Name: Cabbage Soup (Щи)
Yield: 4 to 6 Servings
Cuisine: Russia
Ingredients: Salt, freshly ground black pepper to taste; 2 tablespoons butter; 5 cups rich beef stock; 1 small carrot, scraped and thinly sliced; 1 small head of white cabbage (¾ pound), coarsely shredded; ½ cup sauerkraut; Fresh dill (optional); 1 tomato, peeled and cut into chunks; Sour cream; 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped; 1 small leek, white part only, thinly sliced

Preparation info

4 to 6
Servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

A Taste of Russia

By Darra Goldstein

Published 1983

About

In Gogol’s Dead Souls the scoundrel Chichikov is invited to dine with the landowner Manilov. As they sit down to the table, Manilov says, “Excuse us for not serving a dinner like they would in the elegant salons of the capital. Here we simply have shchi, in the Russian tradition—but it’s straight from the heart. Please help yourself.”

Shchi is the most Russian of soups, and coupled with kasha, it represents basic Russian fare, straightforward in both preparation and spirit. R