Golden Beet Soup

It’s the first time that I can remember not making at least a few Ukrainian dishes for Ukrainian Christmas. Here's what we did instead. It’s a New Year’s Eve tradition in our family to stay in and cook a really lovely meal. This year, Krista and I were planning on lamb, latkes and golden beet soup from  the December 2007 issue of Bon Appetit. Unfortunately I was under the weather and she had a baby. (It was unfortunate I was under the weather - we are very fortunate to have the new addition to our family.)

And so that poor leg of lamb sat marinating in my fridge for a few days until we could no longer put off cooking it. The original plan was for latkes and soup to go with the lamb, so I stuck to the plan.

The soup recipe is a simple one, with few ingredients so I wasn’t really expecting the flavourful surprise that came with that first spoonful. It was almost disappointing not to have seconds of the soup, but there was a perfectly good leg of bbq'd lamb and latkes calling our name. They were also good, but honestly, we’re all looking forward to having soup again tomorrow.

I’ve learned one very important thing about making beet soup from my mom. You need something acidic to bring out the full flavour of the beets. We make borshch every summer and mom’s preference is to put ketchup or vinegar in the soup. I like to add prepared horseradish - which is, of course horseradish plus vinegar. This recipe uses lemon. The original version called for a couple of tablespoons - but the soup didn’t hit that sweet spot of deliciousness until I had added the juice of the whole lemon. 

*I used the whole bag of golden beets from Costco.

**Along with the spinach drizzle, I piped some sour cream on top.

Golden Beet Soup
1/4 cup olive oil
8-9 cups golden beets, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
4 cups chopped onions
4 tsp minced, peeled fresh ginger
Peel of 1 lemon, finely grated
6 cups chicken broth
juice of one lemon 
Heat olive oil in large pot. Add beets, onions, ginger and lemon peel. 

Cover and cook 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.  

Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. 

Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour 

Puree the soup using immersion blender (or food processor or bullet)  

Add lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.

Spinach Drizzle
Microwave 1 cup spinach for one minute until it wilts.
Mix with 3/4 cup of the soup and puree until smooth.

Ladle soup into bowls. Drizzle some of the green puree over the soup. Serve hot.

Mincing the ginger.

Mix beets, onions, ginger and peel in pot and cook in a bit of oil for 15-20 minutes. Then add the water and simmer for 1 hour. It's that easy!