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Field soup with millet

Field Soup with Millet

A really tasty, filling soup made with millet and salo (cured pork fat)! This soup used to be made during the hay harvest or other work far from home. The old recipe was even simpler — the onion and salo weren't always fried first. In short, field soup is an old-time dish, and its flavor is sure to please.

Marta

Recipe author

Composition / ingredients

Servings:

Millet

150

Potatoes

Onion

Salo (cured pork fat)

250

Bay leaf

Dill

Salt

Ground black pepper

Translation table of volumetric measures

Nutrients and energy value of the composition of the recipe

By weight of the composition:

Proteins 8 % 3 g

Fats 45 % 18 g

Carbohydrates 48 % 19 g

241 kcal

GI: 58 / 0 / 42

Cooking method

Cooking time: 50 min

Step 1:

Gather the ingredients this recipe calls for. My grandmother taught me how to make millet field soup — she often cooked it out in the field back in her day.
Step 2:

First, bring a pot of water to a boil and pick over the millet. Rinse it several times, then cover it with boiling water — you'll drain this water off later.
Step 3:

Peel and rinse the potatoes, cut them into medium cubes, and rinse them again well to wash off as much of the released starch as possible — that way there'll be less foam when the broth comes to a boil. If you're not adding the potatoes right away, keep them in a bowl of cold water, or they'll darken. In general, it's best to peel potatoes right before cooking (in our case, before adding them to the soup) — at least 10 minutes ahead, no earlier.
Step 4:

Salo with some meat streaks is best — it tastes better. Cut the salo into small cubes, put it in a skillet, and render it for a few minutes.
Step 5:

Peel and chop the onion fairly small. Add it to the skillet with the salo as soon as some fat has rendered out. Cook, stirring, over moderate heat until the onion turns golden and the salo has rendered to the point you want.
Step 6:

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add the rinsed and drained millet along with the onion and salo. When the water boils again, add the potatoes. Skim the foam off the soup, lower the heat, and salt to taste. Cook another 15–20 minutes, until the potatoes are done. At the end of cooking, drop in the bay leaf and ground pepper.

When you serve the soup, sprinkle it with chopped dill and add a spoonful of sour cream. I tried using smoked salo instead of plain. If you don't fry it first, the flavor comes out a little odd, but not bad. A rich, fragrant, hearty field soup with millet, perfect as a first course at lunch. You can make it at home on the stove or outdoors over a campfire in a kettle — either way it comes out delicious!