Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht)
There is more than one recipe for borscht on this website, if you are looking for some other recipe, try here: all borscht recipes.
Sorrel and pork soup, or as it is called also green borscht (obviously because of the color), is one of these dishes you can rarely eat in US, unless you are ukrainian, poland, russian family or visiting one of those :).
I was a bit unlucky in buying sorrel this time. Sorrel is very seasonal (meaning available only on spring), and for some reason WholeFoods (the only place where I was able to find it) carries it in herbs section – read this as 2-3 branches per a pack.
I ended up getting last 3 packs they had in their stock, but even that was less then needed for this soup (I am actually still wondering, who buys sorrel in WholeFoods in such packs and for what?).
Anyway, if you are more lucky than me and either know where to buy enough of sorrel or growing it by yourself, you can safely use more, and by more I mean much more: 3-4 cups is good. If you want to make it’s sour taste a bit less intense – fry it before adding to the cooking pot or/and use more water when cooking broth.
Ingredients:
- 1 lb pork chops (or other part, bone-in)
- 1-2 cups of sorrel (if you can find it)
- 1 carrot
- 1 parsley root or parsnip
- 1 onion
- 2 potatoes
- 1/2 cup of rice
- Fresh dill
- 3-4 bay leaves
- 4-6 whole black pepper corns
- 2 table spoons of vegetable oil
- Salt to taste
For each serving:
- A table spoon of sour cream
- 1/2 of hard boiled egg
How to prepare, step-by-step:
-
Prepare ingredients: eggs can be hard boiled in advance, or right before each serving, you will need ½ of egg for each bowl of soup, as I mentioned before already, if you have more sorrel – use it, big bunch or even two will do this soup only good:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 1 -
So, start from cooking pork broth: for that rinse pork meat, put it to the big cooking pot and add about 2.5-3 quarts of water. Put cooking pot on moderate low heat and cook until meat is soft. Remember to reduce heat to not let broth boil to hard, also remove any foam which will appear from time to time on the top with a skimmer:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 2 -
When meat is ready, take it from the pot, remove bones (you will not need them anymore) and slice meat into portion pieces:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 3 -
And put meat back to the cooking pot:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 4 -
Add bay leaves and black pepper corns:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 5 -
Skin and slice carrots and parsley root, add them to the pot:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 6 -
While roots are cooking, peel and chop onion, warm up a skillet with 1-2 table spoons of vegetable oil (I take sunflower usually) and fry onions until soft and lightly brown in color, then turn heat under skillet off:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 7 -
While onions are being fried, peel and dice potatoes, add them to the lightly simmering cooking pot with soup:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 8 -
Rinse rice with cold water (you may need to do it several times, until water comes clean), and add rice to the pot:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 9 -
Then add fried onions and let soup cook up until potatoes are almost ready (soft then you pierce them with a knife):
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 10 -
Then add chopped fresh dill:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 11 -
And chopped sorrel (if you want to make sorrel taste less sour, you can fry it with a bit of vegetable oil right before adding to the soup; I had so less sorrel that it wasn’t necessary for me):
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 12 -
Season with salt to taste (I used about 1 table spoon of salt):
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 13 -
And let soup simmer for 2-3 mins more, then turn the heat off – soup is ready:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 14 -
Chop a half of hard boiled egg in to each soup bowl right before serving:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 15 -
Then pour soup in and add a table spoon of original sour cream and serve:
Sorrel and Pork Soup (Green Borscht) Recipe: Step 16
View Comments
Dear Mrs. Volhina,
Thank you for your very clear directions.
I looked for this on the internet because today a young co-worker came into the lunch room with a jar of homemade soup and said "Look, my Mom made me green borscht." The young woman is from Russia. She said that it was made from spinach, although honestly it didn't look like spinach to me.
Just now when I saw your recipe, I wondered whether it is what my Israeli friend called "schav?" (Probably her mother made it with chicken broth.)
Since it is now June, would it be too late to find fresh sorrel in New York?
Thanks again,
Marie
I saw some mentioning of spinach for this soup earlier, but I honestly can't imagine it made with spinach. Sorrel has distinctive sour taste which spinach doesn't.
Here in Mid West, I always have troubles finding sorrel, even in the short time they do sell it. It might be a bit too late in season now, but you can try to check Whole Foods raw herbs section. This is the only place I saw it so far.
Marie, schav is the same as sorrel soup/green borscht.
Julia Volhina,
I work for a non-profit called the Institute for Applied Ecology in Corvallis, Oregon (Institute for Applied Ecology) that does ecological restoration. I'm helping them create an invasive species cookbook and I would love to use your Sheep Sorrel Soup recipe. If you would like to share your recipe with us (and a picture if possible), please email me at *********@gmail.com. You will, of course, be credited if you wish to contribute.
Thanks for your consideration!
-Corinne
Corinne, I've sent you a message over email. Thanks for contacting me.
Love these recipes, the names bring back good memories. My parents grew up in Ukraine, they were part of the German Mennonite villages 100km or so southwest of Dnepopetrovsk. We grew up with wareniki, perogi, borscht, sinyi pomedori, shisnitch, kapustnach, golubtsi, sauerkraut, frikadelen, fruit peroshki of every kind, pickled EVERYthing (with dried hot peppers), kukuruz.. (forgive my spelling, I"m doing this phonetically, we never learned Ukrainian/Russian, but so many food words were Ukrainian/Russian). Brings back good memories. Just made a pot of green borscht (jreuna borscht in low german) and - the ultimate compliment - the kids said "smells like Oma's kitchen"...
:)
Oh, your spelling is quite good actually :)
Thank you for your comment!
I was in Ukraine last year and they called Sorrell soup Green Borscht.
Can sorrel be substituted with spinach?
Presuming that as usual I had no idea where to get sorrel, I would seriously consider substituting beet greens or Swiss chard, which are basically the same thing. No, it wouldn't be the same, but I'm sure it would be very good.
Important note: spinach, beet greens/Swiss chard, and especially sorrel are high in oxalis acid, which is poisonous in sufficient quantities, and so should always be eaten only in moderation.
I've seen recipes that substitute spinach for sorrel, but when you use spinach you then add a bit of lemon juice to approximate the taste of sorrel. I've been fortunate to find sorrel the last couple of years at farmer's markets, but it is hard to find. So while spinach and lemon juice won't be exactly like sorrel, it is close enough and acceptable given the difficulty of finding sorrel in the US.
No, sorrel has such a distinctive taste, it can't be really substituted with spinach... But you may be able to find some pickled or salted sorrel in speciality stores, I think... I don't know it tastes thought, never cooked with canned sorrel.
No, it is not Green Borscht. Just a soup.
Vicky, you got no idea, go away.
That's your opinion. I've heard it called green borscht many times. I've also heard it called other names, so as with many recipes, there are probably different names for it depending on what part of the world you are from.
Want to share any details as to "why"?