Now let’s cook
In solyanka the pickled cucumbers and their brine bring the sourness, so the lemon only reaches the bowl, and then as a wedge.
Ingredients
- 500 g beefthe meat of domestic cows, bulls and oxen
- 3000 ml waterplain tap water
- 10 black peppercornswhole dried berries, not ground
- 200 g hunter sausagessemi-smoked, made of pork and beef with back fat
- 200 g hamcured pork leg (less often shoulder), cooked or smoked
- 300 g onionbulb onion: the bulbs are peeled and cut
- 2 tbsp vegetable oilmade from plant seeds or fruit
- 2 tbsp tomato pastesieved tomatoes cooked down to a thick paste
- 4 pickled cucumbersfermented in brine for several weeks or more
- 250 ml cucumber brinethe sour liquid left after fermenting
- 4 g saltfine table salt
- 200 g olivesthe fruit of an evergreen subtropical tree
- 1 lemona citrus fruit
- 96 g sour creamthick soured cream made from cream and a starter culture
Method
Rinse 500 g of bone-in beef, put it in a large pot and pour in 3 l of cold water. Bring to the boil and skim off the foam. Turn the heat down to its lowest and simmer uncovered for 1½–2 hours, adding 10 black peppercorns for the last half hour. Simmer until the beef is cooked through: at least 63 °C in the thickest piece. Cut into the thickest piece: if the middle is pink or raw, put it back in the broth, cook it longer and check again.
Lift the beef out of the broth, let it cool a little, take it off the bones and cut it into small pieces. Add a little broth to the beef and keep it for no longer than two hours, until you put it back in the soup. If it has to wait longer, put the beef in the fridge. Strain the broth.
Cut 200 g of hunter sausages and 200 g of ham into strips or cubes.
Slice 300 g of onion. Heat 2 tbsp of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the onion over a medium heat for 10 minutes, until golden. Add 2 tbsp of tomato paste, stir and cook for another 2–3 minutes.
Grate 4 pickled cucumbers on the coarse side of a grater, add them to the onion and cook for 5–7 minutes.
Bring the strained broth to the boil. Add the fried onion with the cucumbers, the cut beef, sausages and ham, pour in 250 ml of cucumber brine and add 4 g of salt. Cook for 15 minutes, until steam rises from the cut face of the largest pieces of sausage and ham: at least 74 °C in the middle of the pieces. To check, lift out the largest piece of each with a slotted spoon and cut it: if there is no steam, put the pieces back in the soup, cook longer and check again.
Add 200 g of olives, bring the soup to the boil and turn off the heat. Cover the pot and leave the solyanka for at least 20 minutes.
Cut 1 lemon into 8 wedges. Ladle the solyanka into bowls and put a lemon wedge and a spoonful of sour cream in each (96 g in all).
Where this dish comes from
Solyanka is an old Russian soup. It is thick and made of many ingredients. In Russian the word “solyanka” also means a muddle.
