I had beets and chicken stock and the brilliant idea to combine them together to make soup. And yet I have an irrational distrust of borscht (which I know kinda just means soup, but you know what I mean).
So I looked through my cookbooks (and gave a cursory glance at the internet) for beet soup recipes that were not called borscht. And didn’t find any of them appealing.
Instead, I made shit up on my own.
Here’s what I have done so far:
- sliced thinly and sauteed leeks (white and green part) until thoroughly cooked. Season with salt as it sweats.
- Add 5 cloves of garlic, minced, and 1/2″ of ginger, minced – saute for 3-5 more minutes
- Add some fennel, 4 beets, and 1 cup of stock and let simmer for 30 minutes
- Add a can of coconut milk (and if I’d thought to add some lemongrass at the beginning with the leeks, that would have been awesome) and the rest of the stock. Season with salt and pepper and 1 clove.
- Let cook down
- Refrigerate overnight and skim some of the fattiest layer
And then I tasted it, and it needs something else. I was kind of thinking that it needed a can of black beans (and my usual go-to friend for food agreed, but I’m having second thoughts. My mother argues that black beans would be the same kind of flavor family as the beets and leeks and that there needs to be contrast. One of the other beet soup recipes I have calls for an apricot puree swirled through the soup, and that might be right. We did decide that thai basil was not the right accoutrement.