If you have already prepared both borsch, and pickle, and all kinds of soups, and now you are wondering what to cook for the first one, prepare a hodgepodge - a chic, hot dish with a rich composition and taste, very nourishing and bright, in a festive elegant manner! Solyanka come in three varieties: meat, mushroom and fish, and they combine the characteristics of several dishes. In the broth add brine and pickles, as in pickle; sometimes put cabbage, as in soup. But the basic recipe for solyanka is without cabbage and even without potatoes, no matter how strange it sounds.
If you are used to adding potatoes to soups, you can put a couple of pieces in a hodgepodge, cut into small cubes - or boil them in whole broth, and then catch, crush and put them back. But still, I advise you to try without potatoes: you can be sure that it will be both satisfying and thick - a spoonful in a good hodgepodge!
The main thing is to generously put meat, mushrooms or fish in it. Not only raw products will be used, but also salted, smoked, pickled - thanks to such a complex “bouquet” and a strong sour-spicy broth, the dish acquires its signature rich flavor. And there are two vegetables for a good solyanka: carrots and onions. Some recipes cost without even a carrot. But onion - necessarily, it is necessary in the company for meat.
For pork and beef, sometimes also chicken, add a variety of deli meats (balyk, bacon, ribs, smoked or dried sausages); according to another version - offal (tongue, kidney, brain bone). What exactly to put depends on your taste and the contents of the refrigerator.
- Cooking time: 2 hours
- Servings: 8
Ingredients for the meat hodgepodge for 3 liters of water
- 300-400 g of pork;
- 300-400 g of beef;
- 150-200 g of chicken breast;
- 100-150 g of balyk;
- 100-150 g smoked sausage;
- 100-150 g of dried sausages;
- 2-3 small onions;
- 2 medium carrots;
- 2-3 pickles;
- 2-3 tbsp. l tomato paste;
- sunflower oil for frying;
- spices: salt, ground black pepper, pepper-peas, bay leaf.
For filing:
- lemon;
- olives;
- greens;
- sour cream.
Salts need quite a bit - a hodgepodge, as the name implies, is in itself already salty due to cucumbers and smoked meats. By the way, I recommend to pick cucumbers salted, not pickled, but fermented, ideally - barrel. We salt at the very end, a little - and try not to overdo it! Some cooks do not salt the dish at all, but simply put the salt shaker on the table - who needs it, he will spice up the food to his own taste. Lavrushku and peas put optional: again, in the finished meat products initially quite different spices and seasonings.
Ingredients for serving add to the hodgepodge, already poured into the plates, just before serving. A slice of lemon gives a slight sourness; fresh parsley - elegance; sour cream complements and softens the sour-spicy taste of the dish Pitted olives are optional, if you like their taste.
Method of cooking meat hodgepodge
Since the meat is cooked for a long time, let's do it first. Rinse, slice the pork and beef in small pieces, dip into cold water and set on fire. When the broth boils, boil meat for 2-3 minutes, then the first water must be drained. Typing in a pan of cold water, cook further, until the meat is soft, for 1-1,5 hours, under the lid, on the fire less than average. Chicken breast is cooked quickly, in 25 minutes, because we boil the fillets separately, we also drain the first water.
While the meat is boiling, we will prepare the remaining ingredients for the hodgepodge. Peel the onions and carrots. Cut the onion as small as possible, and rub the carrots on a large grater. Salted cucumbers cut into thin strips.
Warming up the sunflower oil in the pan, spread the onion and pass for 3-4 minutes over medium heat. While stirring, make sure that the onion is not fried, but becomes soft and transparent.
Then add the carrots, mix and continue to fry for a couple of minutes.
Next, lay out the fried cucumber straws to vegetables. Stir and fry for another 3-4 minutes.
Finally, add the tomato paste. If it is thick, we pour a little, from a half glass, of water. Simmer everything together for 3-4 minutes and turn it off.
We cut the sausages and balyk into slices, straws, circles - so that it turns out beautifully and not too large. Chicken breast divide hands into pieces and add to the assorted.
Fry smoked meats and sausages in vegetable oil for 3-4 minutes, stirring.
When the meat in the broth is soft, add fried delicacies to the pan. Stir and bring to a boil.
Then lay out the roasting vegetables, mix. You can also pour a glass of cucumber pickle into the broth. Let the solyanka boil over medium heat for about 5-7 minutes.
For a couple of minutes until readiness, add crushed greens, bay leaf and pepper-peas, try on the salt. Shuffle, let simmer for 2 minutes and turn off.
Pour a hot hodgepodge into plates, decorate with lemon slices and fresh parsley, at the same stage we put capers, olives or olives, and to top it off sour cream. Now the hodgepodge is ready! Aromatic parok winds over the plates, beckoning as soon as possible to try the first spoonful of this yummy!
After the holidays, the hodgepodge is a good solution for processing the remnants of cold cuts left over from the guests. One of the history of the recipe says that the hodgepodge was invented by St. Petersburg innkeepers, who were looking for the use of trimmed meat and sausages. The dish was born like an English pudding - from the remnants of what was not eaten yesterday. And the result was gorgeous!
However, if there are no residues in the fridge, you can buy 100-150 different meat delicacies on the market specifically for the hodgepodge. It is worth it to encourage the seller to weigh a little of each of the 5-6 varieties!
Enjoy your meal!
