Kotletiy (Picture)

Tonight's dinner: Kotleti.

You can see from the oil-soaked paper towel they are a bit of an indulgence. We don't have them all that often, but I like it when we do. With these we just had some chopped cucumber and tomato. We used a little spicy mustard with them as well.

You can find the recipe here.

Prunes Topped with Cream

I'm a bad, bad blogger. I have so many cool things to post about, but I don't ever seem to have enough time. But tonight I made this easy dessert that was so fast, I figured that writing a blog post about it would be fast, too. So basically, there was no excuse not to!

This is a Russian dessert that I first had at one of the several New Year's parties I attended in Ukraine. However, I find it remarkable that this could just as easily be French, as it features two French favorites: prunes and crème fraîche. That's basically like sour cream, but a little bit more mild.

I think this dessert is also fairly healthy, but beware that I find it really hard to stop at just one piece!

Ingredients:
12 prunes
12 walnut halves
~1/4 c crème fraîche (substitute full-fat sour cream)
1 T of sugar (can add more or less to taste)

Method:
Mix the cream with the sugar really well. If it's too sour, add a little more sugar. It shouldn't be super sweet though, it's going to balance the sweetness of the prunes. If your prunes are already pitted (stoned? Sounds weird.) then you're more than halfway finished. If they're not, take the stones out. Make a slice down the prune and just wiggle it out until it gives up. Tuck a walnut half inside each prune, and arrange them on a plate. Top them evenly with the cream and sugar mixture. Done!

Notes and Serving Suggestions: This recipe is so fast, especially if your prunes are ready. It is easily expanded as well, for a party or something. If you do this for a party, maybe poke a toothpick in them. They're really great with tea! I think of this as a dessert, but I think it would also be a cool hors d'oeuvre or tapas style food item.

Vinagret

The main part of today's lunch is pictured here: pelmeni (Siberian meat dumplings) and vinagret. Vinagret and olivier are what I think of as the "Big Two" of Russian salads. Both are extremely classic, everyone knows them, and you probably won't go to a Russian party or holiday celebration where they aren't present.

Even though everyone knows them, of course everyone has their own way of preparation. And of course, everyone is surprised to find out when someone else makes one of these salads differently, as they are "classics" for which the preparation is set in stone. ;-)

Here is how I've made it, which I believe is a pretty standard preparation. At least, my boyfriend proclaimed that it was "a real one."

Ingredients:
1 medium to large beet
1 large potato, boiled and peeled
1 large dill pickle (like this), or 2-3 smaller sized (baby dills)
1/2 a medium apple
1.5 c kvashennaya kapusta (or substitute drained sauerkraut)
1.5 c canned or jarred peas (you could use cooked frozen ones, but for some reason I've always liked the taste of canned peas)
A couple of tablespoons of oil (we use a mix of sunflower and olive, and it's tasty)

Method:
Boil the potato and the beet. Peel them. I usually boil first and then peel. It's easy, and the vegetables retain more nutrients and taste. (Experimentally verified!) It's best to do this in advance, if they are cooled off they are easier to chop into nice little cubes.

Everything except the cabbage and peas will be chopped into smallish cubes (in the neighborhood of .25"x.25" to .5"x.5"). Start with the beet and potato. Add them to a salad bowl. Salt just a little bit. You'll be adding other salty things (pickle, cabbage) so don't add too much, but the beet and potato should get a little salt of their own. Chop the apple and pickle(s) into small cubes. Drain the peas. Add these things to the salad. Now add the cabbage (or sauerkraut). Drizzle the salad with the vegetable oil, and stir well.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: This is probably my favorite Russian salad. I love all the ingredients separately and together they're awesome. Plus, there's no meat or mayonnaise! (Well, some people add herring. And some people use mayonnaise. See the intro to this post.)

This is great as an appetizer or part of an appetizer course, or, as we had today, as sort of a side dish.

Kvashennaya Kapusta

This is the fermented cabbage we made this weekend. It's kind of like magic. The first day you don't want to eat it, but of course you try a little bit out of curiosity, and it is insanely salty. I kept asking my BF, "Are you sure we didn't add too much salt? Are you sure?" And he'd just respond, "Don't worry, you can't spoil this with too much salt!" I had my doubts. But then the fermentation actually happened, and it turned into the sour cabbage that I remembered eating in Ukraine.

Ingredients:
2 medium/large heads of white winter cabbage*
2-3 medium carrots
about 5 pieces dried horseradish**
A LOT of salt

*Using the winter kind, which is white and sort of flatter, is important because the leaves are firmer. I think it may still be tasty with regular cabbage, but the texture is better with the winter one.
**This is optional but I strongly recommend it! Each of the dried horseradish pieces I have is about .25"x.25". I'm sure you can substitute fresh, but it's probably stronger, so use less in that case.

Method:
Wash the cabbage, wash and peel the carrots. Grate the carrots on your grater's rough setting. Shred the cabbage (like for coleslaw or other salad). In a large vessel (I use a wide, deep bowl, like this but about 2-3x as deep), put a few handfuls of cabbage and carrots, then add a lot of salt. Sprinkle liberally all over the cabbage. Now, scrunch the cabbage and carrots with your hands, really work the salt in there. Toss in a piece of the horseradish. Add the next layer, a few more handfuls of the cabbage and carrots, and repeat. When you have exhausted all your vegetables, they're all in the bowl and thoroughly scrunched with salt, put a weight of some kind on the cabbage. We put a salad plate on top of the cabbage, and then a large pickle jar filled with water on top of the plate. Let it sit at room temperature for 2-3 days.

Ours took about 2.5 days before it wasn't salty anymore, but nice and sour. The cabbage should still have crunch, but it's softer. There will be a lot of liquid in the bowl, too. Keep it, it's tasty. And while the cabbage is sitting at room temperature, you don't have to worry about stirring or anything. If the liquid rises above the veggies that's fine.

Once the cabbage has fermented, keep it in a cool place, like the refrigerator, or outside (like we do) if it's cold enough.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I really love this stuff. We made that huge bowl of it this weekend, and it's over half way finished! To serve it, put some cabbage in a serving bowl. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, sprinkle with a teaspoon or two of sugar (to taste), and mix well. Let sit for a few minutes then serve. You can also add herbs, such as dill, and sometimes people add chopped apples. Served as a salad, or as a side dish.

Shuba (Herring in a Fur Coat)

The finished salad with a portion removed

There are many versions of how to layer this salad, but this is the one my BF's mom uses. The salad is shaped into a dome or elongated dome on the plate. But if I ever get around to having a dinner party, I want to make mine look like a fish. These ingredients will make a small salad that fits on a dinner plate. That means 4 big servings or 8 small ones. (A small serving would be enough if you had other salads/appetizers, but a big one is good if this is the only salad.)

Ingredients:
135 g salted herring fillets (I used ones with 4% salt) (bones removed)
1/2 a large beet
1 medium sized potato
1 small onion
2 hard boiled eggs
1/4 c mayonnaise

Method:
Boil the beet and potato until they are soft. You can peel first and then boil, but I like to boil and then peel (I've heard it makes the vegetables tastier and more nutritious). Boil the eggs. Keeping everything separate: Grate the potato on the fine grater setting and the beet on the course one. Chop the onion extremely fine. Chop the herring into pretty fine pieces, too. When the eggs are done, peel and chop them (yes, you guessed it, into pretty fine pieces).

Now the layering. Spread a very thin layer of mayo on the plate, where you will make the salad. Cover that layer with all the herring. Cover the herring with all the onion. Next comes the potato, then the egg. Now, you should have sort of a dome made from these layers. Cover the whole dome with the rest of the mayo, and then put the beet all over the mayonnaise.

Me with the finished product:


Notes and Serving Suggestions: This salad seems to be an obligatory part of the new year's table. It often shows up
on festive occasions in general. Served usually as an appetizer or part of a large salad/appetizers course, but I find it filling enough to be the main part of a light dinner. Also, all that mayo isn't so bad distributed throughout the whole thing. :-)

New Year

I just got back from Ukraine. It was so fun, and my first time celebrating New Year Russian style. New Year is the main holiday in Russia and in many former soviet countries, including Ukraine.

One of the most important aspects (the aspect?) of celebrating is the novagodniy stol (New Year's Table). This is the dinner table, laid out with tons of different zakuski (appetizers), salat (salads) etc, etc. Sometimes all food for the meal is laid out at once on the table, other times the starters are on the table, and then hot food comes out of the kitchen, and then more hot food, and then of course, tea and dessert!

We saw 4 different New Year's tables on this visit. I don't know if I can even remember everything that I ate, but here's my best attempt at a list. Recipes for some of these to come. I've given some links to my favorite Russian cooking website. It's in Russian but there are pictures, too.

Salati (Salads):
-Shuba (Herring in a Fur Coat, ours had the beets on top)
-Kapusta (Preserved Cabbage with Horseradish)
-Mimosa (Fish and Egg)
-Olivier (very classic one, mostly potatoes)
-Vinagret (very classic, it has beets)
-Grated carrots with garlic
-"Korean" spicy carrots (posted about these before)
-"Happy New Year" salad
-Green salad topped with radish and red caviar
-Crab and corn salad

Zakuski (Appetizers):
-Kalbasa (Salami)
-Eggplant caviar
-Buterbrot C Ikroi (Buttered bread with red caviar)
-Olives
-Fried pieces of white fish
-Fried pieces of veal
-Stuffed goose's neck
-Holodyets (meat in gelatin)
-Pechenochniy Tort (non-sweet cake made from liver)
-Fried chicken cutlets
-Salted fish (trout, some tasty white one I don't know, salmon)
-Homemade prunes (delicious)
-Homemade conserved tomatoes
-Marinated mushrooms
-Salmon and cheese rolls
-Stuffed mushrooms
-Quince fried with sugar
-Preserved apples

Hot dishes or Main dishes:
-Boiled and salted goose (this is a Tatar dish and DELICIOUS)
-Belyash
-Pelmeni served with Georgian plum sauce
-Braised meat with quince and potatoes
-Cooked duck with apples
-Broth (from goose)
-Plov (with chicken)
-Indian spicy potatoes (I made these)
-A baked chicken stuffed with bread stuffing, American style (but with Russian flavors...dill, parsley, celery root, carrots, parsley root, tarragon, onion and garlic). Everyone was amazed by the idea of stuffing a chicken with bread!

Desserts:
-Thick blini (made with yeast)
-Kievskiy Tort
-Bannaniy Tort
-Tiramisu (not like it's Italian namesake, but good)
-Some tasty jam cookies
-Lots of honey straight from the dacha
-Pineapple
-Homemade jams (cherry, raspberry)

Drinks:
-Balsam from Bashkortostan
-Balsam from Tatarstan
-French white wine and Champagne (our gift)
-White wine from Crimea (BAD)
-Red wine from Crimea (not half bad)
-"Champagne" from Odessa (pretty good)
-Vodka
-Samagon (homemade alcohol) from honey
-Kompot

You know what, I'm sure I've forgotten something! But that's a lot, isn't it? I hope I can manage to find the recipes for more of those things, because they were all really tasty.

Also, this new year I managed to make my first good toast in Russian. I had tried twice before, but this time, I finally managed a really good one.

Kotletiy

These are Russian hamburger patties/meatballs. They are simple, fast and extremely delicious, especially with mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:
1 small onion
50 g bread, stale is ok
Milk enough to soak the bread (~1/3 c)
About 400 g ground beef
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying onions (just a little) and patties (a lot, enough for shallow frying)
Flour for dredging

Method:
Let the bread soak up all the milk. It should be soft enough to just be mush, like oatmeal consistency. While it's soaking, fry the onion, diced. I let the onion get a little brown. Mix the bread, onion and beef very well. You should be able to form balls, but they will be a little sticky. Dredge the balls in flour, shaking off excess. Fry in the oil a few minutes each side, till just almost cooked all the way through. Let them drain on a paper towel on a plate, they will finish cooking with carry-over heat.

Notes: I love these! The salting is tricky, I'd rather undersalt than oversalt. We've had a batch both ways, and well, you can always add, but you can't take away.

Seriving Suggestion: The best with mashed potatoes, also good with bread. They are tasty cold but I prefer them warm and juicy. I even chopped up leftovers and put it on top of a plain frozen pizza; that was delicious.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

This was an attempt to recreate a dish that is sold in markets across the former Soviet Union. I had it in Ukraine, and got a craving for it in a bad way a few nights ago. But Switzerland is not the FSU, so if you want spicy "Korean" carrots here, you have to make them yourself. That is a problem, because it is a closely guarded secret. It's not an actual Korean dish, but those of Korean descent in the FSU who know how to make it don't tell anyone the recipe. There are, however, a lot of recipes on the internet, and I figured that they were all similar enough that the basic approach must be right.

The carrots in the market are sold in looong strips. I think they use one of these. Since I don't have one of those, I had to settle for attempting to julienne my carrots. Since I'm not a chef, and carrots are hard, I had to settle for thicker carrot sticks.

Spicy "Korean" Carrots

Ingredients:
2 very large carrots, 1 small one
1 small white onion
1 big clove of garlic
1.5 T vegetable oil
1 T powdered coriander
1.5 T chili powder*
2 t sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Salt to taste

*Note: My chili powder is mixed with a few other spices (oregano?!) and is a bit weak. You can adjust this based on your ingredients and your taste.

Method:
Cut the carrots into as close to a julienne as you can, or use a vegetable slicer of some kind. They shouldn't be shredded though. Slice the onion into thin half rings, and chop the garlic. Warm the oil in a large skillet. Add the onion, fry until translucent, soft and fragrant. Push the onions to one side, make sure there's enough oil pooled on the other side so you don't have to add more (we want to keep the fat down to some extent). This may mean tilting the pan slightly to get some on that other side. Once you have some warm oil on the opposite side of the onions, add the spices to it. Make sure that all the chili powder and coriander is immersed in the oil, let it fry for some seconds, it should smell really spicy. Add the garlic to the pan, and mix every thing together. Turn the heat down as low as it goes, add the carrots, the sugar, the lemon and the salt. Toss the carrots really well in the spice mix. Let them cook for a few minutes, you may need to keep tossing them so the spices don't burn and so they cook evenly. They should be still a bit crunchy when you serve them.

Notes: In recipes I've seen online they use vinegar, not lemon. But I had half a lemon, so guess what went in, and guess what tasted good? Also, in the real recipe the carrots aren't cooked. They sit in the marinade for a long time. But I cooked them because I was really hungry and couldn't wait. I think it especially worked out because I had thicker carrots. The flavor was close enough to the real thing to satisfy a craving. I think it would be even closer if I didn't cook the carrots and had really nice and thinly cut ones.

Serving suggestion: This was part of a dinner that included frozen and microwaved spinach souffle and perfectly boiled eggs (thank you, boyfriend!). I think they'd make a really good side dish to poultry or pork. Or even hamburgers, come to think of it.

Schi

This is a traditional Russian cabbage and potato soup. It's not the fanciest, there are others that are more interesting. But it's hearty and warm and good anyway! Some versions are made with sauerkraut instead of plain cabbage, adding a sour/tangy taste. That's pretty common in Russian soups, to add pickled vegetables or a little vinegar and sugar for a special flavor. I haven't seen that in schi recipes using regular cabbage, but I add a little pickle brine to mine because I like it.

Ingredients:
4 qts beef stock*
2 large potatoes
1/2 small head of cabbage
1 onion
1 T sunflower oil
2 medium carrots
1 medium tomato
Few T pickle brine
Salt to taste

Stock:
Stock is very easy to make. In a large pot, place meat, an onion (halved), a carrot (halved), a few cloves of garlic (whole), couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns (I use a mix of black and white peppers and allspice). Bring to a boil, let simmer until meat is tender. This will depend on your cut of meat, but generally longer time = more tender meat + tastier stock. I let mine go for about 3 hours usually. Meat with a bone gives better stock.

Method:
Remove the meat from the stock and set aside. Bring the stock up to a boil and add the potatoes (peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes). Chop the cabbage. I like to chop it thickly, instead of shredding it, for this soup. After the potatoes have been in about 15 minutes, add the cabbage. Warm the oil in a saucepan. Cut the onion into half-rings and saute in the oil. After a couple of minutes add the carrot (shredded). When it's all soft, add the chopped tomato. Once the tomato is cooked, remove the saucepan from heat. After the cabbage has been boiling about 30 minutes, add the contents of the saucepan to the soup. Add the brine to the soup and salt to taste. At this point you can also chop the meat and put in the soup, but I prefer to serve the boiled meat separately, on the side. Let flavors combine on a simmer for about 15 minutes. Serve.

Notes: This tastes better the next day, after the flavors have mixed even more. I have no idea why tomatoes are included in a traditionally winter time soup, but they are! I've seen recipes that use chicken and chicken broth, if you prefer. To make this vegetarian, I would just use a nice vegetable broth.

Serving Suggestion: My boyfriend claims that this is one of the few Russian soups that is not usually eaten with sour cream. He qualifies this by saying that "of course" a person CAN add it if they want. Put chopped greens (dill, parsley) on top of the soup just before serving.

Insane Lemon Saffron Cake

I found this recipe here, while looking for a recipe for a cake using fromage blanc. (That will come later, I hope.) The horoshaya kukhniya (good cook) site is one of my favorites, and the recipe sounded cool, so I thought I'd give it a try. The site is in Russian.

Oh, and I'm calling it "insane" because 1) the lemon flavor is really strong, 2) it is very sweet. You'll need a cup of tea with this. It's not bad, but for my personal taste it was too sweet. My BF must have liked it though, because he ate a bunch of it. So nice to have someone other than myself to test these things on!

Insane Lemon Cake
Adapted from the "Simple Lemon Cake" at horoshaya kukhniya

Ingredients:
For cake:
3 eggs (the ones I have are small)
1/2 glass of sugar
2/3 glass of flour
1.5 tea spoons baking powder
lemon zest to taste
a generous pinch of saffron

For syrup:
3/4 cup of sugar
juice of 4 lemons
1 t honey

*A note about measurements: in Russian recipes it's quite common to see units of a "glass", a "tea spoon" and a "soup spoon" or "big spoon". The glass corresponds roughly to 1 cup. The tea spoon and soup/big spoon correspond roughly to a standard teaspoon and tablespoon, respectively. Perhaps the Russian spoon measurements are slightly bigger, in my opinion. I'm not sure if it's true, but I think that this comes from a time when there was considerably less variety amongst people's belongings--like silverware and glassware. Under those circumstances, saying "a glass of sugar" works just fine.

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (roughly 350 Fahrenheit). In a bowl, beat the eggs with the 1/2 glass (cup) of sugar. When well combined, stir in (carefully) the zest, saffron, flour and baking powder. When everything is incorporated, pour the batter (which will be thick) into a cake pan. It's better to use a deep pan if you have one. When the cake is firm and golden brown on the top, take it out. This will probably be about 40 minutes. Let the cake cool, and meanwhile prepare the syrup. I cheated and stuck my cake in the freezer while I made the syrup, so I didn't have to wait for it to cool very long. For the syrup, combine the lemon juice, sugar and honey. Heat on low until sugar is dissolved and a syrup is formed. This syrup should be poured over the cake. I cut off a bit of the top of the cake (so it was flat) to expose a more porous surface before pouring the syrup on top. This was because I didn't have a deep pan, and if I had done otherwise the syrup would've gone everywhere. Once the syrup has soaked into the cake, serve.

Notes: The original recipe called for tumeric, but I thought that sounded strange, so I added saffron instead. This made it smell great. This cake is really sweet and rich with the syrup. Without it is a bit hard, dry and not very sweet. So, it needs to soak in something, but I think this syrup is too much. What sounds good to me, coming from an Indian background, is some sort of lightly sweetened milk. The original recipe's syrup calls just for lemon and sugar. I added a bit of honey because I thought it was too sour, but then I tasted it and realized that it was already on the verge of too sweet, so to mellow things out I added some water instead of more honey. Adding water is what the original recipe suggests.

Next time I make this I'm going to try to soak it in something else, and maybe leave the lemon flavor out entirely. My idea is to basically make the saffron cake, but add some pistachios. Then, instead of syrup, I will mix some cold milk with Rooh Afza and pour that over the cake instead. Hmm, why didn't I think of that an hour ago?

Serving Suggestion: You must have tea with this. Otherwise it's impossible.

Kvass-Okroshka Update

The Wasa kvass I blogged about turned out alright. When I shook my Snapware container, there was a little, well, not explosion, but leakage. Violent leakage, I guess you could call it. It wasn't unpleasant to drink, but it wasn't something I'd elect to drink if I had other options. It was more like beer than kvass, actually. Homemade kvass isn't as sweet as the store bought stuff, but this was not sweet at all. I think I added too much yeast, and that they ate all the sugar.

However, the kvass was perfectly fine for making Okroshka, which I did do.

And then I made kvass again, using Vollkornbrot, a dense German rye bread that is (very important) sold presliced. Remember, I'm lazy. Oh, and I also bought a 1.5 L glass jar with a screw-top lid to avoid leakage.

I baked the slices of bread, and this time followed directions a bit more closely. I still think there was too much yeast though, because even though this one was better, it still wasn't quite sweet enough. Oh, and I left out the mint, I prefer the taste without it.

So then, I made Okroshka again, using the new kvass. VERY DELICIOUS. We also drank the new kvass, but I dissolved a little sugar in a little water first and we sweetened it with that before drinking.

I also have made Okroshka several times using elben, which is the closest we have here to kefir. It's kind of like a thin kefir. Very similar to ayran, but no salt added. That was very good too.

So, why no Okroshka recipe?

I've been waiting till I take a picture of the stuff, but I just keep eating it as soon as it's served. Seriously, I haven't remembered till after the fact!

Ok, next time, I WILL take a picture. Next time meaning, the next heat wave we get around here (probably around July).

Kvass

Kvass is a fermented beverage from rye bread. It's tasty, carbonated, refreshing, and just very slightly alcoholic (not enough to be sold as an alcoholic beverage). As I write, I am making kvass from Wasa bread. Am I brilliant, or just insane? We don't know (my boyfriend chastises me every time I try to open the container to taste, "It's not ready yet!"). I have snuck a few tastes and so far I am going with brilliant. It isn't exactly the best kvass for drinking, but I really don't care about that because the only reason I made it is so I can have some Okroshka. Which I have been craving for almost a year. It's a cold Russian soup, and now that it's getting quite warm here, I really want some.

And thus, we are making kvass from Wasa. Because it takes several days, and several days ago we didn't have rye bread. Here's what I did (notes on possible improvements at the end):

Wasa Bread Kvass

Ingredients:

Container that is airtight (mine is like 3-4 cups in volume)
2 Wasa toasts (make sure they are the original rye kind, not sesame or anything like that)
Boiling water
Couple tablespoons dry yeast
Few tablespoons of sugar (my boyfriend at first forgot that when getting the instructions from his mom, remembered a day later. You won't have carbonated or correct tasting kvass without it)
Few mint leaves
Few raisins

Method:

Let's start with the disclaimer that since I was already doing something very unorthodox, i.e. kvass from Wasa, I didn't follow the directions I was given precisely. I am lazy.

Break up the Wasa into chunks in your container. Pour boiling water to cover. Let sit for a while, and when the temperature has reached body temperature, remove a bit of the warm liquid to a glass. Stir the yeast (and the sugar, which we originally forgot and had to add later) into this, and then add back to the container. Seal container tightly, shake, and let sit for 24 hours, shaking every so often. Then add mint leaves and raisins, let sit another 12-24 hours. Before using, strain well.

What you're supposed to do (my boyfriend's mom's instructions):

First of all, you are not supposed to use Wasa. You are supposed to use nice, dense Russian rye bread, which you cut into slices and dry in the oven. That is work, people. Not a lot of work, but work. I will do it at some point, because it really does result in better kvass, but I really wanted to see if lazy-Wasa-kvass could work. You put the bread in a better air-tight container than I have. )A wide-mouthed jar is ideal. I have a Snapware container, which is great for lunch, but is not completely air-tight when it comes to shaking a carbonated beverage.) Now, you pour the boiling water as directed above. Let it sit until the liquid reaches body temperature. Strain out the bread. Take a bit of the liquid into a glass, add the yeast and sugar. Shake, let sit for like a day, shaking periodically. Add the mint, let sit for another 12 or so hours, shaking periodically. Strain well, then pour into bottles for refrigeration or canning. Add a few raisins to each bottle first.

My boyfriend's mom gave no quantities. I love her for that, she cooks like I do. :-)

I've heard kvass lasts for a week in the fridge, mine is not going to be around long enough to test that. I am making Okroshka for dinner tonight!

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

I made these last night for dinner. We needed to eat, and so I just sort of made this up on the spot. It turned out well, though I undersalted the filling (I always end up undersalting things).

Stuffed Tomatoes and Mushrooms

Ingredients:

3 medium round tomatoes
3 large mushrooms
325 g ground beef
1/2 small onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 T dried parsley
1 T dried basil
1 T dried oregano
salt
pepper
1 egg
1 c tomato juice (something tasty enough you'd drink it)
60 g fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced/shredded

Method:

Wash the mushrooms and the tomatoes. Slice their tops off and remove the insides of the tomatoes (a grapefruit spoon is awesome for this) and reserve for some other application (soup, salads, whatever). Remove the mushroom stems, chop them (just the stems) and place the pieces in a bowl. Arrange the tomatoes and mushrooms in a shallow baking pan or dish. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. In the bowl with the mushroom pieces, prepare the filling. Add to the mushrooms the ground beef, garlic, onion, egg (beaten), herbs and generous amounts of salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Stuff an equal amount of the mixture into each tomato and mushroom cap. You can stuff them with less and make more mushrooms/tomatoes if you want. Pour the tomato juice over everything. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cover each tomato/mushroom with cheese (you can use a different kind if you like) and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Notes and Serving Suggestions: I cooked mine for 10 minutes more than is listed here, and they were just the tiniest bit dry. I think that the times I've written here are better. We ate this with a big green salad (romaine, olives stuffed with garlic, onion, apple cider vinegar dressing) and spaghetti. You could use bell peppers, too, or some other vegetable. If you want to use less meat, add some rice to the mixture. For a vegetarian stuffing, I'd use rice, mushrooms, onion and maybe some kidney beans.

I know that tomatoes with spaghetti sounds very Italian, but I've never seen Italian stuffed tomatoes. I have seen them in Russian and Balkan cuisine, and in French, too. However, I have seen Italian stuffed mushrooms. I dunno. I'm putting them in the "Russian", "Italian", and "French" categories.

Pelmeni

Pelmeni are basically Russian tortellini. But different. Does that make sense? The shape is essentially the same, and they are basically pasta, but the filling is different and they are served differently.

The standard pelmeni filling is ground meat (it can be a mix of beef, pork, lamb, my BF's mom even puts ground chicken in sometimes), onion, salt and pepper. I've never seen a different filling, and my BF looked at me like I was from another planet when I innocently asked, "Does anyone ever make pelmeni with minced fish inside?"

We made a bunch of them last night, it was a really satisfying meal.

Pelmeni

Ingredients:

2.5 glasses* of flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
water as needed (approximately 1/2 a glass)

1/4 medium onion
325 g ground meat (I used beef, 20% fat)
salt and pepper

*A "glass" is a measurement used in many Russian recipes. I believe it comes from the time when most household items were very standardized; everyone had glasses of pretty much the same size and design. The glass I used was a cup in volume, and it's very close to the size of the magic glass referred to in Russian recipes.

Method:

First prepare the dough. Place the flour and salt in a bowl, or if you're very awesome (which I'm not), on a clean dry surface, like a big wooden cutting board. Make a well in the center and add the egg. Start to mix, and add the water slowly, mixing as you go. You need to add enough such that you have a smooth, soft dough, but not too much or it will be sticky. If it gets a little too sticky, you can add extra flour, a little bit at a time. Knead the dough for a bit so it's supple and smooth.

Now prepare the filling. Mix the ground meat with chopped onion, add plenty of salt and pepper.

Roll out the dough very thinly on a floured large surface. Cut it into squares that are about 1.5" on each side. You can just use a "grid" method to do this, it's fast and efficient: make lines 1.5" apart going one direction, and then make them again in the direction 90 degrees away. Any pieces that are too small can be mixed together and re-rolled out.

Place a thimbleful of filling (about a teaspoon) on each square in the center. Now comes the tricky part, if you haven't done it before; the folding.

A___________B
|...................|
|....*******....|
|....********...|
|....*******....|
C____________D

Above is my incredibly nerdy rendition of an unfolded pelmen. To fold one, first make a triangular pocket, bringing point D to point A, and pinching well to seal sides A/DB and A/DC.

A/D
/.......\
/..........\
/.............\
C__________B

Once you have a triangular pocket (poorly rendered above), bring points C and B together. You now have a finished pelmen. Repeat for the probably close to 100 squares you have!

This site has non-keyboard-generated pictures of the finished product, and of the preparation steps. They cut the dough into circles, which is also an option.

To cook them, bring lightly salted water or broth to a boil, and place them in the boiling water. Once they float, you can check the filling of one to see if it's ready. But I just let them all cook for a couple more minutes after they start to float, and then serve them.

Notes and Serving Suggestion: It's tedious. That's why this is usually a family activity, and I strongly encourage you to enlist help where you can. You can serve them in the water/broth they were cooked in, kind of as a soup. Otherwise, they can be eaten with butter, sour cream, vinegar, soy sauce, chopped greens on top, ketchup, whatever you want! My favorite is to put sour cream and chopped dill and parsely on them, eat them with the broth, or to eat them with soy sauce and apple cider vinegar.

Oven Dies at Inopportune Moment, or Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs

Actually, "Gas runs out at inopportune moment" is more correct. So no oven or stove. And we don't have a microwave. All we have is an electric teapot and a toaster. AND it happens as we have two things in the oven: My Boyfriend's Roasted Chicken, and a new recipe I'm trying, Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs (Russian site). We noticed just shortly after putting them in, so no food-safety issues, simply disappointing. We put the things in the fridge to prepare tomorrow. We were going to ask our colleague/friend/neighbor upstairs if we could use her oven, but she was out rock climbing. She lives a more exciting life than we do. :-D

I'll post the recipe for the tomatoes here, for any who don't speak Russian. I made a couple of small additions, but unfortunately I can't yet tell you how this recipe tastes! I'll update it tomorrow, after we buy a new gas bottle from the store. Of course, as of 7:45, every place selling these things was closed. That's France for you.

Tomatoes Stuffed with Eggs
original recipe at: http://gotovim-doma.ru/view.php?r=571-recept-IAichnitsa-v-pomidorakh

Ingredients:
X medium-large tomatoes (where X is the number of tomatoes you want to make)
X smallish eggs (I buy large eggs, so I just picked the smallest ones from the carton)
X tablespoons ricotta cheese
X tablespoons chopped onion
X raw eggs in their shells
Salt and pepper

It's the first ingredient list that looks like a high-school algebra lesson! Yay! As for the tomatoes, you don't need like beefsteak tomato large ones, just a normal round tomato will do quite nicely.

Method:
Wash tomatoes and slice a thin slice off the top. Take out the seeds and inner flesh of each tomato. Using a grapefruit spoon works great. Don't discard the insides, use them in soup, a salad, eat them, whatever. Place tomatoes in a shallow baking dish, sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Place the chopped onion and ricotta cheese at the bottom of each tomato, then crack a whole egg into each tomato. You can salt and pepper again, and then pop into the oven for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). From the picture on the site, the yolks will be runny and the whites set.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: To serve, plate and sprinkle over with chopped green herbs of your choice. I'm going to do dill and parsley, but basil, green onion, maybe coriander and mint, would all work beautifully. About egg size: assuming you use normally sized tomatoes, if you make a lot of these it may be worth it to buy a carton of small/medium eggs. I used large, and there was a little spillage over the edge, but since I only made 4 and since it was the first time trying it, I didn't buy any special eggs. I think this would be a good addition to a dinner (main course, with pasta, rice, or a big salad in the summer) or a nice little appetizer. Or even a breakfast.

The Original Recipe: What a great site! I look forward to trying many more from there. I spent a good hour and a half today just reading recipes on that site. I counted it as "practicing Russian" and not "shamelessly ogling tasty food." The recipe is for two tomatoes, but I don't think cooking time will change much. It also notes that you can add the greens before baking, to make them softer, and that you can add things other than eggs (as I did). It suggests ham, sausage or fried mushrooms (yummy!).

CbG: Whole Chickens

Have I mentioned before that my boyfriend can cook? I have? Well, I'll say it again: he knows his way around a kitchen, and there are some things he does better than I do. Not saying that I should be inherently better at it or anything, but I do get a LOT more practice.

Anyway, we are now adding "roasted chicken" to the list of things that BF is responsible for cooking. We've been buying a whole chicken for the past couple of weekends, and I've been using them to make a simple but delicious chicken broth. But this weekend, he wanted to take charge of the bird's lower half, while I made the broth with the breast as usual. The result was soooo good!

My Boyfriend's Roasted Chicken

Ingredients:

Lower portion of a chicken (the back, thighs and legs), reserve the upper (breast, wings) for soup
About 1/4 c mayonnaise
1 t garlic salt
1 t crushed black peppercorns
1 T dried parsley, or 1/4 c chopped fresh parsley

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Sprinkle the seasonings all over the chicken, separating the skin from the flesh. Make sure that you get both the skin and the flesh. Now, spread the mayo all over, especially between skin and flesh. Roast, loosely covered with foil, until juices run clear.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: This was so good. When it finished, we had already eaten something else for dinner (this was intended to be for the next day). It smelled so great when it came out of the oven, that I told myself, "I'll just take a taste." A taste turned into half a chicken!

Simple Chicken Broth

Ingredients:

1 bunch of fresh dill
1 handful of fresh parsley
4 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
3 cloves of garlic
1 small onion
1 medium carrot
1/4 t celery salt
Upper portion of 1 chicken
Water to cover
Salt to taste

Method:

Peel and halve the carrot. Halve the onion and garlic cloves. Wash the fresh herbs, and I like to use a long sprig of dill to tie them into a bunch, to keep them all in one place. Sprinkle the celery salt over the chicken. Place all the ingredients in a large pot, cover with water. Allow it to come to a boil, and simmer for 2 hours, skimming any foamy stuff off the surface. Remove chicken and vegetables. Salt to taste.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: My favorite way to eat homemade chicken broth is simple. Place chopped fresh dill, parsley and onion in a serving bowl, and add steaming hot broth. Cooked rice and some of the chopped chicken is another nice addition.

Weekend Cooking Project: Healthy Pirozhki

I'm going to make pirozhki again, mostly because I'm crazy in love with that beautiful, yeasty dough, and also because I just plain like bread pockets with stuff inside.

In that vein, my mission is going to be to "duplicate" a certain Amy's product that I've loved for years, but that I think has now been discontinued (not that I get Amy's products here, anyway). That would be the pocket sandwich stuffed with the topping from the Roasted Vegetable Pizza. I don't have shitakes, which are on the ingredient list, and I'm not especially inclined to go out and find them. But I'll work something out.

Mainly, I plan on making the dough itself healthier by using 50% whole wheat flour, 50% white flour and slightly less vegetable oil. I also plan on not relenting to the sad face my BF will put on when he finds out I intend to bake these ones.

So, I'm going to have some that have the "Amy's" filling, some with the carrot and onion stuffing I loved so much last week, and lastly, some dessert ones. The chief reason for making dessert ones is to clean out the jam jars and some of the frozen fruit in my refrigerator. I kind of plan on mixing them all together, and possibly adding some ricotta cheese to the filling, too. We'll see how it turns out. If I'm successful with the "Amy's" one, it'll be a major victory, since those products are so good but very expensive.

I may also try to make paneer, but I'm a bit lazy to do so, since ricotta serves as a fine replacement for the unpressed version.

Pirozhki

So on Sunday I made pirozhki. I woke up early in the morning and started doing chores, including cleaning the kitchen to make sure I would have enough space to work. Then I trekked down to the local grocery store (along with 80% of the population of this little French town ... not much else to do on Sunday) to buy cream, and a chicken. I bought the chicken because I read on Yulinka's blog that pirozhki are best eaten with chicken broth. I decided, "What the hell, I'm already going to be in the kitchen all day, might as well do it right."

I decided to follow the dough recipe here, but my little cube of yeast was 42 grams, not the prescribed 30 grams. So, I followed the recipe roughly and ad libbed a little. Here's the dough that I ended up making:

Pirozhki Dough

Ingredients:

1 42 g cube of yeast (I got mine in the refrigerated section, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't dehydrated)
2 t sugar
2 t flour
4 T water
1 kg flour (I used type T45, which I think is pastry flour)
1 c sunflower oil, + a little extra (1 T?) that was left in the bottle
2 c water, + a little extra (about 1 T)
4 t salt

Method:

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a (large!) bowl, mix well. Cover with a dish towel and allow to rest for 10-15 minutes. It'll be noticeably more puffy when it's ready. Now, carefully mix with the rest of the ingredients to form a soft, moist (wonderful smelling) dough. If it's too sticky, add a bit of flour. Don't let it be dry though. You will probably have to use your hands to get it thoroughly mixed. Cover with a dish towel, let sit in a warm place to rise for at least 2 hours. My BF says his mom often makes dough the night before, and leaves it to rise over night, so I'm sure you can leave it longer than 2 hours with no ill effects. The dough will roughly triple in size! That's some kind of magic, in my opinion. And did I mention that it smells great? When you're ready to use it, knead the dough a little, then cut into small-ish pieces. I actually didn't cut it, just tore off balls of dough roughly 2"-2.5" in diameter. To make pirozhki, roll out a ball on a lightly floured surface, not too thin, but until the rolled out circle is about the size of a small salad plate. Place 2-3 spoons of stuffing in the center and close well. Arrange the pies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper, leaving a couple inches between them. Let them rise again for 20 minutes. Then bake or fry in oil.

Notes: I had planned on baking the pies. My boyfriend had been hinting (he knew I was going to be making them) that he likes them fried. Well, I thought that I would bake them and have them done before he came home, but he came home early, just as I was about to start baking. He pouted. I fried. They were tasty, but a little too rich. I really do think I'd prefer them baked. Next time, I'll bake them, and I may try to use at least some whole wheat flour to make them a little healthier.

On to the fillings. I had originally settled on a ground beef and mushroom filling, as depicted here. At the last minute, I decided to make a second filling with carrot, onion and egg; it's pictured on the site I got the dough recipe from.

Pirozhki Filling: Carrot, Onion and Egg

Ingredients:

1 very large carrot, or 2 medium, peeled and grated
1 small onion, chopped
1 egg, hard boiled
1 T sunflower oil
Salt and (lots of) pepper to taste

Method:

Sautee the carrot and onion in oil until onion is translucent. Remove from heat. Allow to cool, and mix with the egg, peeled and chopped. Season to taste. That's it! Simple, right?

Notes: I was surprised, I have to admit, but the carrot ones were my favorite. The picture of the meat ones looked so good, and they were tasty, but the carrot ones were something special. I really recommend trying this! This filling can be used with the dough to make vegetarian pirozhki; leave out the egg, and you even have vegan ones (or use firm tofu cubes).

Pirozhki Filling: Beef, Onion and Mushroom

Ingredients:

400 g ground beef
2 small onions, chopped
3 medium mushrooms, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Brown meat with onions and mushrooms, stirring constantly so that meat remains in small pieces. When there is no pink left, salt and pepper to taste, and let cool before stuffing pirozhki.

Notes: Like I said, this was good, but not amazing like the carrot ones. I did like the texture of the mushrooms, though.

Overall Impressions: First of all, I'm in love with yeast. It was so fun making the dough. And I know I said it already, but that stuff smells great. I will forever think of yeast as magic in the form of a cakey, grey little cube. By the way, that cube yields to pressure really easily. When you try to crumble it into your bowl, don't push hard, lest to you want yeast everywhere. My mission now is to make a healthy pirozhok. Next time I'm going to make the carrot filling, a cabbage one, and maybe a mushroom and green onion one. Oh, and I'll give them different shapes so I can know what's inside each one. It's cheating, but so what? By the way, this recipe, fillings and dough, made 17 pirozhki (6 carrot, 11 beef) and 6 donuts. Basically I just split remaining dough into balls studded with raisins, fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Tasty, but not quite like Dutch oliebollen.

Palaak Paneer and Looking to the Weekend (Paneer, Pirozhki)

Tonight I made some tasty Palaak Paneer. This is Indian style creamed spinach, with cheese cubes. There were a few minor things I'll do different next time, but overall it was good. Traditionally, saag is greens (of any kind) cooked in cream. Usually mustard greens are used, or a mix of mustard greens and spinach. When just spinach is used, it is palaak. I prefer the version with a mix of mustard greens and spinach, so if you can get mustard greens, use them!

Palaak Paneer

Ingredients:

2 T oil
1 small onion
1 large clove garlic
1 T minced ginger
1 T gharam masala*
1 t tumeric
1 pod black cardamom
1 pod green cardamom
2 whole peppercorns
2 cloves
salt to taste
Squeeze of lemon
1 T cream
About 750 grams frozen, chopped spinach
Paneer cheese cubes-as many as you want

*Gharam masala is a spice mix. Usually, it has spices like cardamom, cinnamon, maybe clove, some black pepper. It's not 100% authentic to put cumin and coriander in, but most store mixes do it. I make my own, and I also put cumin and coriander in, because I happen to like them! I also put in a tiny bit of chili powder, some ground black pepper, some ground cardamom, and some ground fenugreek. You can basically experiment and find a mix you like. It's what I did. Once I found it, I made a big batch and put it in a spice jar.

Method:

Warm the oil in a pot. Chop the onion, mince the garlic and ginger. When the oil is shimmery, add them to the pot. Sautee till soft, but not brown. Push the mix to one side of the pot, and pool the oil in the other side. Fry the gharam masala and the tumeric in the oil for about 30 seconds, then stir everything together. Add the spinach and remaining spices. Allow to cook until spinach has thawed, heated through, and excess water has evaporated. At this point, salt to taste, stir in paneer, allow to warm through. Stir in cream, lemon juice and serve.

Notes: Make sure your ginger is minced! My ginger got frozen (dumb malfunctioning fridge--long story) and thawed. It was really tough to cut (but very easy to peel!), and I ended up with a couple of big lumps of ginger. I think I may add a little more spice next time. Maybe a split dried chili pod. We didn't have paneer. I've *tried* to use cubes of other white cheeses before and it fails. You see, paneer is special. It doesn't melt. That's why it can be cut into cubes and put into curries. We had in the fridge a block of fresh white pressed farmer's cheese from a recent trip to Holland. I thought, "Well, maybe, what the hell," since that's basically what paneer is--pressed farmer's cheese. It wasn't a failure. The cubes got mushier than paneer would've, but not really melty like with previous efforts.

Serving Suggestion: This is best with lemon juice, rice and roti. You can eat with yogurt too (it's important to have something a little acidic with it), but I prefer lots of lemon!

**************************************

Speaking of paneer, that brings me to the second half of this post, "Looking to the Weekend." This weekend I want to try something ambitious, cooking wise. I'm going to try to make paneer, which is similar to the Russian cheese tvorog. I also want to try and make something with yeast. I've been making Indian flat breads recently, and baking a little more (brownies, cookies, sharlotka). This is slowly but surely breaking my fear of bread and baked goods (even though I DID burn 3 cookies tonight).

So I want to try something more complicated than flat breads. I want to try ... something with YEAST.

I was thinking of trying to make Russian pirozhki. They look so good! Look at that mushroom filling! I love mushrooms so much. This site has a recipe that seems like it'll do. I've used (with a little tweaking) recipes from that site with favorable results. But I'm going to spend some time searching for THE ONE. I mean, it'll be my first time with yeast. It should be special!

Borsch

I made a big batch of this tasty Russian beet soup before I left, and left it in the fridge for the boyfriend. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, isn't it? :-) Every cook has his/her own version of this, so don't be afraid to try someone else's! Mine's quite basic, but I love it anyway. And so does someone else!

Borsch

Ingredients:

*For stock:
*2 beef short ribs
*1 onion
*1 carrot
*bay leaf

1/4 small head of cabbage
3 small potatoes
1 carrot
3 small cooked beets
sunflower oil and butter for frying (a tablespoon or two of each)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of vinegar
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste (I use roughly somewhere between the two)
salt to taste

Method:

*Start by making stock. I use my handy 3 quart pot for this (and for everything). Use a bigger one if you want more stock; I end up with about 2 quarts of quite rich stock. Place the ribs your pot with an onion peeled and halved, a carrot halved and a bay leaf. Add water (I add as much as my pot will take) and bring to a boil, then simmer for 2 to 3 hours, or until meat is soft. Fish out the onion and discard; fish out the carrot and eat it. :-) Remove the meat; take it off the bones and cube it, removing any huge globs of fat. Salt the broth to taste.*

If you already have stock, begin to warm it. For veggies, start with the cabbage; shred it. Cut the potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes (I peel them first). Bring the stock up to a boil, then add the cabbage and potatoes. Grate the carrot and beets. 20 minutes after the cabbage and potatoes were added to the stock, melt the butter in a frying pan and fry the beets. You can add broth from the pot if it's too dry. After the beets sautee about 10 minutes, add the sunflower oil and carrots (my boyfriend's mom fries them separately, carrots in oil, beets in butter. I mix it all together and it's fine). Sautee another 10 minutes. Now add the tomato paste and the sugar and vinegar (I stir them together first in a small glass). Stir well and sautee another few minutes. NOTE: If at any point during the sauteeing the mixture is too dry and may burn, add stock! Now, add the mixture in the frying pan to the pot with cabbage and potatoes and stock. Also add the cubed meat. Let it all cook together for a few minutes, then taste and add salt as needed.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: the best way to serve this is with a generous dollop of sour cream, and chopped dill and parsley scattered over the top! Also have some rye bread on the side. Delicious! You can make the stock beforehand; if you want to take the fat from the stock, just put it in the fridge overnight. The fat will rise and solidify and you can just scoop it off the next day. My boyfriend would be horrified if I did this, though. :-) You can play with the flavor by adding more/less vinegar and/or sugar; I find that the amount listed here works pretty well. You can also use lemon juice instead of vinegar, and experiment with adding a mix of crushed tomatoes, or chopped tomato, and tomato paste. For vegetarian borsch, leave out the meat and use a vegetable stock. For fast borsch, you can use boxed stock (I've used chicken with decent results) and just follow all the directions (except you won't have meat).