Solyanka Recipe

Solyanka is a traditional Russian soup, very tasty. This recipe is from cooking site say7.info, translated from Russian.

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 700 g beef
  • 6-10 types of ham, smoked ribs, sausages, salami, hot dogs, small sausages etc. Total weight 1 kg.
  • 150 g carrot
  • 150 g onion
  • 200 g pickled cucumbers
  • 5 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 3 tablespoons capers
  • black pepper
  • 3-4 bay leaves
  • vegetable oil
  • 1 lemon
  • olives to taste
  • dill or parsley

Method


Place beef in a pan. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for one and half hour (on medium, skim off the scum).


Take the meat out, let it cool, chop into small pieces.


Chop onion.


Grate carrot on medium grater.


Dice cucumbers.


Dice or julienne meat items (cervelat, ham, smoked ribs, sausages, salami, hot dogs, small sausages, bacon etc).


Fry meat items slightly on vegetable oil.


Fry onion slightly on vegetable oil.


Add carrot, fry a bit.


Add cucumbers, fry for 2-3 minutes.


Add tomato paste, simmer for 5-7 minutes on low.

If tomato paste is too thick you can add some water.


Add meat items to the boiling stock.


Then add beef. Simmer for 5-7 minutes.


Add few capers to taste.


Add fried onion, carrot and cucumbers.


Add half of cup of cucumber or olive pickle. Simmer for 5-7 minutes more.


Add bay leaves, pepper, dill, parsley.

Add salt if needed. Leave it covered for 15-20 minutes. Remove bay leaves.

Pour soup into bowls. Put lemon and olives into each bowl.

Enjoy!

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March 2008 AusPost rates

New Post Charges Booklet is online on Australia Post web site.

Oddly enough, postage rates for parcels inside Australia didn’t change at all.

International rates have increased by about 3%. It used to cost you $58.50 to send 2 kg parcel to United Kingdom by Air Mail before. Now it costs $60.35.

Summary

Local rates didn’t change. International rates increased insignificantly.

September 2007 rates increase

Australia Post has increased its rates in September 2007. If you open Post Charges Booklet (pdf) you can see these changes:

  Previous rate New rate
Regular post    
Small parcels up to 250 g $3.85 $4.00
Over 250g up to 500g $5.00 $5.20
Basic charge for destinations in the same state $6.70 $6.95
Basic charge for interstate destination $8.45 $8.75
Express post    
Parcels up to 500g $7.20 $7.40
Registered Post $2.60 $2.70

Distance charge has increased for most destinations by 5 or 10 cents per kilogram. International rates for parcels didn’t change.

Summary: rates have increased slightly. Next rate increase will be in March 2008.