Team hodgepodge soup is a recipe that every housewife must perfectly master. Especially this dish will be appropriate when the window is cold and uncomfortable. At this time, you can always please your home with a hot, tasty and nutritious soup. Ideally, the hodgepodge should be spicy and rich. This is the best option for dinner at the end of a hard day's work.
Main ingredients
Of course, there are many recipes for hodgepodge soup, but the classic is still the most preferred. The following ingredients are needed for it:
- beef broth;
- pickles (if desired, they can be replaced with pickled jars from a store, for example, many like Bulgarian or German);
- pitted olives;
- 200 grams of smoked meat;
- 200 grams of smoked sausage (it is worth noting that both sausage and meat can be easily replaced with those smoked products that you have at home, as an option - buy something to your taste, but always smoked. For example, in stores often there are sets for pizza, which includes already chopped smoked pieces of beef and pork);
- two onions;
- four tablespoons of tomato paste;
- spices to taste;
- six sausages;
- bunch of dill.
It must be remembered that the soup hodgepodge team is not accidentally called that. If you wish, you can diversify the list of ingredients, but the classic list is just that.
History of hodgepodge
It is noteworthy that hodgepodge is a classic dish that belongs to Russian cuisine. It has long been prepared on meat, mushroom or fish broth. Often used spicy seasonings and spices. Recently, the option with meat broth has become the most popular.
The basis of the hodgepodge is the so-called acid-salty-spicy medium in which various components are added. This can be not only the olives, pickles, capers and lemon that are already familiar to us, but also kvass, pickled mushrooms and much more.
It is believed that the hodgepodge combines the main unique components of two popular dishes of Russian cuisine - cabbage soup and pickle. From the first she adopted sour cream and cabbage, and from the second - cucumber pickle and pickles.
According to tradition, boiled and smoked meat of all kinds is always put in a meat hodgepodge, but in a fish hodgepodge you can find not only salted or boiled fish, but even smoked from a sturgeon squad.
Title controversy
Interestingly, some scholars are still arguing about how to pronounce the name of this dish. Some are inclined to the fact that it should be called "village". Others argue that it is "hodgepodge" - the only correct name, which was recorded in the "Domostroy" in 1547. But the variation in the form of "villagers" appeared only in the XIX century. At the beginning of the 20th century, the classical "hodgepodge" pushed it back from the tongue.
Another fascinating fact. In Russian cuisine, there is another dish, which is also called "hodgepodge". This is a mixture of stewed cabbage with fish, meat, mushrooms and pickles.
Features of the hodgepodge
Almost every experienced housewife has her own recipe for hodgepodge soup. It can differ both in cooking methods and in the list of ingredients. Ideally, the dish should turn out to be thick, satisfying and rich, only in this case you can be sure that you did everything right, and there will not be a guarantee of discontent at your table today.
Preparing any soup hodgepodge team on the so-called spicy broth. Moreover, it does not have to be meat. You can cook this dish in fish and chicken broth.
It may mistakenly seem to many novice culinary experts that the meat hodgepodge soup is one of the simplest dishes in classical Russian cuisine. It is as if you can take all the products available at home in the refrigerator and send them to the pan. But in reality, everything is not so simple. The ingredients should be taken carefully if you are not sure that this or that product will look organically and appropriately in the soup hodgepodge meat team, it is better not to use it.
At the same time, an experienced chef gives a real scope for creativity. After all, there is no strict recipe in which everything must be meticulously observed in grams and milliliters. As there is no strict and unchanging list of ingredients, but you need to experiment in moderation.
It is believed that the recipe for soup hodgepodge meat team must include meat delicacies, boiled and smoked sausage, pickles and a variety of vegetables. At the same time, lemons and olives are often added to the hodgepodge, which give the dish a spicy acidity, smoked meats that allow you to experience the unique taste of natural meat.
Many put potatoes in a hodgepodge, but this is not necessary. Here everyone acts at their own discretion.
Soup broth
Almost all soups are cooked in broth. For soup, a hodgepodge (photos of the necessary products you can see above) is one of the fundamental ingredients.
The broth is cooked for at least two hours. The thicker, fatter and richer it turns out, the tastier your hodgepodge will be, the more pleasant words and compliments you will hear from guests.
For broth, it is strongly recommended to use several types of different meat. For example, pork, beef and veal on the bone. In total there should be at least 700 grams of meat.
In order to cook the broth, take one medium-sized onion, two bay leaves, three peas of black pepper, and salt to taste for three liters of water. Now cook the broth over low heat. Recall that the broth is cooked for at least two hours.
Step by step recipe
You can find a recipe with a photo of the soup hodgepodge meat team in this article, and then repeat it at home without any problems.
To begin with, all products are cut into small cubes, if desired, they can be cut into strips, it depends on your preference. Cucumbers are advised to fry quite a bit in a frying pan in vegetable oil, a little sauce over the broth. It is best to stew the onion in butter, adding a couple of tablespoons of ketchup to this mixture.
After that, the time comes to put all the products in one, necessarily a large pan, in which you prudently cooked the broth before that.
A recipe with a photo of a soup a hodgepodge will help you if you are cooking this dish for the first time in your life. Illustrations will help you navigate and do everything right.
Next we send meat and olives to the pan. Cook for a quarter of an hour and only after that pour the spices. Soup hodgepodge meat team (photos of this dish almost always look very appetizing) at this stage you need to let it brew a little. About fifteen minutes. After that, it can be poured on plates.
As you can see, the most time consuming part is the preparation of the broth. Everything else does not require much time. Solyanka is ready, it can be poured on plates.
Before serving, it is recommended to put a slice of lemon in each of the plates, which will give the dish a special attractive acidity. To fill the soup hodgepodge team meat classic is best with a tablespoon of fat sour cream. You can sprinkle with greens on top.
Solyanka in the slow cooker
For many, this may seem unexpected, but you can even cook a hodgepodge in a slow cooker. This will require significantly less cost than with the classic soup recipe hodgepodge meat team. Cooking in a slow cooker is very simple, you do not even need a pan. If you have a multicooker on hand, your actions should be as follows.
All the ingredients that you plan to use must be peeled and cut. If in the classic recipe for soup, the hodgepodge of the team meant to cook or fry them, then in the presence of a slow cooker this can be delayed.
Instead, we set the appropriate mode on the multivark itself, it can be called "Frying" or "Frying", put meat, sausage and vegetables in a bowl. They should be well fried, acquire a characteristic appetizing crust. This usually takes about ten minutes.
After that, change the mode to “Cooking” and fill in a sufficient amount of water or broth in a bowl. Another advantage of the multicooker is that the broth can not be cooked in advance. It can be cooked directly in the process of making hodgepodge. To do this, put meat in water directly to the frying. So you get a real hodgepodge on saturated meat broth. Moreover, it will not be cooked previously, but at the same time with all the other ingredients.
Now we send to the slow cooker all the other ingredients that are provided for in the recipe for soup hodgepodge meat team. This is primarily potatoes, all kinds of pickles and spices. Now tightly close the lid and set the cooking mode again for exactly one hour. As a rule, this is enough.
When the cherished signal sounds, disconnect the multicooker from the network. Most often, in these devices the "Heating" mode is set, which is activated automatically after the end of the main program. Therefore, do not worry that your hodgepodge can cool. It will not happen.
The main thing is to open the lid very carefully. There can be such intense heat under it that you can easily burn your face or hands with jets of hot steam.
The final touch. Get the meat that you cooked directly in the broth for the broth, wait until it cools down and cut into small cubes. After that, pour it again in a bowl with hodgepodge. Your dish is ready, it can be served at the table.
Secrets of a delicious classic hodgepodge
Although the hodgepodge seems at first glance a simple dish, there are several tricks that make it even tastier. Knowing them, you will feel like a real chef.
First, try not to pour out the liquid that remains from the olives, cucumbers and capers. This pickle can serve as an original spice for hodgepodge, which will only decorate the dish. For example, if you use green olives, then you can safely add half a glass of such a brine to the soup. This is guaranteed not to spoil the classic recipe for hodgepodge soup, a photo of which is in the article. You can use a pickle or caper pickle, if they are not pickled. The main thing is not to overdo it. Be sure to try the broth before continuing to cook.
Secondly, do not forget that lemon is added to the hodgepodge after its preparation. You can put the slice directly on the plate. At the same time, almost no one adds lemon during cooking. And this also does not hurt. A quarter of lemon sliced is recommended to put the broth, it will give it astringency, it will decorate your dish, give it a special piquant taste.
Thirdly, it is believed that the best spices for hodgepodge are suneli hops, black pepper, bay leaf and the simplest dill. The latter can be used even in dried form. But overdoing with spices in a hodgepodge is undesirable. A wide variety of different condiments may not be appropriate.
Fourth, like potatoes, a completely optional ingredient in this dish is tomato paste. In the classic recipe you can find not only tomato paste, but also tomatoes, but in reality you can do without them. It is best to use one thing, either pasta or tomatoes fried in a pan. At the same time, if you use fresh tomatoes and tomato concentrate, the taste will be more saturated. It is recommended to monitor the taste during cooking and reduce the proportions of certain ingredients if they begin to seem redundant.
Fifth, it is strongly advised to serve a hodgepodge with a slice of fresh black bread, even slightly dried, or some crackers. So you can appreciate the fullness of the taste of the dishes to which this article is devoted.
Sixth, the obligatory companion of the hodgepodge, without which it can be safely considered imperfect, is sour cream. And most importantly, serving the hodgepodge always needs only hot.
Fish hodgepodge
As we have already noted, in addition to meat hodgepodge, there is a classic recipe for a fish analogue of this dish. To prepare it, the following components are required:
- 500 grams of sea bass;
- 500 grams of slightly salted salmon;
- two onions;
- two tablespoons of vegetable oil;
- three pickles;
- one glass of cucumber pickle;
- three bay leaves;
- one lemon;
- one can of olives;
- 150 grams of capers;
- salt and black pepper to taste.
Cooking process
We start cooking fish hodgepodge with the fact that we cut fresh fish with a sharp knife. The tail and head must be cut off, remove the neat small pieces of fillet from the bones and set them aside for now. Put the bones, tails and head of fresh fish in a pan, it is better to take a deep five-liter one. Pour three liters of water into it.
Bring the water to a boil and cook the broth. Constantly need to remove foam from the surface of the broth. Then it needs to be filtered and poured into another pan, brought to a boil again.
Pour cucumber pickle into a saucepan, bring to a boil and filter through a fine sieve. It is recommended to peel pickles and chop finely.
At the same time, fry the onions in a frying pan, salt and pepper, pour them into the pan to the broth. We put pickles there too. We cut the meat, which was removed from the bones before, into small cubes, and salted salmon we remove from the bones and cut into cubes of the same size.
We throw fresh fish with salmon into the broth, which by that time should boil. Cook over medium heat for about half an hour.
Add marinated capers and olives to the soup, cook for a few more minutes and quickly remove from heat. Serve in deep plates, decorating each serving with a slice of lemon.