Borscht, Dario Argento's Deep Red

Well hey! My first post. Here it goes.

So my original idea was to have a movie blog. Then I realized there are a billion better movie blogs out there so I'm doing dinner and a movie. The movies will not always be new, and the food will not always be delicious, but I'm going to try my best.

Instead of preparing for the hurricane that came through the northeast the other day, I decided to cook. I get a box of vegetables from Boston Organics each Friday and like to pretend I'm on an episode of Chopped.

Hurricane supplies: jug of water, Jesus candles, beer.

I actually made two dishes during this hurricane, but we'll save the second for another horror movie and another post. This one is all about the borscht. Now, typically I'm not a huge fan of borscht and its earthy beety weirdness. Actually, it makes me think of that time in the Rugrats when Chucky gets skunked and has to bathe in borscht to get the smell out. Anyways, this is not your Polish grandma's borscht. It has some Thai inspiration and some sweet potato. I ate it every day for lunch this week and my coworker called it zombie guts. Pretty appropriate for the season/horror film post, eh? (Movie review posted after the recipe).

Recipe: Deep Red Borscht

Ingredients:

2 large beets (about a pound)
1 large sweet potato (about another pound. mine was BIG)
1 medium red onion

2 stalks celery

2 cups vegetable broth

1 lime

1 inch of fresh ginger, grated

1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped

1 can light coconut milk

1 jalapeno

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Olive oil cooking spray

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash, peel, and dice sweet potatoes and beets. Place on baking sheet and spray with olive oil spray. Throw some pepper on it. Put in oven for 25-30 minutes, or until tender. 

While the roots are cooling, dice the jalapeno, onion and celery and then brown in an olive oile-d pot (you can use spray or the real thing). Throw the beets and potatoes in the pot. Add the ginger, broth, juice of the lime, cilantro, and cayenne pepper and stir it all together. Smell it. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add the coconut milk and blend to desired consistency (immersion or regular). Add salt and pepper if you want. Serve hot or cold.

Step-by-step Instructions

Preheat oven to 375. Wash, peel, and dice sweet potatoes and beets. Place in baking dish and spray with  cooking spray. Grind some pepper on it. Put in oven.

Bake for 25-20 minutes or until tender. The beets will make your hands look like this.

Set the roots aside. Dice Onion, celery and jalapeno. Don't worry about size because it's all going to be blended eventually.

Brown these in an oiled pot. This is a bad picture.

Add the beets, potatoes, ginger, broth, lime juice, and cayene pepper. Stir it up.

I like to use this for my broth. It makes everything taste better.

Simmer for about 10 minutes. It will make your house smell delicious.

Add coconut milk and blend using appliance of choice. I used an immersion blender.

Throw in some salt and pepper if you think it is needed. Serve hot or cold. I liked mine hot over some brown rice. Garnish with cilantro if you're feeling fancy (I am not).

So after cooking the borscht I ate some with some wine. Work and school were cancelled all over Boston, so some friends came over for some drinks. We did lots of cake shots.

Cake shots. Roll lemon wedge in sugar. Bite off and leave in mouth. Over the wedge, take a shot of half hazelnut liqueur and half vanilla vodka. Chew and enjoy. It tastes JUST LIKE chocolate cake.

WARNING: the shots are dangerous. One turned into two turned into a trip to the liquor store turned into putting on bathing suits and doing a lap around the block in a torrential downpour turned into this:

Keepin' it classy.

Our kitchen was a disaster. The next 12 hour day at work was brutal. But I made some delicious food so it was worth it, right? Ok, now onto the movie review.

Review: Dario Argento's Deep Red

The borscht turned out to be a deep red-ish so it works. There was an entire section of Dario Argento movies hanging out at the local movie rental store (yes, I still go to those), so I got excited and picked this one. 

Pictured: this woman really likes my borscht 

The movie turned out to be much more of a murder mystery than your typical slasher film, which was good because I ended up watching it by myself on a Sunday morning, so it fit the mood (the hurricane didn't seem like an appropriate time to watch it so we watched Fantasia instead). The movie is in half Italian and half English, and the characters switch between the two without any kind of logical flow. It works though.

The film is set in Italy where an American musician witnesses a murder taking place and becomes obsessed with trying to find the killer. Along his way, murders continue to follow him and Marcus Daly's investigation turns into an attempt to save his own life. The feminist reporter Gianna Brezzi accompanies him and they have some sexy times.

Argento definitely has a signature style, and this move is no exception. The murder scenes stick with you without being too over-the-top gory. The soundtrack, like Argento's better-known Suspiria is done by Goblin, and accompanies the film perfectly. If you were not satisfied with all of the slasher movies you watched pre-Halloween, this will feed your appetite. Trailer below.