Welcome to the Russian cuisine and cooking recipes, the place for lovers of delicious dishes and culture of the Rus.
Students of the 9th form school 9 New Tselina,
Rostov region, Russia
Teacher: Larisa Khrykina
April 2010

Russian cuisine derives its rich and varied character from the vast and multi-cultural expanse of Russia. Its foundations were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of plentiful fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provided the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer, and vodka. Flavourful soups and stews are centered on seasonal or storable produce, fish, and meats. This wholly native food remained the staple for the vast majority of Russians well into the 20th century.
From the time of Catherine the Great, every family of influence imported both the products and personnel—mainly German, Austrian, and French—to bring the finest, rarest, and most creative foods to their table. Many of the foods that are considered in the West to be traditionally Russian actually come from the Franco-Russian cuisine of the 18th and 19th centuries, and include such widespread dishes as Veal Orloff, Beef Stroganoff, and Chicken Kiev. In our Cookery Book you’ll find the traditional Russian dishes:Tasty Russian Pelmeni, Okroshka, Shchi, Ukha,Russian Borsch, Kotlety, Shashlyk, Pirozhki, Kvass, Russian Blini, Salad “Olivier“, «Mimosa» salad, Cake “Napoleon“.
In our Russian recipes cookbook you’ll find a great number of delicious dishes (main courses, desserts etc.) from ancient times to the present. We invite you to keep our company and taste traditional Russian cuisine.

TASTY RUSSIAN PELMENI
Most people associate pelmeni with Siberia, and many recipes and references to the dish call it “Siberian dumplings.” Pelmeni probably did originate in Siberia, where hundreds or even thousands could be made, and then frozen and stored outside during the long winters.
For the dough you will need: 1 egg, some salt, a glass of water and some flour.
Mix everything, so that the dough is elastic. Let it stay for an hour, regularly knead. While waiting make the stuffing: milled meat (better pork) mix with some salt, pepper, milled 3 onions.
Cut the dough into small pieces, put in the pieces of meat and press around like in the picture. When they are ready, put pelmeni into boiling salted water and let them boil for about 10 minutes.
Then take them out, put on a plate and serve hot with cream. Bon appetite!

OKROSHKA 

Okroshka is a cold soup based on kvass or less often sour milk. The main ingredients of both types are vegetables that can be mixed with cold boiled meat in a 1:1 proportion . There must be two sorts of vegetables in okroshka. The first must have a neutral taste, such as boiled potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, or fresh cucumbers. The second must be spicy, consisting of mainly green onion as well as other herbs—greens of dill, parsley, chervil, celery, or tarragon. Different meat and poultry can be used in the same soup. The most common ingredient is beef alone or with poultry. The kvass most commonly used in cooking is white okroshka kvass, which is much more sour than drinking kvass. Spices used include mustard, black pepper and pickled cucumber (specifically, the liquid from the pickles), solely or in combination. For the final touch, boiled eggs and smetana (a heavy sour cream, similar to crème fraîche) are added.For sour milk based okroshka, well shaken up natural sour milk(often with the addition of seed oil) is used with the addition of pure water and ground garlic. Sometimes manufactured kefir is used instead of natural sour milk for time saving reasons, though some say it detracts from the original taste of okroshka.

HOT SOUPS
Shchi (cabbage soup) had been the main first course in Russian cuisine for over a thousand years. Although tastes have changed, it steadily made its way  through several epochs. Shchi knew no social class boundaries, and even if the rich had richer ingredients and the poor made it solely of cabbage and onions, all these “poor” and “rich” variations were cooked in the same tradition. Many Russian proverbs are connected to this soup, such as Shchi da kasha pishcha nasha (“Shchi and porridge are our food”). It can be eaten regularly, and at any time of the year.
The richer variant of shchi includes several ingredients, but the first and last components are a must:
Cabbage.
Meat (very rarely fish or mushrooms).
Carrots or parsley roots.
Spicy herbs (onions, celery, dill, garlic, pepper, bay leaf).
Sour components (smetana, apples, sauerkraut, pickle water).

When this soup is served, smetana is added. It is eaten with rye bread. During much of the year when the Orthodox Christian Church prescribes abstinence from meat and dairy, a vegan version of shchi is made. “Kislye” (sour) schi are made from pickled cabbage (sauerkraut), “serye” (grey) schi from the green outer leaves of the cabbage head. “Zelyonye” (green) schi are made from sorrel leaves, not cabbage, and used to be a popular summer soup.

UKHA
is a warm watery fish dish.

BORSCH

is made of broth, beets, and tomato juice with various vegetables. Vegetables include onions, cabbage, tomato, carrots. Broth is usually made from beef and is heated while ingredients are added. Typically, it is served with white bread and Smetana.

Ingredients:
1 kg of beef
500 gr of potatoes
300 gr of cabbage
400 gr of beet
200 gr of carrots
200 gr of onions
3 tablespoons of tomato juice
2-3 laurels
Some parsley, salt, pepper, oil.
4 liters of water

The time of cooking is about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Put the meat into the boiling water and boil it for about an hour. Then add sliced potatoes. Let it boil for about 20 minutes. At this time heat the sliced beet, carrots and onions, the tomato paste in the oil. Then put it into the broth. Slice the cabbage and put it into the broth too. Add the parsley, laurels, salt, pepper and boil for 5 minutes. Serve hot with cream.

KOTLETY

(cotelettes, meatballs), a Western European dish popular in modern Russian households, are small pan-fried meat balls, not dissimilar from Salisbury steak and other such dishes. Made primarily from pork and beef (sometimes also from chicken or fish), they are easily made and require little time. Milk, onions, milled beef and pork are put in a bowl and mixed thoroughly until it becomes relatively consistent. Once this effect is achieved, balls are formed and then put into a hot frying pan to cook. When meat was in short supply, a portion of it could be substituted with bread to protect the size and flavour of the kotlety.
SHASHLYK OUT IN NATUREShashlyk is a form of Shish kebab (marinated meat grilled on a skewer) popular in former Soviet Union countries, notably in Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan. It often features alternating slices of meat and onions. Ingredients:- meat – 2 kg- 1-2 onions- some vinegar- some water- some salt, pepperslice the meat into peaces, put it into the water with the vinegar, sliced onions, salt and pepper. Let it stay this way for about 8 hours or more. Then thread the slices on the spits and fry them above coal or sticks in heat and smoke. Don’t let fire touch the meat.

Pirozhki
Russian pirozhki made with onion, mushroom, meat and rice stuffing. Six typical fillings for traditional  pirozhki are: Fish sautéed with onions and mixed  with hard-boiled chopped eggs.  Chopped boiled meat mixed with sautéed onions and eggs.  Rice and boiled eggs with dill  Mashed potatoes mixed with dill and green onion.

Sautéed cabbage.
Sautéed mushrooms with onions and sometimes carrots.  Ingredients for dough: 1 tablespoon of yeast, 350 gr of water, 1\2 of teaspoon of sugar, some flour, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of oil.

Mix everything and put the dough into warmth for 15-20 minutes. Then cut the dough into not large peaces, put the filling you like, and fry in boiling oil on a pan.

DRINKS
SALAD “OLIVIE”
Ingredients:
1 can of green peas (400г)
300 gr of meat or boiled
sausage
4 eggs
350 gr of potatoes
100 gr of salted cucumbers
1 onion
some salt
some mayonnaise
The meat or sausage, eggs, potatoes, cucumbers and the onion cut into small peaces. Mix everything, add the green peas, the salt and mayonnaise. Put into cold for about an hour. It is ready!

BLINI

Ingredients:
500 ml of milk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of oil
1 tablespoon of sugar
200 gr of flour
1 teaspoon of soda
Some salt

Mix everything so that the dough is fluid. Let it stay for about 20 minutes. Then pour some of the dough on the frying pan with bit of oil and fry them until they are brown.

SALAD “MIMOZA”
Ingtredients:
200 of tinned fish
300 gr of potatoes
200 gr of carrots
1-2 onions
4 eggs
Some salt
Some mayonnaise

How to cook:
Boil the potatoes, carrots and eggs. Cool them
and clean. The onion(s), potatoes, carrots cut into
small peaces. The eggs: separate the white from
the yolk. Separately cut them into small peaces.
The fish mash with a fork.
Take a dish and put into layers: the fish,
the potatoes, some mayonnaise, then the carrots,
the onions, some mayonnaise, the white, some mayonnaise, the yolk. Decorate with some parsley.

CAKE “NAPOLEON”

Ingredients:For the 1st dough:1 glass of milk some saltsome flourFor the 2nd dough: 1 pack of margarine 2 tablespoons of cream some flourThen mix them both, so that to make one elastic dough. Put it into the cold for an hour. Then cut it into small peaces, roll into flats and fry on the frying pan without oil until they are light-brown. Ingredients for the cream:3 eggs, 1 liter of milk, 250 grams of sugar, some butter, 3 tablespoons of flour. Mix everything and cook at low heat until the mass is not very thick. Let it be cool. Then take a dish and put a flat, lubricate it with the cream, so all the other flats. let it stay for an hour in the cold and it is ready!

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