If someone says that he does not like the pickle in any way, it means that he simply does not know how to cook the pickle so that he would like to eat it again and again.
Moreover, it is very difficult to cook it, it is enough to know the recipe and a few chef's secrets.
Ingredients
Before preparing the pickle, make sure that you have everything you need to create a culinary masterpiece. There are a huge number of varieties of this satisfying first course, but its main components are always the same. Only the additional ingredients that the hostesses add for a change change.
So, we need:
- 200 g of pearl barley;
- 4 medium-sized pickled cucumbers with pickle;
- 2 onions;
- 5 large potatoes;
- 2 medium-sized carrots;
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste;
- herbs, salt, pepper and spices - to your liking.
So, we begin to prepare the pickle with pearl barley. Think about what your household loves the most, and try adding extra ingredients. It can be beef, chicken, dried mushrooms, olives, ham and other products that add zest to the soup.
Preparing barley for soup
Before you start cooking pickle according to a recipe that has already been tested by time and millions of culinary experts, learn how to cook pearl barley correctly.
The fact is that this cereal is prepared for a very long time, so it is recommended to cook barley in advance. Half a day before the start of cooking, or better from the evening of the previous day, sort out 200 grams of cereal, put in a deep bowl and pour 1.5 liters of water. We leave the barley to "soak" for 6 to 12 hours. As soon as the allotted time runs out, the water is drained, the cereal is sent to the pan, poured with cold water and put on fire. As soon as the water in the pan begins to boil, it will be necessary to remove the foam that has appeared, reduce the heat to a minimum, and cook the cereal until the water is completely boiled away and until the barley is ready. Do not be lazy to remove the foam, otherwise the soup will turn cloudy, slimy and unappetizing.
Preparation of broth for pickle
Before you cook the pickle according to the recipe (you can find the photo of this first dish below), prepare the meat rich broth. If you cook the soup on beef broth, take 500-600 grams of this meat (best on the bone), and if on chicken broth, you will need half a chicken carcass or a good soup set.
First of all, we thoroughly wash the meat under running water, put it in a pan, fill it with cold water and put on fire. As soon as the water boils, remove with a spoon all the foam that has formed. In a transparent broth we throw peeled whole onions and carrots (you do not need to cut them). And we cook our broth for 45 minutes from chicken and about 1.5 hours from beef on the bone.
When the meat is ready, remove the vegetables from the broth and send them to the bin. Pull the chicken or beef onto a plate, allow to cool, and then cut into portions.
Cooking pickle with pearl barley and cucumbers: a step-by-step classic recipe
After we have prepared the broth and boiled the pearl barley, we can begin to prepare the most delicious pickle.
Step number 1. Peel potatoes, onions and carrots. We cut the potatoes and cucumbers into medium cubes, chop the onions in half rings, and rub the carrots on a medium grater.
Step number 2. We put the pan with the broth on the fire, and as soon as it boils, we send potatoes to it.
Step number 3. While the potatoes are being cooked, we heat the vegetable oil in a pan, pour the carrots and let it in a little, then add the onions to it and sauté for a couple of minutes.
Step number 4. After 5-7 minutes of cooking the potatoes, add the chopped cucumbers to the pan, boil them in about five minutes, put the pearl barley, tomato paste in them, pour in a little cucumber pickle (its quantity is determined by taste so that the pickle is not too acidic or salty), meat and fried carrots with onions.
Step number 5. We cook for about 10 minutes, add chopped herbs and favorite spices to the pickle, pepper to taste.
Step number 6. It remains to pour the soup on plates, add a spoonful of sour cream and invite the family to the table.
Lenten pickle
If you are fasting now or you just want to save some money, you can prepare pickle with pearl barley and pickled cucumbers without meat and meat broth without sacrificing taste. Everything is simple here, you will need the same ingredients as for the classic pickle. The versatility of this soup is that it will still turn out thick and rich.
First of all, it will be necessary to put soaked pearl barley for several hours. After this time, the water from the barley is drained, the cereal is washed, sent to the pan, poured with clean cold water into 2/3 of the pan and put on medium heat.
We already know how to cook pickle, so we peel onions, carrots and potatoes, cut vegetables into strips or medium cubes. We also pickle pickles in strips or cubes. Try to make the ingredients cut the same way, then the soup will look very nice on the plate.
When the cereal softens, add chopped potatoes to it. At the same time, let the carrots with onions in a pan with vegetable oil. When the potatoes are boiled for about 5 minutes, chopped cucumber is added to it, and after 5 minutes - carrots with onions and tomato paste. After this, the pickle can boil for another 5 minutes. In the end, right before removing the soup from the heat, peppers with spices and finely chopped greens are added to the pan. Sour cream is not added to lean soup, but to the economy option - no problem!
Pickle with mushrooms
If you often cook pickle with pearl barley and cucumber (salted or pickled), then the taste of the dish becomes boring, I want to diversify it.
All that is needed is to add about 300 g of mushrooms to it, which will make the pickle even more tasty and aromatic. It is best for pickles to take porcini mushrooms - you get a real Russian stew with a unique aroma. But many housewives add champignons or any forest mushrooms - at least fresh, at least pickled.
It is unnecessary to remind you that first of all we are preparing pearl barley and at the same time rich broth from chicken or beef.
Do not be afraid to cook pickle with mushrooms, even if this is your first time doing it. The recipe almost completely coincides with the classic one, so we clean the onions, carrots and potatoes, cut the vegetables into strips or medium cubes. Pickled cucumbers also shred straws or cubes.
The next step is to cut the mushrooms into small pieces. And if these are fresh mushrooms, mushrooms or oyster mushrooms, then fry them in vegetable oil with onions and carrots in order to evaporate all the moisture, and if pickled, it will be enough to cut them and throw them into the pickle along with chopped cucumbers.
Combine all the ingredients in the broth, as mentioned above, and bring the soup to readiness. Nothing complicated!
How to cook a pickle with barley prescription in a slow cooker
The ingredients for this dish are exactly the same as the ingredients for a classic pickle.
We already know the steps: first of all, you will need to boil the barley soaked in advance overnight, removing it from the heat after 15 minutes, and prepare 2-3 liters of chicken or beef broth.
Ready broth and pearl barley are set aside, a chopped onion is placed in the capacity of the multicooker and the "Frying" mode is activated at low power. After a short passerirovka, carrots and tomato paste grated on medium grater are added to the onion, vegetables are fried for 5-7 minutes. Next to the vegetables is added chopped pickled cucumber, which is slightly stewed with carrots and onions. Next, the meat broth is poured into the capacity of the multicooker, barley and potatoes are cut, diced, and salt is added to taste. We select the "Cooking" mode on the device, set the timer for half an hour. When the slow cooker gives a signal that the dish is ready, add greens and lavrushka to the pickle and let it brew.
Cooking pickle in a pressure cooker
If you have a pressure cooker at home, you can save even more time on cooking the first dishes. Here you don’t even need to think much about the recipe and the photo, how to cook the pickle with pearl barley, because everything is done as simple as possible. Moreover, due to the fact that it will not be necessary to pre-cook barley and meat broth separately, the cooking time will be less than an hour.
First, we wash the barley several times with cold water and set it aside. Then wash and cut the meat (preferably beef) into small cubes, put them in a pressure cooker along with pearl barley and pour cold water. As soon as the water boils, carefully remove the foam, close the pressure cooker with a sealed lid and leave it for 40 minutes.
At this time, we clean and cut vegetables in the usual way, we passer them in vegetable oil, adding alternately onions, then carrots, then tomato paste and finally cucumbers. The vegetable mixture will need to be darkened for another 5 minutes to mix the flavors.
After 40 minutes, carefully open the lid of the pressure cooker, add the diced potatoes to the meat and grits and leave to cook for five minutes. After that, we put in the pressure cooker the entire contents of the pan, add cucumber pickle, spices, herbs to taste and bring the pickle to a boil. The rich soup is ready.
Harvesting pickle for the winter
If you are looking for a recipe (with photo), how to cook pickle for the winter, so that you can not go out to the grocery store in the cold and snow, and use vegetable preparations, then you have come to the right address.
Now you will learn how to make a blank for pickle, which is enough for six liter jars - these are about six full hot dinners. To prepare this dish you will need the following ingredients:
- 2 cups pearl barley;
- 700 g of fresh fleshy tomatoes;
- 7 medium-sized bulbs;
- 900 g of fresh cucumbers;
- 1 cup vegetable oil;
- 2 tablespoons of salt;
- 8 peas of black pepper;
- 6 tablespoons of vinegar (9%).
So, how to cook pickle with cucumbers and barley for harvesting for the winter?
In a way that we already know, we are preparing barley: soak the cereal overnight, boil until tender, and leave to cool.
Cut the carrots, onions and cucumbers with straws or medium cubes, which we send to stew for 15 minutes in a pan. While the vegetables are simmering over low heat, scald the tomatoes with boiling water, peel them and pass through a meat grinder. The resulting homogeneous tomato mixture is sent to carrots, onions and cucumbers. After that, the vegetables are stewed for another 5-7 minutes, added to the pan to the cooked barley and brought to a boil.
Add vinegar, salt and pepper to taste, mix gently, turn off the heat and pour the workpiece into sterilized jars. Cork lids, turn the lid down and leave to cool.
In winter, you will not need to run to the store or the market in the cold, it will be enough to get the workpiece, add it to the broth with potatoes and bring to readiness.
Chicken broth with rice
If you are already tired of the usual soup with pearl barley, then you do not need to think long about how to cook the brine soup with any other cereals, because we have rice, which means that we will prepare the first dish easier and faster. Let's get started!
We will need the following ingredients:
- 2 chicken legs or half;
- 2 carrots;
- 2 onions;
- 100 g of rice cereal;
- 4 large potatoes;
- 5 medium sized pickled cucumbers;
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
- greens to your liking.
Naturally, the first thing you will need to cook chicken stock according to the classic recipe and pre-soak well-washed rice in cold water.
After an hour of cooking, the chicken should be pulled out, cooled, divided into fibers or small portions. How to cook pickle with rice? What is the difference between this recipe and the classic version? Yes, the recipe is slightly different from what we know, but there is nothing complicated.
As soon as the broth is ready, we will send chopped potatoes and prepared rice into it. While they are boiling, in a frying pan in vegetable oil, fry chopped onions and carrots until soft and golden.
After the potatoes with rice boiled for 15 minutes, add the carrots with the onion, after a couple of minutes - chopped pickled cucumbers. Cook the soup for another 5 minutes, then add bay leaf, herbs and a little cucumber pickle. Let it boil, turn it off and let it brew. The pickle with rice is ready! This version of the first dish is lighter - the soup is not as high-calorie as with barley.
Mistress note
Someone may say that he thoroughly analyzed how to cook pickle with pearl barley and pickled cucumbers, did everything according to the recipe, and the result is still deplorable - few people liked the soup ...
The fact is that there are certain subtleties and secrets of cooking the first dish, which should not be forgotten.
- Barley should be boiled separately and added to the pickle is already fully prepared, otherwise the broth will be cloudy and will acquire a bluish tint.
- Before pouring the brine into the soup pot, it must be boiled separately so that the pickle does not ferment, and strain through gauze or a fine sieve to get rid of tiny particles of spices and spices.
- Before cutting pickled or pickled cucumbers into pickle, it is advisable to peel them (if it is hard), rid of large seeds and pour over boiling water.
- From spices, parsnip, tarragon, leeks and parsley root can be added to pickle, and black and white pepper from spices.
- It is better not to salt the pickle, you can adjust its taste with the help of cucumber pickle - from salt, the taste will become "hard".
- In order to diversify the taste of pickle, you can add olives, olives, celery, turnips or rutabaga to it at your discretion.
- If you want to make the dish even more fragrant and tasty, a couple of minutes before the end of its preparation you need to add a couple of chopped heads of garlic to the pan.
- After the pickle is cooked, do not rush to pour it on plates and serve it, it is better to let it stand for 10-15 minutes.
- Before serving, the pickle is seasoned with a spoon of sour cream, however, if it is cooked not on meat, but on fish broth, then it is not recommended to put sour cream in a plate.