I know there will be those who will argue with me, but the main hit of the Soviet catering among soups has always been the hodgepodge. Not borscht in its various variations, not cabbage soup, but a hodgepodge.
No matter how many times we traveled with our parents around the country, wherever we dined, if we ordered or took a hodgepodge, it was delicious. Spicy, slightly sour, not too greasy... And, most importantly, there was no offal in this soup.
Although the technological maps, the presence of by-products, namely kidneys, was implied.
How did it happen?
I suspect due to the complete and radical absence of kidneys in the dish, in fact. Well, or the fact that the chefs were doing their best, trying to give out a tasty product with a minimum of ingredients.
And now we are on a course for authenticity. Because of this authenticity, the broth very often beats with such a "kidney" spirit and flavor that it seems that only offal in this soup is available, nothing else was put in.
Because these notorious kidneys must first be washed and soaked thoroughly, then boiled, and ready-made, with other meat products, introduced into the soup. And certainly not at the stage of cooking the broth.
And the broth in the hodgepodge should not be healthy at all, but real. It was he, first of all, who gave that taste - salivary - to the hodgepodge. Because if you cook it even on water, even on a thin broth, the rest of the ingredients will not "lie down" as they should. Water or liquid broth will not let them fully open, give all the shades.
In the Soviet public catering, they knew how to cook such a broth, oddly enough. And the reason for this was, firstly, a good knowledge of cooking techniques (physics and chemistry of products, because the cooks were taught at that time with high quality), and secondly, oddly enough, there was a shortage. And even the thieving of the authorities.
I have a consultant - a lady who is now over eighty. You will laugh, but she once studied at the Odessa culinary, dreamed of going to the sea as a cook, but... It didn’t grow together.
And so she shared her “secrets”.
First, the bones for the broth must first be baked in the oven. Do not just bake, but until deep brown.
In the second - in the evening they set the broth to cook. These bones (albeit bare) were put into a huge saucepan, topped up with water and put on the stove - fortunately, they were almost electric everywhere. Boil for half an hour or an hour at maximum heat, removing the foam. And then they set the minimum heating possible - so that the broth does not boil or cook, but simply warms up slowly and until morning.
Thirdly, meat products for hodgepodge were not fried, as all technologists advise (and not only advise, but also demand). They were also baked. In the oven. Until brown, but so as not to dry in croutons.
In the USSR, then they hardly knew about umami - the fifth taste, which was identified by a Japanese chemist from the University of Tokyo Kikunae Ikeda at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the cooks saturated the broth with it to the maximum.
Now, alas, thanks to the huge amount of spices, they continue to bother with cooking only in very good and expensive establishments. Well, you can also try it at home - you won't regret it.
Bon Appetit!