This thick, hearty dish is very popular not only in Russian cuisine, but also abroad. Served at home and in expensive restaurants. A good cook knows how to cook a hodgepodge, meat and fish. Recipes vary, you can add new ingredients or do without products that are not at hand. The main thing is that the soup should be salty, sour and spicy at the same time.
Interesting facts about the hodgepodge
- There is an opinion that the name of the spicy-salty soup comes from the word "villager". Some experts suggest that the dish was originally a festive meal of Russian villagers, meat or fish, vegetables, mushrooms, kvass were added to it - everything that could be stocked up for the holiday.
- Other historians say: hodgepodge is the original name of a soup with pickled cucumbers, kvass, pickled mushrooms. In old cookbooks, the dish bears its current name, and is described as a fish-based soup and served with vodka and liqueurs.
- The second popular name for hodgepodge has survived - "hangover", while sour soup with cucumber pickle was served in the morning.
It is no coincidence that a "hodgepodge" team speaks of the confusion and confusion in Russia. Soup can include different types of smoked meats, meat, corned beef, offal, mushrooms. In order for the dish to live up to its name, the recipe for the hodgepodge must necessarily have spicy-salty ingredients. It can be:
- salted cucumbers;
- marinated mushrooms;
- brine;
- lemon;
- kvass;
- olives;
- capers;
- sauerkraut, etc.
Mixed solyanka with lemon and olives
Pour fresh beef, bones with cold water, simmer a couple of liters of steep broth. Remember to skim off the lather. When the broth is slightly infused, remove the meat, cut into slices and put it back in the pan.
Chop a couple of onion heads into thin half rings and sauté with two tablespoons of tomato paste, one finely chopped peeled pickled cucumber and a little vegetable oil, broth. Simmer the mixture until thickened.
Add the stir-fry to the boiling broth and 2 more cucumbers, cut into small slices. It is advisable to use not pickled, namely pickled cucumbers, which are naturally fermented. If the skin of vegetables is rough, peel it first, you can leave it soft.
After 5 minutes, add the chopped into thin straws to the prefabricated hodgepodge:
- 200 g smoked sausage;
- 100-200 g smoked ham;
- a couple of sausages;
- boiled beef or pork kidney.
Let the hodgepodge simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes, then season with salt and pepper to taste, add a couple of bay leaves. After 5 minutes, pour a glass of boiled cucumber pickle into the broth.
Olives will become the "highlight" of the dish. Place them in ready-made hot soup and immediately remove from the stove. Serve the mixed hodgepodge with chopped herbs, sour cream, fresh lemon wedges.
Meat solyanka with cabbage and mushrooms
For many culinary experts, the usual ingredient in the hodgepodge is cabbage, the soup turns out to be something in between pickle and cabbage soup. To prepare it, boil 1.5 liters of meat broth. While it is infused, simmer the chopped onion, pickled cucumber, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, the same amount of broth and a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a pan.
Put the resulting mixture in the broth, add 100 g of chopped white cabbage and 100-150 g of sliced lamellar mushrooms. Solyanka recipe often includes mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, but mushrooms, russula, ryadovki, chanterelles, mushrooms can be used.
Boil the hodgepodge for 15 minutes and add chopped sausages, raw smoked and smoked sausages (all 150 g each). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Throw in 2 bay leaves, continue to cook the hodgepodge for 10 minutes, then throw in a handful of olives and turn off the heat.
Fish solyanka with shrimps
To make a fish and seafood hodgepodge that will delight you with an exquisite rich taste, spend a lot of time in the broth. First, throw 300 g of defrosted shrimp into boiling water (2.5 liters), after 3 minutes on a sieve and strain.
Peel one raw pink salmon and cod and cut into fillets. Cook the tails, bones, heads and fins in the shrimp broth, adding large slices of large carrots, celery root and onions.
Boil fish and vegetables for 50-60 minutes, strain well. While the broth is cooking, mix with two tablespoons of tomato paste the grated carrots, some roast celery, 3 peeled pickles and simmer for 10 minutes.
After that, you can consistently lay in the broth at intervals of 5 minutes:
- 3-4 potatoes, diced, and boiled fish fillets;
- salt and pepper to taste;
- roasted carrots and 100 g of chopped hot smoked cod fillets;
- peeled shrimps, brine to taste and a couple of bay leaves.
Before cooking, put 250 g of olives, remove the bay leaf and let the hodgepodge brew for 10 minutes before serving.
Cooking a hodgepodge: useful tips
- Use table salt very carefully, as many of the ingredients in the dish are salty, and brine is added to the broth.
- Capers will add a piquant spice to the hodgepodge. Do not overcook them, add with olives.
- Put the lemon slices in a plate when the hodgepodge is already served. Add finely chopped green onions and a spoonful of thick sour cream.
- The broth and onion frying for the dish can be prepared in advance and kept in the refrigerator for 24 hours before the hodgepodge starts cooking.
- If the smoked meats are too fatty, before cooking the meat hodgepodge, fry these ingredients - the fat will melt.
Now you know how to cook mixed hodgepodge, meat and fish. Feel free to combine different types of fish and seafood in your soup; raw, salted and pickled mushrooms; different types of boiled, stewed and smoked meat: poultry, beef, pork, lamb, game. You will certainly delight your home and guests with a delicious and hearty dish.
