My Mom’s Russian Salo In Brine Recipe

1. Cut out of raw potato dice 1 cm size. It will be our homemade hydrometer* to measure the concentration of salt for brine.

*Hydrometer is a tool to measure the concentration of salt in water in factories.

2. Add 10 tablespoon of salt to room temperature water. Dissolve salt in water by stirring with a spoon. Add the potato cube to the water. If the potato still covered with water, start adding spoon by spoon more salt gradually. In the recipe in the photo, it took 11 tablespoons.

3. Bring the brine to a boil and add black peppercorns, allspice corns, black pepper, coriander, leaves and dry dill. Boil brine on medium heat for 5 minutes. Put aside and cool off to the room temperature.

4. Wash lard and dry with a paper towel before use. Scribe the surface with a knife, if need it. Cut the lard into smaller pieces, approximately 6cm X 9cm. Slice garlic. Stuff salo with garlic from all sides.

5. Submerge salo in brine. Don’t remove spices from the brine.

6. Cover the salo with a plate on the top, so it completely submerged in the brine.

7. Try salo after 2-3 days, if it is not salty enough, you can keep up to one week salo in brine. Dry out the salo with a paper towel and you can keep it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days without brine. If you going to serve for guests, wrap it in plastic and keep it in the freezer for 1 hour before slice. This simple step helps you to make beautiful slices for the presentation. If you made it in advance for someone, keep it in the freezer for a few months.

So many ways how to eat salo. Here are a few easy ways to serve salo and eat it.

1. We can slice salo into thin slices and serve with green onion or parsley.
2. Salo can be served on the platter with varieties of different salo. For example, smoked salo, covered with paprika, covered with black pepper…
3. We can serve slices of salo on a meat platter with other cold cuts.
4. Cure pork lard is great to serve with hot boiled potatoes sprinkled with green dill – the most common salo pairing in Russia. The fancy way to serve salo with potatoes is to slice 1 cm of boiled potatoes and slightly fry it for crunch. Place slices on the top and serve. Garnish with green onion.
   

   The best garnish to serve salo traditionally is dill pickles, green onion and black pepper.

To serve salo fancy to impress your guests, I am going to share a simple and great recipe. Canape is the way to present this product for people not familiar with this Russian delicacy but willing to try it. Bread Borodinskii you can buy in any Russian or European store in the USA. Of course, you can substitute it for other rye bread. The canapes with salo can be made a day in advance.

*The photos with canapes I made with salted pork that I found at the local store. It can’t be a replacement for Russian or Ukrainian salo!

Read more about bread Borodinskii ⇒ Russian Cooking Glossary A B C D E

I decorated the salo canapes plate with curly flowers made out of the green onion. It is great decor for food but don’t place them on salty surfaces directly. So, if we place directly on the top of pickles on our canapes green onions will be withered and will be not presentable.

Ingredients to make 12 canapes:

2 slices of bread Borodinskii

150g salo

1-2 dill pickles

Green onion

Whole grain mustard or Russian mustard

Black pepper

1. Slice thin salo and pickles.
2. Remove crisp from bread slices for a better appearance. Cut bread slices into six pieces.
3. Spread a layer of mustard on bread.
4. Roll salo and attach to bread with pickle slices on the top. Sprinkle with black pepper.
5. Garnish with green onion or with garlic chives as the last touch.

We can make canapes one day in advance. Keep it in a plastic container layered with a paper towel on the bottom, just in case of some drops from pickles. Cover with a lid.