Brine
Used in 3 recipes on RecipeWiki.
The brine on this page is the salty, cloudy liquid from a jar of salted cucumbers, used as an ingredient in its own right. It tastes sour and salty, often with dill and garlic in the background, and a splash sharpens a soup or dressing the way lemon juice would, with more savour. Russian cooking leans on it: Rassolnik takes its name from the Russian word for brine, and it helps give Solyanka its sour backbone. The best brine comes from naturally fermented, salt-cured cucumbers rather than sweet vinegar pickles, which can make a soup taste sugary. Add it gradually and taste as you go, because jars vary a great deal in saltiness.
Most often cooked with
Brined cucumber
Dill
Onion
Bay leaf
Carrot
Ham
Potato
Soured creamRecipes with brine
Olivier Salad
Potato, egg, pea and pickle in mayonnaise, cut to an even dice and dressed only once everything is properly cold.
Potatoes
Russian
Side dishes
Rassolnik
Barley and pickled cucumber soup, sharpened at the end with the pickle brine itself rather than with vinegar.
Soups
Solyanka
A thick sour-salty soup of mixed cured meats, brined cucumbers, olives and lemon, built on their brine as much as stock.
Tomatoes