Shchi spelled in Russian like щи is a Russian soup made with cabbage. Many people use raw cabbage, but also sauerkraut. I also use sauerkraut in my version. It takes quite a long time to make, but there is no difficulty in it and you can make a large quantity and have it for a long time either as a soup or the main meal.
Shchi
Portions: 8
Cooking time: 2.5 -3 hours
Difficulty: easy to medium (just because it’s long)
Ingredients
- up to 1 kg pork meat (better if it has bones like a pork knee)
- 1 pack of sauerkraut (can be 500-800 g)
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 1 onion
- 2 medium carrots
- 4 medium potatoes
- oil for sauteing
- 2 bay leaves
- whole peppercorns
- salt to taste
- sour cream for serving
Directions
- Boil the meat with the bay leaves and peppercorns for 1.5 hours or until it gets tender. Occasionally clean the forming foam.
- Take the meat out.
- Squeeze as much liquid of the sauerkraut as possible. This will make the sauteing and slight “burning” of it much faster.
- Add it to a pan with a little oil and saute until it gets golden.
- Add the tomato paste and continue to saute. I cooked the cabbage in total for like 20 min.
- Add it to the pork broth.
- In the same pan, add some more oil and cook the onion until translucent and then add the grated carrots for a few more min.
- Add them then immediately to the broth.
- Chop the meat into bite sizes and add it back to the broth too.
- Let them simmer for 20-30 min. Can be just 10 if you are in a rush.
- At the end, add the cubed potatoes and salt to taste and let them cook until tender. Two tips here: the cooking of the potatoes can take up to 30 min, because they are in acidic environment, so count with that. I also cut my potatoes when there is some time while waiting for the soup to boil and keep them in cold water so that they don’t get black.
- Serve with sour cream.
