Meat Solyanka: Hearty Soup with Smoked Meats and Pickles
Back when I was a kid and got left in my dad's “care”, he'd take me to lunch at a fancy factory canteen, where the star of the soup course was meat solyanka. For some reason it's the solyanka that stuck in my memory: fairly thick, made on meat broth, with milk sausages. And an appetizing thin slice of lemon next to a smear of sour cream. Then again, sour cream was always on the lunch menu.
A good solyanka is made on a rich, hearty, spiced broth. It always has lots of cured meats, barrel pickles, tomato in the vast majority of recipes, and plenty else. As people say, there's a bit of everything in it; that's what solyanka is: a chaotic jumble, and a very tasty one.
I love meat, so meat solyanka is the one for me. Though there are fish and mushroom solyankas too. The crowning glory is mixed solyanka. It always reminds me of the folk pizza recipe: take whatever's in the fridge. That's roughly the recipe. Some believe mixed solyanka was made in villages as a potluck, with everyone adding to the pot whatever they had and could bring.
Long ago, soups didn't use exotic ingredients like olives, capers or lemon, and even tomato turned up in recipes fairly recently. Mixed solyanka used various kinds of meat, onions and braised fermented pickles, sometimes veal kidneys. Mushroom solyankas used fresh, salted and dried mushrooms, almost always including saffron milk caps. Fish solyanka was fish broth or fish soup with “noble” kinds of fish added.
Meat solyanka is quite a rich, tangy dish, and that's the whole point. Solyanka should be filling, whet the appetite and get your body ready for a lavish lunch.
In many ways solyanka is similar to rassolnik. Both soups are considered village cooking. And quite often you'll hear it called “selyanka”, from the word “selo”, village. A remarkable thing about this dish is that you can make the broth ahead and then finish the soup with ingredients that are practically ready and need no cooking. Make a concentrated broth the day before, and the meat solyanka will be ready in half an hour flat, once you add a few kinds of sausage and smoked meats plus a base of tomato and fermented pickles.
Ingredients
4 servings
- Pork 250 g
- Beef 250 g
- Ham 150 g
- Milk sausages (wieners) 2-3
- Smoked bacon 100 g
- Onions 2
- Carrot 1
- Fermented pickles 4-5
- Tomato paste 1 tbsp
- Lemon, olives, capers, sour cream, herbs to taste
- Bay leaves, pepper to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- They say solyanka should be made with 4-5 kinds of meat. For a concentrated broth, pick veal brisket with cartilage and pork ribs. That guarantees a wonderfully rich broth and plenty of boiled meat. To fry the onions and pickles without extra fat, go for smoked bacon or ham you can render a little fat from. And, of course, the essentials: milk sausages and ham.
- For the final stage you'll need a few extra ingredients. First, capers: the salted or pickled buds of a Mediterranean shrub, often used as a pizza topping. Second, a few slices of lemon and a handful of pitted olives. And third, fermented or salt-brined pickles. Not vinegar-pickled, but fermented, and firm, not soft.
- Put the meat for the broth, pork and beef, in a pot and pour in 1.5 liters of cold water. Put the pot on the heat and bring to a boil. Be sure to skim off all the foam, and there may be a lot of it. This matters, or the broth will be cloudy.
- Next, add a peeled carrot and one onion, peeled and cut crosswise into the broth. Simmer the broth for at least 1.5 hours at a very gentle simmer. The liquid should barely bubble, just “stir”. Never let it boil hard.
- Remove the rind from the smoked ham or bacon and cut into small cubes. Fry the bacon in a dry, not-too-hot skillet, stirring constantly. You want the fat to render out; you'll need it to fry the other ingredients. Lift the fried bacon cubes out of the fat onto a saucer and set aside.
- Peel the second onion and dice it. Fry the onion in the rendered fat until nicely golden. Try not to let it brown too much; it's enough for the onion to soften and start to change color. Peel the fermented pickles and cut them into large cubes. Add the pickles to the onion and fry for 4-5 minutes.
- Add a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste. Stir together the onion, pickles and tomato, add 1-2 ladles of broth and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, take the carrot and onion out of the broth; they're not used in this dish. Take out all the meat and let it cool a little. Pull the meat off the bones and cartilage and cut it into cubes. Remove the rind from the ham, if it has any. Peel the plastic casing off the sausages. Cut the sausages and ham into small slices or strips, as you like.
- Add the tomato, onion and pickle base to the meat broth. Bring to a boil and cook for 8-10 minutes. Season with pepper to taste. Homemade solyanka isn't salted: the fermented pickles and smoked meats give the dish plenty of salt, and we don't want it oversalted.
- Add all the cut meat to the pot of broth: pork, beef, sausages, ham. Add the fried bacon you set aside. Bring to a boil and cook for 3-5 minutes.
- Take the pot off the heat and add 2-3 bay leaves. Let the soup stand and steep for at least 10 minutes. Then discard the bay leaves.
- Ladle into bowls, dividing the meat evenly. Add 0.5 tsp capers to each, plus pitted olives, black or green, halved or sliced. Add a thin slice of lemon; ideally cut the zest off. Sprinkle with herbs, add sour cream and serve right away.
- If you like, add some finely chopped green onion. You can also finish cooking the solyanka in a ceramic pot in the oven or a masonry stove. But, and this matters, any cooking must be done before adding the olives, capers and any herbs.
- Homemade solyanka is an amazing soup, hearty and tasty. Don't add extra spices: the aroma and flavor of the smoked meats create an unbeatable combination on their own.
| Serves: | 4 servings |
| Calories: | 68 |
| Prep: | 2 h |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 2 h 30 mins |
| Category: | Soups |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
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4.7
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