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.

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.

There will be posts...

But probably in 2010.

We're going to Ukraine soon and and I'm so excited! This is because in Ukraine, New Year is a major holiday. It is like Christmas is in America. Except that it's sorta like Christmas+Halloween+Thanksgiving+New Year. Yeah. And my BF's mom is a really good cook, so I'm sure I'm going to get to learn lots of cool Russian, Tatar and Ukrainian recipes. Which I will then blog about!

I've been looking through my collection of "draft" posts, and there are a lot of recipes that I want to try. I just feel so much more motivated to cook when the really nice spring and summer produce starts to arrive. (And when I'm not sick, and when my apartment isn't messy...for some reason it's always messier in the winter?)

The most exciting food news lately was that we continued our fledgling tradition of going to a certain restaurant on Christmas Eve for meat fondue. Lots of meat, with 7 different sauces to dip it in, fresh tasty fries, bread and--of course--good red wine. I'm really glad we thought to start that one!

Pumpkin Pie and Thanksgiving Report

Saturday Thanksgiving was a great success. The turkey legs came out awesome! Actually, everything came out really good. Here's the basic report:

Turkey legs: Rubbed the outside with butter, put butter and homemade poultry seasoning under the skin, cut slits into the flesh and stuffed chunks of celery in there. When 1/2 an hour of baking time was left, made a huge mound of stuffing between the legs and baked some more. Link to recipe
Stuffing: Sauteed 1 white onion, 1 red onion, 2 ribs of celery in a ton of butter. Added a melange of mushrooms, a mix called forestiere that is popular in France. They were frozen and the juice from them smelled great. Added cubes of bread from a baguette, some poultry seasoning and one beaten egg.
Apple Cake: Link to recipe
Mashed potatoes: Boyfriend took care of this. They were GOOOOD. He mashes them with onions sauteed in oil and lots of cream, salt and pepper.
Glazed sweet potatoes: Used a recipe that comes out of the Betty Crocker cookbook. My mom's been making it for years. Sweet potatoes in an orange juice glaze. REALLY good. Found a really similar recipe online. Link to recipe
Cranberry sauce: It's crazy expensive here, so we used lingonberry jam from IKEA. Just as good!
Gravy: Skipped it because we couldn't wait to eat! Spooned the juices over turkey and potatoes instead. Didn't miss it.***UPDATE:*** Made gravy the next day using leftover pan drippings, flour and milk. BF was sorry he wasn't patient the day before!
Pumpkin Pie: recipe follows.

My family came to visit me here in August, and my mom brought two 15 oz cans of pumpkin specifically for the Holidays. :-) She's a cool mom. People here do eat pumpkin, but I've only seen it as a savory side dish, and I prefer my pumpkin with at least some sweetness. My mom always buys the Libby brand canned pumpkin, or the canned pumpkin pie mix (already is sweetened and has some spices in it). She also always uses the Libby recipe on the back. The pumpkin she brought with here was a different brand (not that it matters), and I didn't look up a recipe before cooking because I figured it would be on the can as it always is. When I started cooking today, I made the pie and cake first (pie before cake). When I read the recipe I realized that it was different than the one I was used to, but decided to give it a try. I'm glad there happened to be a can of sweetened condensed milk around! I hadn't been planning on using it.

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 t cinnamon ground
1/2 t nutmeg ground
1/4 t ground clove
1/4 t ground ginger
1/2 t salt
2 slightly beaten eggs
1 9" deep dish pie crust

Method:

Mix pumpkin with the spices. Add all other ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 425 Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 Fahrenheit and bake for 30-40 more minutes.

Serving Suggestion and Notes: I made mine without the pie crust. I'm weird, but I hate pie crust, so I didn't feel like making it. I cooked this in a nonstick pan, and the sugar in the pie made the bottom just slightly caramelized, so it was kind of like a crust anyway. I had to add about double the spices though, except for salt; I really like to taste them! (The recipe presented is what was on the can). The recipe mom has always used takes sugar and evaporated milk. I thought this was so much simpler, faster and tasted great! The pie will be puffy when you take it out, but then it will fall. It's really a more typically custardy pie than the usual recipe, not only does it have a "crust" on the bottom from caramelized sugar, there is one on the top, too. I loved this pie and was really happy with it. The only thing I was missing was whipped cream! Then it would have been perfect.

Thanksgiving!

Today is American Thanksgiving! Canadian one was last month. ;-) I'm planning on cooking it on Saturday though, or Sunday, since I don't get today or tomorrow off. It's not a holiday here, after all.

We'll have roasted turkey legs, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, and apple cake.

I hope I can cook it all ...