Play Time No 20-21(21) 1996 .

Bon appetit!

In these running fast times, when peoples of many countries and nationalities are widely corresponding between themselves; when you can have a look at what goes on in other end of the world not getting out of your chair; when information actually showers on us its inexhaustible floods, the culture and ways of life of the people are inevitably getting closer.

That is why to the question ‘What do Russians eat?’ the answer may be given: ‘Quite the same as the most Europeans’. But nonetheless every nation has its own historical roots, its own traditions, which inevitably must reflect on its way of life. Russian food traditions were composing under the influences of great many factors, among which very important part played various religious prohibitions. In Russian lexicon frequent are the words ‘post’ and ‘myasoyed’. In times of post (fasting) it was prohibited to eat meat and milk food; in myasoyed this prohibition was taken aback.

This interchange of fasting and non-fasting times surely must have had caused an effect on Russian food. There in it are plenty of vegetable, cereals, fish dishes enriched with vegetable fats. But holiday feasts of Russians are rich with plenty of meat dishes. So, bon appetit!

Liver stewed with mushrooms

800 g of veal (beef) liver, 1 glass of sour cream, 2 onions, 5-6 dried mushrooms, 2 tea-spoonful of sugar, 1-2 table-spoonful of tomato paste, 50 g of cream butter, 1/2 glass of flour, salt and ground pepper at taste.

Slice the liver in pieces (finger width), sprinkle with salt and pepper, roll in flour and fry all over in cream butter. When you spike the piece of fried liver with fork, the red juice must drip out of it. Soak the mushrooms, boil them, slice in little pieces and fry all over with chopped onion.

Put liver with mushrooms and onion into the earthen pots (you may take sauce-pan), pour into every pot 1/2 glass of mushroom stew, 1/2 glass of sour cream, one spoonful of tomato paste and stew to the readiness of the liver in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

With the liver serve sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, fresh salad.

Into the pot you may put also fried potato slices.

Pike stewed with wine

1 kg of pike fillet, 1 turnip root, 2 carrots, 1 parsley or celery root, 1 onion, 2 lemons, 1 table-spoonful of honey, 2 glass of white wine, salt and pepper by taste.

Slice in pieces prepared fish, rub with salt and put in refrigerator for 1 hour. Slice in pieces carrots, turnip and parsley roots and onions, put them into the sauce-pan, add cream butter and fry lightly. Over the passerized vegetables put the fish, add lemon pulp, pepper, pour the wine in and put spices. Close the sauce-pan with lid and plaster with dough for hermeticity. Well hot the oven, put the sauce-pan into it and stew for about 1 hour. Then put the pieces of the fish from the pan, serve on the plate and pour over it the sauce with vegetables in which the fish was stewing.

Meat solyanka

800 g of beef, 150 g of veal, 150 g of chicken, 100 g of ham, 2 sausages, 1 carrot, 1 parsley root, 1 onion, 1 table-spoonful of flour, 2 table-spoonful of cream butter, 2 pickled cucumbers, 10 pickled saffron milk cap mushrooms, 10-12 olives, 1 table-spoonful of capers, 1 glass of thick sour cream, bay leaf, pepper and salt by taste, 2 l of water.

Make the broth of the meat with roots, bay leaf and black pepper. Take the meat out of the sauce-pan and use it for another dish. In the same broth boil the chicken, veal, beef, ham, sausages. Chop the chicken, ham and sausages in little pieces and put into the broth again. Fry in the cream butter chopped onion, pour some of the broth in it and bring this into the sauce-pan with solyanka. Then put into solyanka ÐÒÉÐÕÝÅÎÎÙÅ cucumbers, chopped saffron milk caps and olives with capers. This bring to boil and stew on small hot for 10-15 minutes. 1-2 minutes before the end of the stewing add sour cream. The chicken may be put to solyanka previously fried in butter.

Makaryev’s prikaztchik fish-soup

1 burbot, 2 sterlets, 2 parsley and 2 celery roots, 2 onions, cinnamon and cloves by taste, 1/2 glass of Madeira wine, salt by taste, 2 l of water, several pieces of white bread, 1 lemon.

Lard the onions with cinnamon and cloves, chop the parsley and celery roots, put into the sauce-pan and fill it with cold water. Bring water to boil and put into it pieces of sterlet and burbot. Well stew to the readiness of the fish and take off from fire. Pour into the sauce-pan 1/2 of Madeira (may be less by taste), crumble the white bread and sliced lemon.

In early days the bottle of Madeira was put into the sauce-pan where this fish-soup was boiling, getting warm during the whole process of cooking. The soup have been served together with Madeira.

Buckwheat scalded blins

4 glasses of buckwheat flour, 2 1/2 glasses of water, 2 glasses of milk, 20-25 g of yeast, 1 tea-spoonful of sugar, salt by taste.

Pour into the sauce-pan 2 glasses of flour, then 2 glasses of boiling water, stir well. When the dough cools down, stir up the yeast in half glass of warm water and add them to the leavened dough. Beat well the dough, cover it with towel and put in warm place to come up. When the leavened dough grows twice-trice in volume, add to it flour, milk, salt, whip up again and put in warm place. Blins are baken as usual.

Boyars’ blins

3 glasses of buckwheat flour, 2 glasses of wheat flour, 4 glasses of milk, 1 glass of cream, 1 glass of sour cream, 100 g of cream butter, 5 eggs, 30 g of yeast, 1 table-spoonful of sugar, salt by taste.

Bring to boil 2 glasses of milk, cool it a bit, then pour off half a glass and stir up the yeast in it. Pour milk and yeast into the enamel sauce-pan and knead the dough on buckwheat flour. When the leavened dough comes up (1.5 - 2 hours ago), pour into it the rest of milk, add eggs’ yolks grinded with sour cream, butter, salt and sugar, add wheat flour. Stir all this and let the dough come up again. After this, whip up separately cream and eggs’ whites, mix them and add to the dough. Then accurately stir the dough down from above with trowel. Let the dough alone for 15-20 minutes and bake the blins.

Common rasstegais

400 g of flour, 3 table-spoonful of butter, 25-30 g of yeats, 300 g of pike fish, 300 g of salmon, 2-3 pinches of ground black pepper, 3 eggs, 1 table-spoonful of dried breadcrumbs, 1 1/4 glass of milk, salt by taste.

Stir up the yeast in warm milk, add flour and beat the dough. Let it come up, then add to it 2 yolks, 2 spoonful of butter and, having beaten it well, let it come up again.

Chop pike fillet, salt and pepper it and fry in butter.

Roll the dough that has come up for the second time in thin sheet, then with glass or cup cut out circles from it. Put on every circle the minced pike and on it a thin piece of salmon. Pinch the ends of the cakes and leave the middle of it open.

Put prepared rasstegais on buttered griddle and let them stand in for 10-15 minutes. Then rub every cake with egg and pour over with breadcrumbs. Bake rasstegais in oven warmed to 210-220C.

Moscow solyanka

200 g of fresh salmon, 200 g of fresh zander, 200 g of salt or fresh sturgeon, 500 g of olives, 2 table-spoonful of tomato paste, 3-4 pickled boletuses, 2-3 pickled cucumbers, 2 table-spoonful of cream butter, 1 table-spoonful of flour, 1/2 lemon, 15-16 olives, 1 glass of cucumber brine, 1 table-spoonful of capers, black pepper, bay leaf, salt by taste, bunch of fennel or parsley, 4 slices of lemon, 2 l of fish broth

Put chopped onion into the pot and fry over in butter. Pour into that pot the flour, broth and cucumber brine, stir well and bring to boil. Then add minced mushrooms, capers, olives (without stones), bay leaf & pepper and bring to boil again. Put into the pot scalded pieces of prepared fish, cucumbers stewed with tomato paste and cream butter & boil to the readiness of the fish on small fire.

Duck with noodles & mushrooms

Middle-sized duck, 200 g of home noodles, 5-6 dried mushrooms, 50 g of cream butter, 1 table-spoonful of flour, 1 glass of sour cream, 1 root of parsley, carrot, salt & ground pepper by taste

Boil noodles in the salted water and throw it on the colander. Pour mushrooms with water (2 glasses) and boil (do not pour out the broth). Chop boiled mushrooms, put away for the sauce 2 table-spoonful of mushrooms, the rest mix with noodles, eggs, cream butter, salt & pepper. Stuff the prepared duck with noodles & mushrooms and saw up. Put the duck into the pot, pour in mushroom broth, add chopped roots of parsley & carrot and stew to the readiness of the duck.

Make a sauce: pour mushroom broth which had left after the stewing of the duck onto the pan with flour passerine, stir it, add 2-3 table-spoonful of chopped mushrooms, sour cream, bring to boil. Release the ready duck from the threads and stuffing, put onto the dish, put around it the stuffing & pour all with sauce.

Tunney a la Russ

For 700-800g of tunney: 1/2 root of parsley & carrot, 1 salted cucumber, 80-100 g of fresh boletuses or agarics, 2 table-spoonful of capers, 8-10 olives, 1/2 lemon, 2-3 table-spoonful of dry white wine, 1/2 l tomato sauce, salt by taste

Slice filleted fish & put it into the shallow pot, pour broth or water, wine, mushroom stew, salt. Shut the lid and stew fish to the readiness. Stew minced carrot, parsley, mushrooms, cucumbers (without skin & seeds). Hot the capers & olives (without stones) in tomato sauce. When serving, pour fish with sauce. Put above piece of skinned lemon & pour with greenery; put besides the garnish - boiled potatoes.

Galantine (meat-jelly)

2 kg of meat subproducts, 2-3 carrots, 2 onions, roots of parsley, bay leaf, pepper, salt by taste, 1 garlic, radish with vinegar, mustard

Wash beef legs (lips, ears, tails), slice them into pieces, put in big pot & pour with 4 l of cold water. Put the pot on the fire, bring to boil, take off the scum and boil the subproducts for 4-5 hours in slow boiling, periodically taking off the fat & scum. In the end of the boiling add the carrot, bay leaf, pepper, onion, parsley & salt.

When the broth becomes sticky, take the subproducts from it & filter it. Divide the meat from the bones, put it into the filtered broth & boil for 20-30 minutes more. Then add chopped garlic, salt by taste & pour the broth to the plates. Put the meat into the plates & take them to the cold for the congealing.

Slice congealed galantine by portions, serve with radish, vinegar & mustard.

Zander in brine

400-500 g of filleted zander, 1 onion, 1-2 roots of parsley, 2-3 salted cucumbers, 5-6 fresh boletuses (or agarics), 2 table-spoonful of flour, 50 g of cream butter, 1/2 lemon, greenery of fennel or parsley, potatoes for the garnish, 1 l of fish broth or water, 1 glass of cucumber brine, salt & spices by taste

Slice the prepared fish in pieces. Clear salted cucumbers and slice them. Clear & wash the mushrooms & slice them. Put pieces of fish into the pot, pour them over with fish broth or water, add filtered cucumber brine, cucumbers, mushrooms, minced onions, parsley roots & spices, shut the lid and boil to the readiness of fish & mushrooms.

Prepare the sauce: melt on the pan 25 g of cream butter and passerine the flour on it (letting it not to change its colour). Into the cooled flour pour 1/2 glass of filtered broth with brine, stir well & boil for 5-10 minutes. After the end of boiling add salt, juice of half lemon & butter.

Moscow Pontchiks

Pour into the flour household soda & ground cinnamon, mix them & sift. Carefully grind sugar, butter & eggs, mix them with milk &, gradually pouring in the flour, make the dough.

Roll the prepared dough out in plate 1/2 cm thick and cut out the rounds with glass or some form. With the form of less size cut out middles from the rounds, making dough rings. Fry the pontchiks in heated fat. Ready pontchiks pour over with sugar powder.

For 1 1/2 glass of flour: 2 table-spoonful of sugar, 1 table-spoonful of cream butter, 1 egg, 1/2 glass of milk, 1/2 tea-spoonful of household soda, 100 g of fat (for frying)

Home zapekanka

500 g of curds, 100 g of cream butter, 1/2 glass of sugar, 3 eggs, 2 table-spoonful of dried breadcrumbs, 300 g of home noodles, salt by taste

Boil home noodles in salted water and throw it on the colander. Divide egg whites & yolks. Use yolks for some other dishes, and whip up the whites well. Grind the curds with whites, sugar, salt and half of cream butter.

In the deep pan melt the rest half of butter, put in it in layers the boiled noodles and curds stuffing so that the home noodles layer is the upper one. Level the surface, pour it over with cream butter & with dried breadcrumbs. Put the pan into the heated oven & bake to the readiness.

Fish galantine

500 g of jowl of sturgeon or zander, pike, sterlet & the like, or 500 g of small fry, 1 table-spoonful of gelatine, 1 onion, 1 carrot, greenery, salt, pepper, bay leaf by taste, 100 g of prepared radish

Boil the broth from the fish heads or small fry (0.5 l of water for 500 g of fish). Filter the ready broth & bring to boil once more. See that it congeals. Very strong broth congeals when gets cold; if there’s no congealing, add gelatine. For this it must be watered until the full swell, then added to the broth and brought to the boil, but not boiled.

Put the flesh from the jowl (if the galantine was made from small fry, then pieces of fishes) into the glass salad-dishes or vases. Then put in sliced in fine way carrot, greenery and pour in the broth. Let the galantine congeal in a cold place. Serve with radish & kvas.

Home Borsch

Two big beets, 200-250 g of fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, 1-2 carrots, 1 root of parsley, 1-2 onions, 1 table spoonful of tomato-paste or 2 fresh tomatoes, 2 table spoonful of fat (pork fat is the best), 100 g of salted pork fat, 1 table spoonful of sugar, 1 table spoonful of 3% vinegar, salt by taste, 11/2-2 l of meat broth or water, greenery of parsley or dill, 1/2 glass of sour cream

Into the boiling broth or water put fresh cabbage sliced in squares and boil for 10-15 min. Stew the beets or passerine with vegetables, tomato paste, sugar, vinegar, put it in the broth and boil to the readiness. 5 minutes before the boiling is over season the borsch with garlic ground with fat, and pieces of salted pork fat. If you have sauerkraut, it has to be stewed and put to borsch together w/the beets. 5-7 minutes before the boiling is over you can season the borsch with flour passer (1 table spoonful of flour), solved with broth. This will make borsch more thick. Put into the plate of borsch sour cream, greenery of parsley or dill.

Fishers’ Ukha

400 g of small fry (ruff, perch etc.), 200-250 g of zander, 200-250 g of burbot, 5-6 small potatoes, 2-3 small onions, 1 root of parsley, 10-12 peas of pepper, bunch of parsley or dill, bay leaf, salt by taste, 2 l of water

Disembowel the small fry, put it into the cheese-cloth and tie it in knot. Pour it over with cold water, bring to boil, take off the foam, add chopped parsley, onions (whole), bay leaf, and continue to boil about 1 hour on the slow fire.

Pour cold water in the kettle, put into it the cheese-cloth with the fish and put it on the fire. When the water boils, take the foam off and add after this minced roots of parsley, onion, bay leaf, pepper, and boil all for 30 minutes. Then take out the cheese-cloth with the fish, and put into the boiling broth sliced potatoes and boil to their full readiness. 15 min. before the boiling is over put into the kettle with ukha prepared portion pieces of fish.

Into the plates with ukha you may put chopped greenery of parsley or dill.

Shtchi of sauerkraut with dry boletuses

30-50 g of mushrooms, 1 kg of sauerkraut, 150 g of spring onions, 60-90 g of tomato paste, 50 g of fat, 30 g of flour, 2-3 bay leaves, 3-4 peas of pepper, 120 g of sour cream, 90 g of spring onion or 30 g of dill, salt by taste

After the wetting take the mushrooms from the infusion and filter it; then join them together again and boil for 2-2,5 hours; wash the sauerkraut, wring it out and stew with fat, stirring now and then for 1,5-2 hours: put into the sauerkraut minced and fried with tomato paste spring onions, also bay leaf and aromatic pepper in peas and, stirring, stew this for 30 minutes more; chop boiled mushrooms in little pieces, add them to the pot with vegetables, carefully pour the broth into it and boil to the readiness (you can fry the mushrooms over before), then salt it; 15-20 minutes before the boiling is over, shtchi may be seasoned with slightly fried flour or with potatoes. Serve with sour cream, poured over with chopped greenery of onion or dill.

Russian Soup with mushrooms

50 g of mushrooms, 1-2 kg of potatoes, 100 g of pearl-barley, 120 g of onions, same of carrots and swedes, 80 g of parsley and same of celery and fat (vegetable or animal), 5 peas of pepper, 3 bay leaves, 30 g of dill, 100 g of spring onions, 150 g of sour cream, salt by taste

After the wetting take the boletuses out from the infusion and filter it; put the mushrooms back in it, add pearl-barley and boil for 2,5-3 hours; separately hot some fat, put into it sliced in little cubes onions, carrot, swede, parsley, celery, chopped boiled mushrooms, aromatic pepper in peas, bay leaf, and, stirring, fry to the colour of gold; after that put all this into the mushroom broth with barley and boil on slow fire for 5-10 minutes more; add salt, potato sliced in cubes or crescents, and boil to the readiness. Serve seasoned with sour cream and minced greenery of onion and dill.

Flat-fish with apples and onions

For 600 g of boneless flat-fish fillet: 4 apples, 2 onions, 2-3 table spoonful of white dry wine, 1/2 glass of sour cream or 2-3 spoonful of cream butter, salt by taste

Into the shallow pot, rubbed with fat, put antonovka apples (without skin and bones), onions sliced in rings, above them - pieces of fish; pour over the broth or water (1 glass), add a bit of citric acid and stew a little. Take out ready fish with skimmer; boil down the broth, add sour cream or butter and salt. Serve fish poured with sauce, apples and onions.

Potato cutlets

10 potatoes, 1 egg, 2 table spoonful of flour or 1/2 glass of bread-crumbs, 50 g of vegetable oil, 2 onions, 1/2 glass of grated cheese, 1 glass of sour cream sauce with mushrooms

Prepare potato paste, add to it the egg, chopped fried onions and whip it well.

Form from the paste the cutlets 2 fingers width and pour them all over with flour or bread-crumbs. Check out that bread-crumbs do not get inside the cutlets, or they will scatter when frying. Fry the cutlets in the oil from both sides.

Ready cutlets put on the portion pans (2 for portion), rubbed with fat, pour over with sour cream sauce with mushrooms, pour with grated cheese and fry in the oven.

Fish stuffed with kasha

2 fishes (750-800 g), 1 glass of crumbly boiled buckwheat, 2 eggs, 1 glass of sour cream, 1 onion, 1 table spoonful of flour, 3 table spoonful of vegetable oil or margarine, salt, pepper, greenery by taste

Chop the head out of the whole fish and disembowel without cutting the belly. Wash the fish well, salt it and stuff with buckwheat kasha mixed with fried onion and chopped eggs. Pepper fish from above, pour all over with flour and fry over in vegetable oil (margarine) to the appearing of crust. Then fry fish in oven in the same pan, periodically pouring it over with forming sauce. 5-10 minutes before the frying is over pour the fish with sour cream. The time of frying is depend of the size of the fish and the temperature.

Pour the ready fish with greenery.

Telnoye

500 g of any fish fillet, 100-125 g of wheat bread, 1 glass of milk, 3-4 onions, 3 eggs, 20 g of dry mushrooms, 1/2 glass of vegetable oil, 1/2, glass of ground dry bread, pepper, salt, greenery of parsley

Put bread into the milk, then wring out and, mixed with pieces of fish, twice put through the meat-grinder. Salt the stuffing, pepper it, stir well and beat down. Prepare the stuff. For this, chop boiled mushrooms and eggs and mix with fried minced onions, minced parsley greenery; salt the mix, pepper it and mix all again.

Form fish stuffing in balls the size of an egg. The ball put on the wet linen wafer and make of it a tablet. Put the stuff on the tablet and, by means of a wafer, bend the tablet in twine. Join tightly the edges of the tablet and make of it a crescent.

Pour the telnoye all over with egg, dry bread, and fry over on the pan in vegetable oil. Fried cakes bring to the readiness in the oven.