Ukrainian Borscht with Pork

Cut pork shoulder into bite size pieces, place into a pot and cover with cold water. Bring it to a boil, take off all the foam that appears, reduce heat to low and let it simmer gently.
Cut beetroot into strips and place into a skillet with drawn bacon or lard fat. Cook on medium high heat for 10 minutes, add tomato puree and keep cooking until all the liquid evaporates. Then add 2 tablespoons of water and 2 tablespoons of broth, sugar and white vinegar and cook until beetroot becomes tender.
Cut carrots, yellow onions, celery root and parsley root into strips. Place all these vegetables into a skillet with drawn bacon fat and cook until onion develops light golden color.
Fry all purpose flour on a dry skillet constantly stirring until it turns light golden color. Cool the flour, add 4 tablespoons of broth and mix well. Leave as few lumps as possible and strain.
After the pork has been boiling for 1 ½ hours, add cubed potatoes and, after 15 minutes, add shredded green cabbage, roasted tomato-onion mixture, peppercorns and bay leaves. Salt to taste and cook for another 10 minutes. In the end, add stewed beetroot and flour gravy and bring to a boil. As soon as it boils turn the heat off and let stand for 20 minutes.
Serve with sour cream.

You will need:

For borscht:       

• Water – 8 cups
• Boneless pork shoulder – 12 oz
• Beetroot – 14 oz
• Fresh green cabbage – 12 oz
• 2 medium potatoes
• 1 carrot
• 1 parsley root
• 1 celery root
• 1 yellow onion
• Tomato puree – 3 tablespoons
• All purpose flour
• Drawn pork fat – 2 tablespoons
• Sugar – 1 tablespoon
• White vinegar – 2 tablespoons
• 4-5 peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt – to taste

To serve:        

• Sour cream

Options:

1. You can use butter instead of drawn pork fat. In this case it is better to fry flour along with butter as well. Take 1 tablespoon of butter  and heat it a little on a skillet. Add all purpose flour and cook it on medium heat until the butter develops a light golden color. Then gradually add 4 tablespoons of broth and cook it, constantly stirring, for 10 minutes. Strain afterwards.
2. If you like, you can add garlic to your borscht. In this case, mince 3 cloves of garlic and add it to borscht along with flour mixture.