Which mushrooms to choose
Lenten pickle can be cooked with fresh, frozen or dried mushrooms. If no special questions arise regarding dried foods - what exists is fine - then the rest are worth talking about separately. Nowadays, the most popular mushrooms are champignons. They can be bought in the store in any season. However, this is not the best choice in this case. After all, we will cook Lenten pickle. This means that we will not be able to use meat broth, which gives the soup flavor and aroma. And it needs to be replaced with something. Greenhouse champignons have a very weak aroma, which means the broth will be unsaturated. Therefore, it is better to prefer wild mushrooms.
During the season you can take chanterelles, aspen boletuses, boletus mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, saffron milk caps, boletus mushrooms, and moss mushrooms. In other words, the mushrooms you have are good. And yet, Lenten soup turns out to be especially aromatic with chanterelles, boletus or porcini mushrooms.
During the off-season, you can use the forest products frozen from the summer-autumn. And if you couldn’t make such preparations, it doesn’t matter. Frozen mushrooms are sometimes found in stores.
If you only have champignons at your disposal, let’s try to make them a little more flavorful. To do this, you need to cut them (into slices or as follows: cut in half, each half in half again and the resulting pieces in half again), place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees without oil or other fat. After these steps, your pickle with mushrooms will be much more flavorful. Or you can bake some of the mushrooms and leave some raw. This will give the dish an even more interesting taste.
You can combine dry and fresh mushrooms in the soup. The broth is cooked using dried ones, and fresh ones are added later. You can fry them a little before adding them to the soup.
Preparing Lenten pickle
There are different versions of pickle: with buckwheat, rice and other cereals. And we will prepare the traditional one - with pearl barley.
Number of servings: 8-10.
Cooking time: 60 minutes.
Ingredients:
- 2 liters of water;
- 200-300 grams of fresh/frozen mushrooms (or 50-60 grams of dried);
- 2-3 potatoes;
- 1 carrot;
- 1 onion;
- 2-3 pickled cucumbers;
- 1/2 cup pearl barley;
- a little cucumber pickle (a quarter or half a glass);
- 1-2 bay leaves;
- vegetable oil;
- peppercorns;
- salt.
Let's start preparing Lenten pickle
- First, let's deal with the pearl barley: rinse it and cook until tender (20-40 minutes). To make it cook faster, you need to soak it in advance for several hours/overnight.
- While the pearl barley is cooking, let's take care of the mushrooms. If you took fresh mushrooms, if necessary, peel them, wash them, cut them into small pieces, add water, bring to a boil, and then cook for 15-20 minutes. We do the same with frozen ones, only they no longer need to be washed and cleaned. But the dry ones are doused with boiling water, washed, and soaked overnight. Then boil in the same water for 20-30 minutes. You can cook in new, fresh water, but this will affect the aroma.
- Place the potatoes cut into cubes or cubes into the boiling mushroom broth. Let it cook for 7 minutes.
- Sauté chopped onion and carrot slices in vegetable oil. Add to the soup. We will cook for another 7-8 minutes.
- Then add finely chopped or grated pickles, spices and add pearl barley to the soup. Pour in the brine. We will cook for another 5-7 minutes.
- Lenten pickle is ready. Try it, maybe you need to add more salt?
In addition to the classic recipe for rassolnik with meat, barley and pickles, there are many other variations of this delicious soup. For example, the option that I will prepare today is Lenten pickle with mushrooms (dry) and pickled cucumber. Try treating your family to this hearty and aromatic soup, and my detailed recipe and step-by-step photos will help you prepare it.
Rassolnik with pearl barley
Rassolnik with pearl barley
- one of the classic versions of pickle.
Read more about pickle with barley
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First course recipes → Rassolnik → Rassolnik with pearl barley
Traditional Russian soup - rassolnik with pearl barley. Of course, rassolnik is also cooked with rice, but real classic rassolnik is still cooked with pearl barley. We offer two options for preparing pickle soup.
A simple recipe for pickle with barley. A very meaty option.
A famous Russian dish based on the use of pickles and brine.
Rassolnik is a very popular soup, the main ingredients of which are pickles and brine. I suggest preparing pickle with pearl barley according to the classic recipe. We will prepare pickle soup in a slow cooker.
I'm having pickle soup for lunch today. Maybe you'll like it, with chicken.
Rassolnik is a classic soup of Russian and Soviet cuisine. Anyone who doesn’t know what rassolnik is has never lived in Russia. Rich, meat broth-based soup with pickles and barley was and remains popular with everyone who understands real soups.
For me, rassolnik is one of those soups that reminds me of a fun and carefree student life. Previously, there was always pickle in the dining room
