Kitchen is a Science
The art of cooking fascinated many Russian people.
Natalia Nikolaevna Pushkina kept a notebook where she wrote down recipes of different dishes.
Nobles S.G. Stroganov himself invented some dishes. The beef stroganoff (Stroganov style meet) has been a part of menu of exquisite dishes for a long time now.
Great Russian scientist D.I. Mendeleyev was the author of many articles for the encyclopaedia Brockhaus and Efron. And those were the articles not only in chemistry or engineering. Here you can meet with such names as "Dumplings", "Jam", "Compote". Mendeleev felt great responsibility and seriousness to these articles. In them, he gave advice on how to keep the jam, which berries to pick to make it, how to prepare sugar covered fruits and dry jam.
In today Russia many books on cookery are being published where the ancient Russian recipes are gathered as well as recipes of modern compilers.
Here are some titles of the books: "The Traditions and Cuisine of the Slavs", "Easter and the Fast. Tradition. Rites. The Best Recipes "," Domestic Pickles.”
In the last book you can find everything for those who care about clean food, grow vegetables and prepare them for future use: recipes pickles, pickled, pickling, jams, and drying.
And here is another book – "The Holiday Table". The content is marvellous:
1. What to cook on the weekend – 10 variants of dinners, fully completed for each season.
2. 15 Menu festive dinners.
3. Desserts for Special Occasions.
4. Snack table.
5. If you have unexpected guests visiting.
6. Drinks for the holiday table (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic).
Here, for example, the menu of one of weekend lunches:
1. Appetizer. Herring with vegetables and mayonnaise.
2. Goose soup.
3. Beef Stroganoff with potatoes "pile".
4. Dessert. Quinces, baked in a cream sauce.
Implementation of such a menu is rather difficult task. But once a week, if funds allow, making a dinner for the family is a joy.
Ingredients for Beef Stroganoff:
- 800 gr of meat from the sirloin, and better, if it is beef or veal,
- 70 grams melted butter,
- 1 onion,
- 1 tbsp. flour,
- 1 teaspoon of prepared mustard,
- 1 tbsp. tomato,
- 2 tbsp. sour cream,
- 2 cups of broth.
For Garnish: 500 gr. potatoes, 2 cups of deep-frying oil, salt to taste.
Cut the meat along the grain with thin slices of length 3-4 cm. Sprinkle them with pepper (to taste), salt and flour. In a pan fry the onions in butter until golden. Then add meat to the onion and fry quickly over high heat (the juice will thicken and soak the meat).
Follow the process and do not be distracted because everything happens very quickly.
Check to be sure that meat is not burnt; otherwise it will lose its taste.
Shift ready meat to the pan with the sauce, cover it with lid and put to steam for 20 minutes to allow the meat to soak the sauce.
To make the sauce for this stage of cooking meat rub well the flour and butter, stir in hot broth, pouring slowly and stirring constantly to obtain the mass of smooth consistency, boil it and then add the mustard, tomato, sour cream. Mix all – the sauce is ready.
Ready Beef Stroganoff is served separately in a metal cup. Deliver fried potatoes "pile” separately also.
To prepare fried potatoes “pile” cut fresh potatoes into "sticks" (thickness of two stacked match). Rinse “sticks” with water and dry it on a towel. Heat the oil in a saucepan and drop dried potatoes “sticks” into oil. As soon as potatoes became golden, take it off, salt it slightly. Warm potatoes before serving by sprinkling it with slightly warmed butter.
Piquant dish is ready. Bon Appétit!
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Here is the recipe my wife uses rather often.
Herring in a fur coat is very popular in Russia. Russians call it "seledka pod shuboi".
Just ONE is called a "pelemen." But many are called "pelmeni" and they are one of the most traditional (and delicious) of Russian dishes. Making or eating just one is near impossible. Most people associate pelmeni with Siberia, and many recipes and references to the dish call it Siberian dumplings or Sibirskie pelmeni. Pelmeni probably did originate in Siberia, where hundreds or even thousands could be made, and then frozen and stored outside during the long winters. However, the dumplings became very popular all over Russia. They are closely kin to "pot stickers," "pierogies," and other similar dumplings found in many cultures.
