to cut calories with a variation, this is not a diet soup)
About one cup of water
1/4 Cup flour
Add flour to water, using enough water so it does not lump, beat in sour cream and add to rapidly boiling borscht. Stir until it thickens and remove from heat--do not continue to boil.
And then you eat it.
And then you eat pierogi, kielbasa, kapusta, cabbage rolls, potato pancakes, roast loin of pork, freshly baked bread, a minimum of six other dishes, followed by kolaczki and poppy seed roll and then Grandma fixes you a bag of leftovers to take home.
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