Ukrainian beet and bean stew (p269)

Staying on the hearty winter stew theme, and to celebrate a family wedding with a Slavic theme, it was time for a Ukrainian stew.

Majoring heavily on cabbage, beetroot and potatoes, it couldn't really be much easier to prepare.  But the book says that all the preparation takes 15 minutes, which is not very likely.  It takes me about 15 minutes to find the vegetables and put them out, let alone to chop six beetroot, six potatoes; put out the herbs, tidy up etc.  However, I can do killer sudoku faster than the recommended time normally, so...

So the recipe is basically to fry some onions and celery, then cook some cabbage and carrots, then add the rest of the stuff.  A tin of kidney beans goes in right before serving, and then if you are feeling unhealthy and unvegan then some sour cream on the top helps.

A few changes from the recipe to recommend:
- a few cloves of garlic at the beginning - I find it difficult to cook anything without garlic
- we had a glass worth of red wine kicking around so that went in as well as the vinegar and water
- and the time that I made it last, I put in half a cup of bulghur wheat which helped the texture.  This time I couldn't find any - with the result that it was a little more liquid than I'd like.

The stew worked well with a couple of slices of bread, and was very tasty and flavoursome; and again quite filling.  But lots of left overs - and I think a new interpretation of borscht will be on its way this week.  (Cabbage soup with kidney beans?!)

So almost there - with a bit of improvement on the texture to aim for.  A well-earned 2 stars, with the delicious flavour still in my mouth.  **