Solyanka or Meat Pickerel.

There are few people in our country whose mother hasn't cooked her... solyanka. Real russian solyanka, aka selyanka, we have already had, and now I propose to remember its soviet cousin. By the way, it still enjoys great popularity.

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No, really, I can't tell you all the history of this boring soup. But I must tell you that the first recipe for meat soup hodgepodge I read just the other day. Although I may have read it as a child, when I was studying a book about delicious and healthy food. I actually started reading cookbooks when I was about 9. I read them then and dreamed that someday I could make it all, someday when I had all the ingredients I needed. But I don't remember if I read the hodgepodge recipe then, or if I leafed through it as uninteresting. Then, I had already tried the hodgepodge at a cafe-restaurant, everything was cheaper back then. We went there for dinner with my mother, she came to visit me. But the hodgepodge wasn't even a soup at all, but a kind of fiery spicy meat stew.

And after that time I had never tasted it, but of course I had heard the legends about meat soup. It was such an elite-restaurant dish, because who could afford to put into the soup several varieties of sausages and smoked meats. Then I grew up, I mean, matured quite quickly, began to earn money and go to restaurants, cafes. So I had my first sausage soup when I was 22, in some dying restaurant. And then a lot of people who were into cooking were telling me how they cooked this stuff, and they weren't sharing the recipes, they were saying things like: "I don't make this stuff without eight kinds of sausages, black olives and lemon".

In short, all kinds of stories and remarks of my friends were making up in my head the recipe, or not even a recipe, but a way to cook meat soup. And for the first time I cooked it in , when I saw a package with sausage scraps on the counter at a ridiculous price.

The next day I told my colleague at work about it. Marina, who loved to cook, she even went to college to study cooking. So she could not help but insert her three cents, saying that in his opinion there cannot be salted beef without a broth of smoked knuckle and smoked black olives.

Oh yes, I completely forgot to say that everyone who was talking about "hodgepodge" in front of me insisted that it was necessary to add a slice of lemon to the soup.

But the main question, which has always tormented me about this soup: what else do they put in it besides sausages and olives? For some reason the name "solyanka" made me think of sauerkraut. And so for many years I could not imagine making sauerkraut soup without sauerkraut, and I even did not cook it if there were no sauerkraut in the house.

But years went by, I grew up, and I hope I was getting smarter, or at least experienced. I began to take the dogma of recipes much more lightly. And the final break in the pattern came when I tried the best salted beef I've ever had, cooked in front of my eyes, in the sense that I watched it cook rather than using my eyes as a heating device. By and large, this minimalist soup I'm not even sure can be called hodgepodge. It had beef trimmings broth, sauerkraut, wieners, and black pepper. Just like that, out of almost nothing a masterpiece was created, which I will probably never forget, just as I will never forget the person who cooked it. Maybe it was only the personality of the chef that influenced the taste of this soup, so dramatically improving it.

I would like to say that I have never once made a hodgepodge of specially purchased several varieties of sausage. I once read in a cooking magazine about how one girl was dragging herself by buying a bunch of different varieties of sausage for a 100g hodgepodge of hodgepodge. My penniless soul resented this approach. Solyanka - only from scraps, everything else - haspyage. But that's just my approach to the issue, and if some of the ladies are crazy about it, then let them do as they please.

So anyway, back to the fact that the first time I read a recipe for hodgepodge a few days ago. Or rather to the reason for which I did read this recipe. I turned to the recipe for this reason. I was literally in the store the other day.

And what do you go to the store for? Of course, first of all for the sausage! And so buying a sausage, I suddenly felt a distinct desire to eat solyanka. Immediately I asked the saleswoman to give me some sausage scraps. And I got my hard-earned money almost half a pound of various scraps of sausages, bacon, necks, carbonates, and other meat-related delicacies. I brought home this almost free luxury and began to think about how I could make a soup out of it, which would not be ashamed to call a hodgepodge.

After rummaging through the cupboards and refrigerators, I found that there were no sauerkraut in the house, but there were pickles. God had also sent me onions, garlic, a jar of tomato paste, a pod of hot peppers, capers, and that was about it. I scratched in the back of my head and decided that it could turn into the soup I was thinking about while buying sausage.

Oh, by the way, I also had some boiled pork broth in the freezer, and I had some frozen beef broth too. So I mixed them one to one. I had a liter and a half of soup base.

Solyanka can be liquid or non-liquid, meat, fish, mushroom, lean and so on, I won't list them all. And just there is some confusion in the name (whether hodgepodge, or selyanka), but this article is dedicated to to the meat dish.

The article begins with my variant of hodgepodge.

Gotta:

all kinds of smoked meats

onion

tomato

tomato paste

pickled cucumber

sweet bell pepper

allspice

salt

bay leaf

hot pepper

capers

olives

lemon

I took 5 pickles. Rubbed them on a grater, then fried them in ghee, fried them well, until soft, and threw them into the boiling broth mixture.

Then I chopped up three onions, not the biggest ones, and then I sautéed them in the same melted butter until they were soft. And then I added the fried onions to the salted cucumbers, which were simmering on low heat.

As it begins to brown, add chopped skinless tomato and tomato paste. Fry all together for a couple of minutes. Set aside. Return to the skillet.

In the same place chopped julienne smoked meat. Fry until lightly browned.

In the same place chopped julienne bell peppers.

Put everything in the broth or water. Cook for about five minutes, because we're essentially done. We add the seasoning.

Before turning off, add olives cut into rings and a little capers.

Bring to a boil, turn off. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes. We need to let the flavors to meld.

And serve with lemon. Great warming soup for fall🍂 and winter❄!

And then I poured myself a bowl of this thick soup, put a spoonful of sour cream in it, thought about it for a while and threw in another slice of lemon after all. Took a spoonful, tasted it, and forgot all about it. The world disappeared for me... All that was left was me, the spoon and the bowl of soup. As you have already realized, the soup was awesome. So awesome that I decided to share my impressions about it with you.And cooking it is a separate pleasure)))

I thank God for his help in writing this article, and you, dear readers, praise him if your reading was helpful to you.

Write to me what you dared to do in your life, and still did it.I will be waiting)))

I want to know your opinion.

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