My Mother's Cooking - Beet Soup

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BEET SOUP

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My mother grew up on a poor potato farm in Wisconsin so most of her family’s meals were meatless. She learned how to cook using eggs, dairy products and whatever they could grow in their garden. One of these dishes is beet soup.

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It is best if you can make this soup with fresh beets, just like my mother did. However, you can use canned whole beets if necessary. Just make certain that you don't buy them already pickled since that will affect the flavor of the soup.

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Fresh beets are peeled, diced and cooked in a minimum amount of water with allspice. When they are just tender, cream is added and the flavor is adjusted with salt, sugar and vinegar to give slightly sweet-sour tasting soup. To make this soup substantial enough to serve as a main meal, home made egg noodles were added.

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You can serve this soup with or without the noodles depending upon whether you want a light lunch or a full meal. We always ate it with the noodles because we didn’t get anything else other than home made bread and butter. I describe how to make the egg noodles in a separate hub.

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Before anyone starts commenting that this is not the way their Polish or Russian grandmother made borscht, let me remind you that I never claimed that this was an old Polish recipe. This is simply the way my mother learned to make beet soup on a poor potato farm in Wisconsin nearly a century ago.

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Difficulty:

Easy (without the homemade noodles)

Preparation Time:

30Minutes

Cooking Time:

60 Minutes

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Ingredients:

1 Bunch of Fresh Beets (There should be a pound or more of the cleaned beets. Slice them ¼ inch thick and then cut the slices into ½ inch squares.

Water to cover plus about one inch over

20 Whole Allspice

I Teaspoon of Salt

1 Tablespoon of Sugar

1 quart of Half and Half Cream and milk

Vinegar to taste

Sugar to balance the vinegar

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Cooking Instructions:

1. Place the sliced beets in a soup kettle and add enough cold water to cover plus about one inch over.
2. Add the allspice, salt and sugar and simmer for about 15 minutes until the beets are fork tender.
3. Add the half and half and gently return the soup to a simmer but do not boil it.
4. Add ¼ Cup of vinegar and another tablespoon of sugar.
5. This is where the balancing act begins. Based on your own personal taste, add a little more sugar or a little salt until you get just the taste that you want. It should be slightly sweet sour but not overly so.
6. I like to finish it with some freshly ground black pepper but that is up to you.
7. Serve with home made egg noodles on the side and let everyone decide for themselves if they want to add them.

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To make your own noodles see My Mothers Cooking Homemade Egg Noodles. Lately, I have been adding Hungarian dumplings (galuska) instead of egg noodles and that also works well. I am adding a video on how to make galuska.

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For other Meatless soup recipes, see:

My Mothers Cooking Pumpkin Soup

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