Hong Kong style Russian Borscht soup. It’s pretty different from traditional Russian borschts in taste and ingredients. But why is the Hong Kong soup called “Russian” Borscht? It's a story of political turmoil and culinary adaptation.

During the transformation of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union, many Russians fled to China in the 1920s. They brought along their cuisine, including their borscht, a nutrient-dense beet soup usually loaded with winter vegetables.

Western cuisine was popular in Shanghai at the time, so local chefs adapted some of this cuisine into their restaurants. However, due to local weather conditions, beets were hard to grow, so the chefs adapted the soup to use tomatoes instead. This version was not quite as bright red and was modified to suit Chinese tastes.

Now, in turn, due to political upheaval and civil war in China, many Shanghai chefs then made their way to Hong Kong, a British Colony at the time. Here, the soup became popular in local cafes. Eventually, many HK citizens moved to other destinations, like Canada and the United States prior to 1997, when HK was relinquished by the British back to China.

So many of us Asians growing up in North America experienced this soup in these tiny HK-styled cafes. In fact, my husband identifies with this soup as something that he often had with a pineapple bun after a long day of grocery shopping with his mother in Chinatown.

For more detail on the history of Hong Kong-style Russian Borscht - please see Goldthread's excellent youtube video: [ Ссылка ]

Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoon tomato paste
- 4 cups of stock
- 2 large potatoes, or the equivalent of 2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1/8 head of cabbage, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 lb stewing beef, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
- 1 1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon water
- 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Instructions
Take roughly 1 lb of stewing beef and cut them into 1/2 inch cubes. Marinate the beef with 1 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, 1 tablespoon of water and 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil.

Mince 3 cloves of garlic. Dice 1 yellow onion and 1 tomato. Peel 2 carrots and then roughly chop the carrots and 2 stalks of celery. Peel 2 large potatoes and cut them into bite sized pieces. Take 1/8th of a head of cabbage and cut it into bite sized pieces too.

Let’s turn to the instant pot! Turn on the sauté feature and wait for the indicator to say “hot”. Once it’s ready, melt the butter and add the garlic and onions.Sauté until the onions are soft and translucent.

Next, add the carrots and celery and sauté for 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and deglaze the bottom of the instant to with 1/2 a cup of stock by scraping the bottom of the inner pot until all the bits are scraped off. Then add in the rest of the stock.

It’s time to season! Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Throw in the tomatoes, cabbage and potatoes.

Give the soup another stir and add in the stewing beef, stir and add in the bay leaves.

Put the lid on the instant pot, switch the valve to seal and set the instant pot to pressure cook for 15 minutes at high pressure. Once the timer goes off, naturally release for 10 minutes and then quick release and season with more salt to taste. Enjoy!

Stock photo attribution:
Hong Kong Flyover - Video by Henry from Pexels

Russian Borstch - [ Ссылка ] Food photo created by serhii_bobyk - www.freepik.com

Steak Closeup - [ Ссылка ] Food photo created by rawpixel.com - www.freepik.com

Farmer looking at his Crops - Video by Kat from Pexels

Beets Photo by Eva Elijas from Pexels

Tomatoes being washed - Video by Any Lane from Pexels

Hong Kong Street - Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric from Pexels

All map animations generated in Google Earth Web.

Stuff I used
If you are interested, I’ve linked below various items that I used during this video. These are all affiliate links, so if you do buy from any of these links, you are helping to support my channel! Thanks🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

Camera gear
Canon EOS M6 II ([ Ссылка ])
Canon 32 1.4 lens ([ Ссылка ])
Sony ZV-1 ([ Ссылка ])
Rode Wireless Go ([ Ссылка ])
Rode Videomic Pro ([ Ссылка ])

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