Pressure Canner Borscht Recipe

Chicken Bone Stock

Rather then making your own bone stock, you can buy 5 quarts of premade bone stock.

Ingregients

• Chicken bones and any left over meat from 1 chicken. For best results, crack bones.
• 1 medium onion, any variety. I personally use white onions.
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 5 small bay leaves
• 2 bunches celery
• 1 carrot

Directions

In a 6 quart stock pot:
Combine all ingredients in pot. Fill pot with water. Put on high heat and bring to a hard boil (does not stop boiling even while being actively stirred). Reduce to medium heat. Cover. Cook for 4 hours or until the meat has fallen from the bones and the bones are softened. Strain. Reserve the broth and discard the solids. This is your bone stock.

Prepping the Soup

Ingredients

• 2 quarts canned beets with liquid
• 460 grams raw chicken breast (you can use dark meat if perferred)
• 1/2 cup bacon fat
• 1/2 head of purple cabbage
• 700g red potatoes
• 1 tablespoon dill weed
• Chicken bone stock from above

Mixing the Soup

1. Puree 1 quart beets with the liquid from both quarts. Set aside.
2. Chop second quart of beets into 1 inch pieces and set aside.
3. Chop chicken into 1 inch pieces and set aside with chopped beets.
4. Chunk cabbage into 1 inch pieces. Break layers of cabbage apart. Set aside with other chopped items.
5. Melt bacon fat into bone broth.
6. Add puree beets into broth and mix until evenly blended.
7. Add dill to broth mixture.

Canning the Soup

Fills 13 pint jars. Wide mouth jars will be easier to fill.

For best results, pre-heat your jars. Place jars up right in water bath canner with lids and rings, cover jars with water. Put onto high heat and bring water to a boil. Use jar tongs to lift jars from water. Pour water out of jar. No need to dry the jar. Line your jars up on the counter on a folded towel. This will act as a heat protector for your counter as well as collect any spilled soup.

Divide chopped ingrients evenly between your jars. Ladel hot broth into the jars. It is important that the broth remains hot enough to maintain the melt on the bacon fat. If the broth has cooled, simply reheat to bring back to a boil. Leave 1/2 inch head space on jars. Wipe off any spilled soup from the rim and outside of the jars. Use jar tongs or a pot holder to handle the jars as they will be very hot. Arrange lid and rings onto jars with a finger tight seal. Place into pressure canner. Process jars at 10 pounds of pressure for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The Numbers

The total pot of soup is worth 3512 calories with 337.5 grams of protein. Each jar has 270 calories and 26 grams of protein. Each pint is a single 2 cup serving of soup.