Recipe for making delicious cabbage soup. Proper cabbage soup: cooking secrets

Shchi is one of the main hot dishes in our region. Every housewife wants her cabbage soup to be the most delicious. This dish is a kind of “measurement”: if cabbage soup turns out to be tasty, fragrant, rich and satisfying, then the hostess is an excellent cook.

Shchi is loved by everyone, from young to old. Therefore, by preparing this soup according to detailed recipes, you will delight your loved ones with a delicious hot dish and they will praise you as a cook.

The only thing is that there is no correct recipe for cooking cabbage soup, cooking options are different. I offer recipes for shchi soup made from fresh white cabbage with different types of meat and a pinch of "love".

Pork and fresh cabbage soup

Kitchen tools: plate; pan; 2 pots with a lid; grater; knife; Bowl; cutting board; 2 bowls; fine sieve or colander; skimmer; spoon.

Ingredients

Preparatory stage

• Finely chop 600-700 grams of white cabbage into a bowl (exactly half a head of cabbage left me).
• We clean one carrot, rub coarsely with a grater and add to the cabbage.
• Pour salt, 1 tablespoon without a slide, and mix thoroughly with your hands and knead the cabbage. We leave it overnight, it should infuse. So the cabbage will be salted, while remaining fresh, and it will become tastier in the soup.

Cooking

1. Pour 1 liter of cold, purified water into the pan. The rest, if necessary, we will add in the process. We put the meat and put it on a big fire. As it boils, we remove the noise. When the water boils, add a teaspoon of salt, a pinch of black pepper and 1 leaf of parsley. Cook the meat for about 50 minutes, it should be well behind the bone.
2. Peel and cut into cubes 4 pieces of large or 5 pieces of medium potatoes. Pour into bowl and set aside.
   
   
3. When the meat is ready, we take it out of the water onto a cutting board, and filter the broth through a fine sieve and put it on fire again. We separate the meat from the bone, throw it into the broth.
   
   
4. Add salted cabbage and cook after boiling for 20-25 minutes.
   
   
5. We put the pan on medium heat and pour 30-35 grams of sunflower oil.
6. Peel 2 large tomatoes. We make an incision crosswise, put it in a bowl and pour boiling water for literally 2 minutes. Then drain the water and remove the peel, now it lends itself easily. Cut the tomato into cubes and send to the pan.
   
   
7. Peel one onion, one bell pepper, one carrot. Cut everything into cubes and add to the pan to the tomato. Fry over medium heat for 15-20 minutes. When the frying is ready, pour it into the broth.
   
   
8. Add chopped potatoes, when the soup boils after that, make a small fire. Pour salt, the remaining teaspoon, a pinch of pepper and add a leaf of parsley. We try, if necessary, bring to the desired taste. Simmer the soup under the lid until the potatoes are ready.
   
   
9. When the potatoes have become soft, cut a small bunch of greens and pour into the soup. Cook for a couple more minutes, then turn off the heat and remove the pan from the stove. To make the soup taste better, leave it to brew for 20 minutes.
   
   

It's so easy and simple to cook cabbage soup!

video recipe

A visual guide to cooking delicious and rich soup.

Shchi in a slow cooker from fresh cabbage and chicken meat

Cooking time: 2 hours 20 minutes
Servings: 5.
Calories: 38 kcal.
Kitchen tools: multicooker; cutting board; grater; knife; wooden spatula; kitchen scissors; Bowl.

Ingredients

Cooking

1. Pour 30 grams of vegetable oil into the multicooker bowl and turn on for 20 minutes in the "Frying" mode.
   
   
2. Peel and cut into cubes 1 onion. Pour into a bowl.
   
   
3. Peel 1 carrot and grate coarsely with a grater, add to the onion.
   
   
4. We wash 300-400 grams of chicken backs, they are often sold under the name of a soup set. Divide into parts with scissors or a knife. We put it in a bowl and fry, stirring with onions and carrots, for 10 minutes.
5. Add tomato paste to the browned roast, about 2 teaspoons, if you like cabbage soup to be more sour, add 3 teaspoons, mix thoroughly and fry for another 3-4 minutes. Then turn off the "Frying" mode.
6. Wash and peel 3 potatoes, cut into cubes and put in a bowl.
   
   
7. Finely chop 500-600 grams of white cabbage and pour into a slow cooker.
   
   
8. Add about 800 ml of warm water, it should cover all the ingredients and the soup should be the thickness you need. We pour warm water in order not to damage the coating of the bowl due to temperature differences.
   
   
9. Pour salt, 2 teaspoons, a couple of pinches of pepper and throw a leaf of parsley. Close the lid and cook for 2 hours in the "Extinguishing" mode.
   
   
10. When the soup is ready, turn off the slow cooker and leave for about 15 minutes so that the soup is infused.
    
    

Shchi from fresh white cabbage with chicken is ready, the recipe is very simple and the soup turns out delicious, rich, but at the same time quite dietary.

video recipe

How easy it is to cook a rich and hearty cabbage soup from fresh white cabbage in a slow cooker, you will see in this video.

Shchi with beef and fresh white cabbage

Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
Servings: 6.
Calories: 45 kcal.
Kitchen tools: plate; saucepan with a lid; grater; the plate is flat; pan; scapula; skimmer; can-opener; knife; cutting board.

Ingredients

Cooking

1. We wash 400-500 grams of meat and put it in a saucepan. Fill with a liter of water, put on fire. As it boils, remove the foam with a slotted spoon, add salt, about a teaspoon, pepper, one pinch and throw a leaf of parsley. We cook for about 1 hour.
   
   
2. We put the pan on the burner, make medium heat. Pour 30-40 grams of sunflower oil.
3. Randomly chop the peeled onion, 2-3 pieces, I took a medium size, and pour into the pan.
   
   
4. Peel and grate 1 carrot on a coarse grater, add to the onion. Pour salt, ½ teaspoon, and a pinch of pepper and mix.
   
   
5. Add tomato paste to the frying ½ tablespoon without a slide. Stir and fry for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat.
   
   
6. We take the finished meat out of the water onto a plate, separate the pulp from the bone and chop coarsely, after which we again send the meat to the broth.
   
   
7. Finely chop 400-500 grams of cabbage and add to the pan.
   
   
8. Peel potatoes, 3-4 pieces of medium size, cut into cubes and add to the broth.
   
   
9. Open canned red beans and pour 400 grams into soup.
   
   
10. Add the frying and cook until the potatoes and cabbage are ready. They should become soft.
    
    
11. We wash half a bunch of parsley (or dill) and chop finely, pour into a saucepan. We try the broth, if necessary, salt, pepper.
    
    
12. When the soup is ready, turn off the stove and let it brew for 20 minutes.
    
    

video recipe

This plot is proof of how elementary to cook delicious cabbage soup from fresh white cabbage.

Innings

This dish is served hot, so to speak, from the heat, with sour cream - without it, it is even somehow inconvenient to serve. Interestingly, the longer the soup sits, the tastier it becomes! In portions, instead of sour cream, mayonnaise, horseradish with tomato, garlic or hot peppers can be added to the plate, for those who love spicy. It will also be delicious to serve garlic donuts with herbs to the soup.

• It is better to add the frying at the end to keep the rich color of the soup.
• If necessary, add only cold water to the pan, in which case the water has time to be enriched with the aroma and taste of the ingredients.
• Greens can be added to the pan, or chopped before serving and added to the plate. It will retain both color and aroma.
• You can prepare the broth in the evening, so the cooking process will become even easier.
• Young cabbage is not suitable for such a soup; it is better to take cabbage tightly stuffed with leaves.

Shchi is cooked in different ways, the most common is the recipe, it is considered a classic, but many cook the same way - sorrel soup - the dish turns out to be refreshing and sour, as is customary for such a soup. A very unusual idea would be to cook “nettle cabbage soup”, you may not believe it, but it is very tasty. Also, there is another recipe for soup - cabbage soup in a slow cooker -. Try, experiment, and you will definitely find the most delicious option for you.

Be sure to cook cabbage soup according to the recipe with fresh white cabbage, it is very tasty, fragrant and homely. I look forward to your feedback and comments, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

What is Shi? Shchi is a hot soup with cabbage as the main ingredient. Cabbage can be fresh or sauerkraut.

The dish is old with a very rich history. They have been preparing cabbage soup for a very long time and there are even several proverbs and sayings in this regard, “Schi and porridge are our food.”

There are a huge number of recipes for making cabbage soup. And in each individual family they serve their own branded cabbage soup, which you will not try anywhere else.

Ingredients.

• 500 gr. Meat.
• 200-250 gr. Fresh cabbage.
• 3-4 potatoes.
• 1 head of onion.
• 1 carrot.
• 1 Bulgarian pepper.
• 2 fresh tomatoes.
• 1 medium apple.
• Vegetable oil.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Greens preferably fresh.
• Sour cream.

Cooking process.

1. We cook the broth from the prepared meat. For a good broth, it is better to choose ribs or knuckle. In general, it is important that there are bones. Since the most delicious broth is obtained on the bone. And after the broth is ready. We remove the meat from the bone and in the finished dish you have only meat without bones.

2. After preparing the broth, it is advisable to strain it to remove small remains of bones that could appear even at the stage of chopping meat in the store.

The meat is cooked for quite a long time and during this time you can have time to prepare the rest of the ingredients.

3. Fry the onions and carrots in vegetable oil.

4. Cut the tomatoes arbitrarily and smaller.

5. Put chopped potatoes into the already prepared meat broth. Cook for 10-15 minutes until half done.

6. Then we put the cabbage cut into small strips, chopped bell pepper, pureed sweet and sour apple, p omedors.

7. Mix salt and cook at a moderate boil for a few more minutes.

8. After 5-7 minutes, add the frying, mix again, let the soup boil once and remove from the stove.

Now you can arrange the cabbage soup on plates, decorate with chopped herbs, and serve.

How to cook lean cabbage soup

Ingredients.

• 300 cabbage.
• 1 carrot.
• 1 head of onion.
• 3-4 shorts.
• 1 st. a spoonful of good tomato paste.
• 1 can of red beans.
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• Vegetable oil.
• A pinch of salt and pepper.
• Greens for serving.

Cooking process.

1. Since there is no meat, you can start cooking with potatoes. Peel it, cut it, throw it into a pot of water, salt it and put it on the stove to boil.

2. Fry onions with carrots. Add tomato paste, a tablespoon of water and simmer over medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

3. When the potatoes are ready, put the chopped cabbage into the pan and cook for 5 minutes.

4. After 5 minutes, add beans without brine, garlic, and chopped greens to the pan. You can also put a leaf of lavrushka. Stir, let it boil well, boil for about 1 minute and remove the pan from the heat.

Lenten cabbage soup is ready to enjoy your meal.

Sauerkraut soup

Ingredients.

• 250 sauerkraut.
• 1 head of onion.
• 1 carrot.
• 3-5 potatoes.
• 1 bay leaf.
• 200 gr chicken meat.
• Vegetable oil.
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Cooking process.

1. Rinse the meat, cut it, put it in a saucepan with water.

2. Cut the potatoes into cubes and send them to cook with the meat when it is almost ready. Let's not forget the salt.

3. Fry onions with carrots in vegetable oil.

4. When both potatoes and meat are cooked in a pan, you can put cabbage, frying, parsley. Stir taste for salt.

5. Cook at a moderate boil for 5-7 minutes and remove from the stove.

Lenten cabbage soup with mushrooms

Ingredients.

• Fresh mushrooms 200-250 gr.
• Fresh cabbage -300 grams.
• 1 head of onion.
• 1 carrot.
• 2-4 potatoes.
• 1 sheet of lavrushka.
• Bulgarian pepper.
• Salt and pepper to taste.
• Vegetable oil.
• Greenery.

Cooking process.

1. Cut potatoes and send to cook.

2. Rinse the mushrooms, cut them into cubes and throw them into the potatoes.

3. Fry onions with carrots in vegetable oil.

4. The potatoes are cooked, you can add chopped cabbage and bell peppers.

5. After 3-5 minutes of a steady boil, add the fried vegetables, salt and pepper to taste.

6. Boil cabbage soup for a few more minutes and turn off the heat under the pan.

7. Serve a delicious dish with sour cream and chopped fresh herbs. Bon appetit.

How to cook cabbage soup in pots

Ingredients.

• 3-5 potatoes.
• 250-300 cabbage.
• 1 head of onion.
• 1 carrot.
• 300 gr of pork meat.
• Spices.
• Greenery.

Cooking process.

1. Cut the meat into slices, fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. Pour in water and simmer for 20 minutes over low heat.

2. Cut potatoes and carrots into circles. Bow half rings.

3. Onions with carrots can be fried a little in a pan.

4. We begin to lay out the products in pots after cooking the meat.

5. Put a layer of potatoes on the bottom, then meat, fried vegetables. We finish the layout with chopped cabbage. Fill with water, cover with a lid and put the pots in the oven for 2 hours at a temperature of about 100-120 degrees.

Delicious cabbage soup cooked in a slow cooker

Bon appetit.

Homemade cabbage soup from fresh cabbage

Fresh cabbage soup!

Probably every Russian person knows the taste and smell of homemade cabbage soup. There are many recipes for making cabbage soup; they are boiled in meat, vegetable and even mushroom broth. And sometimes with fish. Cabbage in cabbage soup is also different: fresh white cabbage, sauerkraut (sour), cauliflower. There are delicious cabbage soup and not with cabbage, but with sorrel or nettle. Each housewife cooks cabbage soup a little in her own way, I will tell you how this delicious soup is cooked at our place.

The recipe for my cabbage soup with fresh cabbage is very simple. My cabbage soup with meat is seasoned with frying, and served with sour cream. Or mayonnaise. Who loves.

What you need for simple cabbage soup with meat

for 1 saucepan

Meat with a bone - a piece;

Onion and carrot in the broth;

• Potatoes - 4-5 pieces;
• Cabbage - a small fork or half a medium;
• Greens, garlic, salt, pepper - to taste;

For frying

• Onion - 1-2 onions;
• Carrot - 1 piece;
• Tomato - 1 piece and / or ketchup to taste;
• Vegetable oil for frying.

For refueling

Sour cream or mayonnaise.

How to cook cabbage soup

Prepare meat broth

Everything is like everyone else. Put the meat with the bone in cold water, add root vegetables - onions and carrots. Boil the broth. Then pull out the carrot and onion and discard.

The meat can be separated from the bones and only the pulp is left. It can be put directly into a plate with ready-made soup or a few minutes before the end of cooking, return it to a saucepan with cabbage soup.

Cook cabbage soup in meat broth

Now add chopped potatoes and cabbage to the boiling broth. We cook. AND we make frying: fry chopped onion, carrot and tomato in oil. You can also add ketchup to it. But at the end (when everything is fried).

When the cabbage is cooked, add the frying to the cabbage soup. Boils. Cook for 7 minutes.

Add chopped greens and, if you like, garlic (chopped). Boils 1 minute. Turn off. We close. It is necessary to insist cabbage soup for at least one hour. Better 2-3. Sour cream to taste in a plate with cabbage soup!

This is such a delicious homemade soup!

Other Delicious Shchi Recipes

Bon appetit and delicious cabbage soup!

They say that cabbage soup was cooked in Rus' long before its baptism, and this dish was eaten almost every day. It is no coincidence that many proverbs and sayings glorify cabbage soup in every way: “Where there are good cabbage soup, do not look for other food”, “Here you ate - like putting on a fur coat”, “Schami the world is standing”. Russian people are so accustomed to cabbage soup that they even traveled in winter with cabbage soup frozen in a tub, which was enough to warm up to fill up the whole family. It is said that the Russian soldiers who fought against Napoleon's army, while on French territory, missed cabbage soup so much that they fermented grape leaves, which replaced sauerkraut in their soup. It smelled of cabbage soup not only in peasant huts, but also in royal chambers, however, wealthy people ate thick meat soup, in which a spoon stood, and the poor often slurped thin soup with cabbage, quinoa and onions. And all the same, it was very tasty, so the people said: "Your father will get bored, but cabbage soup will not bother you."

How cabbage soup was prepared in Rus'

There are many recipes with cabbage, sorrel, nettles, turnips, mushrooms, in meat or fish broth, with different roots, spices and sour dressings, such as pickle or apples. In the old days, cabbage soup was cooked even from beets, calling this dish “beet soup”, which looked more like borscht. The classic recipe for ancient cabbage soup necessarily included cabbage, fresh or sauerkraut, and if it was not at hand, they took green leafy vegetables or turnips. From the roots, the housewives used carrots and parsley, seasoning the soup with onions, garlic, celery, dill, bay leaves and pepper. An obligatory component of cabbage soup was acid - after all, this soup was valued due to its spicy sour taste. In addition to sauerkraut, salted mushrooms, antonovka, lingonberries, cranberries, pickled cucumbers, sour cream and everything that gave the cabbage soup a specific sour taste were used. In the southern regions of Russia, cabbage soup has always been cooked with tomatoes and bell peppers, and in modern recipes you can also find potatoes, which make cabbage soup thicker and tastier.

In Rus', products were put into cabbage soup in its raw form, without being fried or sautéed, although rye flour was added to soup in some areas for a thicker broth. Shchi was simmered in a Russian oven in a clay pot, so they turned out to be very appetizing and fragrant. Mostly beef was used for the broth, although cabbage soup with pork or poultry was popular in the western region. Don shchi was traditionally cooked with sturgeon, Pskov shchi with smelt, Polish and Ukrainian shchi was cooked with bacon, the Ural version of shchi included millet or oatmeal, in Georgia white wine and suluguni cheese were added to shchi, and the Finns could not imagine this dish without lamb and smoked sausage. In general, all national cuisines have their own peculiarities of cooking cabbage soup, and each version of the dish is tasty in its own way, besides, “hungry Fedot wants any cabbage soup.”

Choose a recipe for delicious cabbage soup

Before you learn how to cook the right ones, you should decide on the recipe, since there are several varieties of this dish.

Full cabbage soup, also called “rich”, is boiled in a strong meat broth, with the addition of a large number of ingredients, including mushrooms, potatoes and many spices. Meat and meat products of different varieties are added to prefabricated cabbage soup - boiled beef, poultry, pork, ham, sausage, sausages and sausages, which are cut into small pieces. Fish soup is cooked from noble varieties of fish, from small river fish or canned fish, while a combination of fresh and salted fish is acceptable. Lean cabbage soup is prepared without meat - with vegetables, mushrooms and herbs, green cabbage soup is a summer version of soup with sorrel or spinach. In the preparation of gray northern cabbage soup, the lower cabbage leaves of a grayish color are used, seedling cabbage soup is boiled from cabbage seedlings, and daily cabbage soup after cooking is first kept warm for four hours, and then left in the cold. By the way, now by sour cabbage soup we mean sauerkraut soup, and in Rus' it was a kind of kvass that saved hangovers.

How to cook delicious cabbage soup: a few secrets

Once upon a time, housewives did not think about how to properly cook cabbage soup - they simply mixed all the products in a clay pot, put it in the oven, and the soup languished all day, and in the evening fragrant and tasty cabbage soup was served on the table. We do not have so much time, but modern technologies come to the rescue - a slow cooker and an air grill. But even in an ordinary saucepan, you can cook delicious cabbage soup, which will be eaten in the evening by a large family. Remember a few secrets and subtleties, and cabbage soup will become your signature dish!

Secret 1. If you decide to cook cabbage soup in meat broth, cook the meat in a whole piece for at least two hours to make the broth more rich and saturated - this is what soup is needed for. Be sure to add fragrant herbs and roots to the meat for piquancy.

Secret 2. Do not cook cabbage soup from too young cabbage, which is more suitable for salads. The best choice for cabbage soup is autumn cabbage with dense, strong and white heads. Many housewives bring cabbage to preliminary readiness separately - young cabbage is stewed in a saucepan on the stove for 15 minutes, and more mature cabbage is cooked in earthenware in the oven for two to three hours. Why is this needed? The fact is that when cabbage languishes, it is saturated with new flavors and aromas that enrich the taste of the dish.

Secret 3. If you have time, put the pot of broth at the last stage of cooking in the oven, covered with foil, and simmer for about an hour. Add crumbly varieties of potatoes cut into cubes and continue to simmer in the oven. Can you imagine what will be in the pan in an hour and a half? A tender thick stew with soft meat, and not a crumb will remain from the potatoes. And you should mix this fragrant liquid with cabbage, add any ingredients that you like - tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, mushrooms and herbs, then simmer cabbage soup for at least another half hour. If you cook cabbage soup on the stove, the cooking time is, of course, reduced.

Secret 4. You can also add toasted flour to the soup. After it becomes golden, you should dilute it with broth, boil it slightly and rub it through a sieve. Shchi is also cooked with cereals, only it should be introduced before cabbage and potatoes, taking into account the individual cooking time.

Cooking cabbage soup quickly

It's good to have time to spare all day, but sometimes you need to cook a quick meal for the family, in which case recipes for very busy housewives save. In this case, it is better to cook the broth in the evening, besides, the meat will become soft and tender overnight, so it will not be difficult for you to cut it into cubes and return it to the pan again. Add fresh cabbage chopped into strips into the broth, after boiling, add sliced ​​\u200b\u200bpotatoes and, while cabbage soup is boiled, fry carrots, onions, garlic and parsley root in oil in a pan. Dip the peeled tomatoes and diced sweet peppers into the soup, and after the vegetables have boiled a little, add the carrot dressing to them. Do not forget about bay leaves, black pepper and herbs, which are best added to ready-made cabbage soup along with sour cream. For 400 g of meat, take a small head of cabbage, 2 potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 carrot and 1 onion, and herbs and roots can be added to taste. Your family will be happy!

Sauerkraut soup

This dish is especially useful during winter beriberi, as sauerkraut contains vitamin C, which is necessary to fight colds and viral infections. In addition, sour cabbage soup does not allow other vegetables to boil too much, so they crunch nicely, which makes the dish even tastier and healthier.

From a kilogram of beef, cook a rich broth - with bay leaves and allspice. While the broth is cooking, fry 2 onions in a pan with sunflower oil and, when the onion becomes transparent, add 2 grated carrots to it. Once the carrots are soft, remove the pan from the heat and start the broth. You need to take out the meat, cut it into pieces, put it back into the pan and pour 2 diced potatoes and chopped parsley root into it. After 10 minutes, add 600 g of sauerkraut to the cabbage soup, which can be lightly squeezed first to remove excess acid. However, if you like cabbage soup with sourness, then you don’t need to do anything with cabbage - just boil it in broth for 15 minutes, then add roast and cook for another 7 minutes with your favorite spices and seasonings. Serve sour cabbage soup with cream or sour cream, sprinkled with fragrant herbs. Bon appetit!

On the site "Eat at Home!" You will find many step-by-step cabbage soup recipes for every taste. Cook with love for your family and enjoy the food!

“Soups with cabbage are also known in Europe, but they have nothing to do with our cabbage soup. Shchi is a whole philosophy. There is here is such a thing - schany spirit. As soon as we lift the lid over the saucepan with cabbage soup, we immediately feel this characteristic aroma, which cannot be confused with anything.

Let's break it down into components.

The basis of the cabbage soup is rich meat broth. It can be made from beef, pork, lamb, with the addition of smoked meats or corned beef, but it must always be very rich, it must be cooked for at least 2–2.5 hours, because the meat must be well thawed and become soft.

The second main ingredient is cabbage, fresh or sauerkraut. (Shchi can also be cooked from pickled turnips, it has a peculiar sour aroma and taste.) In addition to cabbage, all kinds of roots were used - onion, parsley root, to a lesser extent celery and parsnip.

The basis of national cuisine is peasant. And the main task of peasant food is to saturate people well, so that later they have a lot of strength for hard physical work. Therefore, flour was added to cabbage soup - fried or diluted in water, earlier such a seasoning was called "bolt". She made cabbage soup thicker and more homogeneous, for which the soup had to be boiled with flour.

Finally, just before eating, sour cream was added to the soup, less often cream, it was already rich cabbage soup.

The preparation of Russian cabbage soup is, one might say, in the blood. There is one poem, though it is not about cabbage soup, but about tea. I don’t know the author, perhaps it’s generally popular, because I heard more than a hundred different options in different areas. It is said in it that the master bought tea for his serf:

Once the master bought me tea,

Told him to boil it.

And I never know

How to brew tea.

I took the whole half a pound of tea,

Put him in a pot

For seasoning onions, peppers,

And a parsley root.

He put it on fire

Boiled three times.

And a little decoration

Pour oil on top.

All this is the technology of cooking cabbage soup. “I boiled it three times” - what is it about? About the need to simmer for a long time. This is a historical technical moment. If the oven was hot, then the cabbage soup quickly boiled, the cast iron was taken out, put on a hearth, then, when the soup began to cool, it was put back into the oven: such a manual temperature control. Or such a moment was guessed, such a degree of heat in the oven, when cabbage soup first boiled, and then began to languish.

If we cook cabbage soup from sauerkraut, then the cabbage must first be simmered or stewed separately. By itself, it is quite tough, and in cabbage soup there can be no such thing as al dente vegetables. Now it is customary for vegetables to crunch in some soups - nothing should crunch in cabbage soup, everything in them should merge together. All ingredients must reach the same degree of maturity, let's call it that. Of course, everything can be seen separately in cabbage soup, cabbage and potatoes, for example, do not merge into one porridge - but the taste should be uniform and balanced. This is the difference between cabbage soup and simple cabbage soup.

Sauerkraut soup is a winter dish, they were not boiled in summer, because they started sauerkraut from the first frosts. The cauldron with cabbage soup was taken out into the cold, they froze, and when it was necessary to cook dinner for the family, the owner or hostess would go with an ax and chop the cabbage soup. They took a piece, put it in a small cast iron pot, put it in the oven, heated it up. And it is believed that frozen cabbage soup from sauerkraut is much tastier than freshly cooked. We use a similar recipe in the restaurant - we only freeze not ready-made cabbage soup, but pre-stewed sauerkraut. Thawed cabbage is more tender and softer than usual, and cabbage soup from it is much tastier.

When we stew cabbage, we add smoked meats: for example, smoked pork ribs or knuckle, they give a rich flavor. Then I can cook the soup in plain beef broth, because the cabbage already has a smoked aroma and taste. Fried onions and carrots can be added when stewing cabbage - or you can already cook cabbage soup. We also add allspice and black pepper to the cabbage, or you can also add cloves, bay leaves.

Sauerkraut is stewed for an hour. We put fresh cabbage in the finished broth immediately, without pre-treatment. If you put potatoes in cabbage soup, then first of all: sauerkraut contains acid, if we put everything together, then the acidic environment will prevent the potatoes from cooking - the cabbage will boil, and the potatoes will remain raw. So first potatoes, boil them until half cooked, and only then roasted vegetables and sauerkraut. Then everything should languish for at least 20-30 minutes, but no more than an hour. Some potatoes are crushed in the soup so that it gives a suspension.

I like to add tomatoes to cabbage soup from fresh cabbage: they give the broth a little of their tomato acid, while not giving it an orange color, like tomato paste.

There are also seasonal cabbage soup made from sorrel or nettle. They are called shchi, I think, because sorrel and nettle replaced cabbage at a time when it was not. In regions where people were engaged in fishing, they cooked cabbage soup in fish broth. Another type of cabbage soup typical of Russian cuisine is mushroom soup, which is cooked from salted, dried, and fresh mushrooms.

Any dish in terms of salt at the time of serving should be perfect. You can’t say: “Let’s salt the soup, because then we’ll put sour cream.” Or: "Let's not salt it, because then we will season it." It is necessary to salt cabbage soup in stages. First we need to salt the broth when we cook the meat. Meat has salt-soluble proteins that do not dissolve in water, but dissolve in saline, and in order for the broth to be saturated, salt must be added. Then the soup is salted when vegetables are laid. The third time - just before the removal from the fire.

I saw how housewives cook cabbage soup in the villages. Many people immediately put raw meat, potatoes into the pot, chop cabbage, onions, carrots, seasonings, then fill it with water, put it in the oven and forget it for 4-5 hours. During this time, the meat is boiled, the foam boils and boils off, and when the cast iron is taken out, the broth of the cabbage soup is transparent. Everything has time to cook, but not boil into a puree-like mass - it's amazing how the Russian stove cooks everything itself without any blots.

Elena Chekalova, gastronomic writer:

Shchi is almost the main Russian food and one of the most important stews for any man. Firstly, properly cooked meat soup gives a charge of some crazy thermal energy. Secondly, this is the best hangover dish.

It is imperative to cook cabbage soup with sauerkraut. If it is too acidic, you can rinse it or add thirty percent fresh.

The secret of real cabbage soup is to cook the meat for a long time over low heat and put the onion and roots twice: first into the broth, and then into the almost ready stew. And in no case do not put chopped potatoes: in an acidic environment, its pieces become stiff and spoil the whole taste. It is better to grind the boiled potatoes in mashed potatoes and thicken the broth with them.

If you add just a little bit of dry white, cabbage soup is very fragrant. Just need to soak them in advance, then bring to a boil in the same water, boil for ten minutes and strain. The broth must be preserved, and the mushrooms - finely chopped.

I also advise you to fill the cabbage soup not with sour cream, but with a mixture of sour cream with cream or even pure heavy cream - cabbage soup does not need excess acid. I also add finely chopped dill and a little garlic to this mixture.

I cook cabbage soup like this. First, I make a strong broth from beef brisket (2 kilograms are needed), onions, carrots and small pieces of celery root and parsley. Then I spread the cabbage (800 g) in a cast-iron pan with two tablespoons of butter, pour a couple of glasses of strained broth and put it in the oven for an hour and a half, heated to 90 degrees. Then I move the pan to the stove, add the remaining broth, bay leaf and peppercorns, bring to a boil and cook over low heat until the cabbage softens. I then discard the bay leaf. Then I chop an onion, a little garlic and a little more celery root and fry over low heat for about ten minutes. I also add mushrooms. Then I pour in a little broth from the pan and stew it all a little. And about fifteen minutes before removing the cabbage soup from the heat, I put chopped meat, vegetables from the pan, mushroom broth into them, thicken with mashed potatoes and add chopped parsley.

And, of course, you don’t need to eat these cabbage soup right away: they need to brew for several hours.

Dmitry Kanevsky, chef of the Tsarskaya Okhota restaurant:

“There are cabbage soup on fresh cabbage, there are green cabbage soup, with sorrel, there is cabbage soup on sauerkraut, there are daily cabbage soup from sauerkraut - not the easiest way to cook, but it allows you to make this sauerkraut tender.

There are two options for preparing daily cabbage soup. The first is when they are made from frozen sauerkraut. This method is typical for northern cuisine, for places where people had good cellars. Cabbage froze in winter, and it was necessary to open the barrel and chop off a piece. Freezing, as a rule, did not affect the taste of cabbage, but it gave it a very soft, velvety texture. There is another way - first cook the cabbage soup, and only then freeze them for a day, so that the cabbage becomes silky, and the taste becomes uniform and rich.

Sauerkraut soup is fundamentally different from fresh cabbage soup. Sauerkraut soup has high acidity. Vegetables in an acidic environment take longer to cook, so these soups need to be cooked longer. And meat, on the contrary, softens faster from acid, so it’s not at all necessary to put first-class meat in such cabbage soup.

This is how we cook sauerkraut soup at Tsarskaya Okhota. We take a large pressure cooker, put in it a kilogram of veal tail, cut into joints. (You can just use a piece of beef neck or shoulder blade, and in general any meat is suitable, both pork and lamb.) Next we put a kilogram of sauerkraut, finely chopped and washed in cold water (in order to remove excess acid and salt, if any) . Add a couple of peeled potatoes - whole or cut in half. There, too, 100–150 grams of sautéed onions, a spoonful of tomato puree or a couple of chopped tomatoes without skins, 2 bay leaves, a teaspoon of cumin, a tablespoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar - and pour 4 liters of cold water. We close the pressure cooker tightly, put it on the stove - and everything is cooked together for an hour and a half. During this time, the tail will boil and the meat will be so soft that it can be removed from the bones and thrown away. And the potatoes will disperse, you won’t even see it.”

Artem Losev, chef of Mushrooms restaurant:

“I would divide cabbage soup into five main types. From fresh cabbage, from sauerkraut, from fresh sorrel, from sorrel harvested for the winter, as well as gray cabbage soup - from the top leaves of cabbage.

To make cabbage soup tasty, you need the broth to be rich and fragrant. I add parsley root, stalk and celery root, bay leaf, allspice, head of garlic to it, and in the already prepared onion, previously sauteed in vegetable oil. Some put onions with carrots, but for my taste, it is not necessary to add carrots to cabbage soup. Then cabbage or sorrel is added.

If I cook cabbage soup from young cabbage, I put it in at the very end, I try not to cook it almost - I don’t like it when boiled porridge is on a plate. I throw cabbage, bring it to a boil and that's it, I take it off. When the cabbage soup is infused, the cabbage will give juice, but remain crispy, undigested.

But to be honest, I prefer sauerkraut soup. Sauerkraut, unlike fresh cabbage, needs to be cooked a little - and cabbage brine must be added to the soup. And by all means, you need to let the soup brew - because not all ingredients immediately give all their taste, juice, aroma.

Sour cream for cabbage soup is best served separately. Although there are such white cabbage soup, when sour cream is added at the very end of cooking, cabbage soup is brought to a boil and removed. They really come out white."