Another hit of Soviet canteens is hodgepodge soup. For its impressive set of ingredients, it is called the national team. It is also a good set of flavors: sourness from tomatoes, sweetness from fried onions in oil, salt from gherkins. The broth with a thin, greasy film achieves richness thanks to the fatty beef on the bone and smoked sausages.
Ingredients
Beef – 150 g
Onions – 1 head
Carrots – 100 g
Pelati tomatoes – 500 g
Gherkins – 60 g
Boiled ham – 400 g
Capers – 60 g
Olives – 12 pieces
Butter – 25 g
Olives – 12 pieces
Lemon – 4 pieces
Sugar – 10 g
Parsley – 10 g
Sour cream – 4 tablespoons
Bay leaf – 2 pieces
Salt to taste
Black peppercorns – to taste
Beef bones – 400 g
Veal sausages – 400 g
Cooking instructions
Coarsely chop the carrots and lightly grill together with half a large onion. Put vegetables in a saucepan, add meat and bone, pour 1.5 liters of water and after boiling, cook for an hour and a half until the meat is ready. About five minutes until ready to throw the bay leaf and peppercorns.
Remove the meat and set aside to cool. If it was on the bone, then when it cools down, cut it off. Strain the broth. Chop the remaining onions – the smaller the better.
Put the canned tomatoes pelati (that is, without the skin and in their own juice) in a suitable dish and turn into puree with a blender. You can use tomato paste, but it won’t be as tasty.
Cut the butter into small pieces and melt in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until golden brown. The taste of the hodgepodge depends on the onion: if the onion is undercooked, then the taste of undercooked onion will be noticeable in the soup. The main task is to evaporate moisture from it and caramelize the sugar it contains.
Put tomato puree in a saucepan, mix thoroughly. Cover and simmer for twenty minutes. Cut the gherkins (or just pickles) into small cubes and boil them in a small saucepan – within twenty minutes after boiling, so they will not be too hard.
Cut ham, sausages and boiled meat into small cubes. In general, you can use everything that can be found in the fridge for meat and sausage.
Bring the broth to a boil, put onion and tomato puree in it. When it all boils again, add the meat, sausages and ham, as well as the gherkins and capers. Keep on fire for five minutes, bring to taste with salt and sugar. If the tomatoes are very sweet, then you can do without sugar. And instead of salt – use liquid from capers or olives.
Put pitted olives and olives and lemon wedges into plates. Pour the hodgepodge, add a spoonful of sour cream and some finely chopped parsley.
