Svekolnik (Cold Borsch)

I have trouble with seasonal cooking. I like hot soups year-round. I will rarely turn down a good stew. I'm uninspired by salads until August, when I can pluck tomatoes and cucumbers right from my mom's backyard garden. I may have qualms about using the oven when it's 80+ degrees in my non-air conditioned apartment, but a nice poppy seed roll chases away my regrets.

Svekolnik, also known as cold borsch, is one of my consessions to warm weather. It's nothing like hot borsch, which is a meal in a bowl. Rather, svekolnik is a light, low-calorie soup that tastes bests when the weather is hot, hot, hot. It could almost pass for hip, vegan raw food. I'm cheating a bit here because my mom made the soup above. But I liked eating it and will make a svekolnik of my own one of these days.

I don't have the exact recipe, but the basic technique is this: In a soup pot, bring beets and water to a boil, then simmer until the beets are tender. Remove and cool the beets, then peel and grate, adding them back to the liquid.

[Update, August 08: The recipe is this: thoroughly wash and scrub a pound of beets. Cover the beets with six cups of water; bring to a boil; then simmer for 60-90 minutes until soft. Proceed as written.]

Add lemon juice, red wine vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to the beet liquid to taste. This is the hardest part--underseason, and the soup will be bland. It should taste sweet-and-sour, erring on the side of sour. My mom's secret ingredient is a good splash of dill pickle brine. Chill the soup throughly in the fridge, preferably overnight.

Right before serving, chop up: hardboiled eggs, boiled and peeled potatoes, fresh peeled cucumbers, scallions, dill and parsley. I also like pickles in svekolnik. Divide the fix-ins between bowls, ladle the soup over the top and serve with sour cream.

Chocolate-Covered Sirki

A reader recently e-mailed me and asked if I knew how to make sirki (сырки). Sirki (literally "little cheeses") are small, cheesecake-like bars made with tvorog (farmer's cheese; similar to Quark cheese in Europe). I had never made sirki at home or tried storebought ones, so I did a little research: I asked my mom. She confirmed that sirki are made with tvorog and adds-ins like sour cream, vanilla, chocolate, nuts, raisins, etc.

Sirki were a favorite children's treat in Russia, and very small kids were sometimes plied with chocolate-covered sirki when they wanted ice cream. (I had never even tried sirki because, in the usual Soviet fashion, they disappeared from the stores around the time I was born.) [Update: I finally tried them when I went to Estonia and Russia in 2008.]

I found a few recipes for sirki-like desserts in Soviet cookbooks. The most common dessert is tvorozhnya massa ( "tvorog mold"), made by creaming butter and sugar, then adding eggs, tvorog and sour cream, and chilling the whole thing on a rounded plate. All this sirki talk was making me (and my mom) hungry for the real thing, so we bought some sirki from the Russian store in chocolate, almond and vanilla flavors. They tasted a lot like American-style cheesecake but were a bit tangy, like yogurt. Vanilla was the best of the bunch, but these sirki were cloyingly sweet and pricey.

Next I tried a recipe for chocolate-covered sirki from Anya von Bremzen's Russian cookbook Please to the Table. "These rich chocolate-covered cheese confections, sold in the dairy department in Soviet grocery shops, used to be a favorite childhood treat," writes Anya.

The recipe has you mix tvorog (I used 1.5 cups), 4 ounces cream cheese, sugar (Anya calls for 7 tbs; I used 3) and two egg yolks in a food processor. I also added 1 tsp. of vanilla extract. Then you add lemon zest, lemon extract and lemon juice, but I just used 3 tbs. of lemon juice. (The tvorog/cream cheese mixture has a lot of culinary promise. It had a nice, smooth texture and tastes like mousse.)

Wrap the mixture in a damp cheesecloth and place in a sieve that's set over a bowl. Cover the cheesecloth with a plate, put a weight on it (like a heavy can) and refrigerate overnight. The next day, use a small scooping spoon to shape the mixture into 1.5-inch balls.

Freeze the tvorog balls for half an hour to firm them up, then melt 12 ounces of decent dark chocolate in a saucepan or double boiler and let it cool a little. Anya calls for melting the chocolate with 3 tbs. of vegetable shortening; I used 1 tbs. and a splash of heavy cream. I think shortening smells and tastes like stale oil, even when it's fresh, so I'd avoid it completely and simply use heavy cream to make a ganache.

Dip the tvorog balls in the chocolate and let cool on a wax-paper covered plate. Chill in the fridge until the chocolate is firm. I ended up with 15 or 16 sirki. They tasted like little cheesecakes and would work well as dessert or post-dessert bites. I think you can experiment a lot with this recipe, using ricotta instead of tvorog, or sour cream instead of cream cheese, and nuts, chocolate or dried fruit in the tvorog mixture.

Lamb Shish Kebabs, or Caucasian Shashlik Demystified

I noticed that one of the much-mocked Weight Watchers cards from the '70s features "Caucasian Shashlik". This dish isn't as mysterious or gory-looking as Weight Watchers would have you believe. Shashlik means shish kebab in Russian (this word is of Turkish origin). Caucasian means it's from the Caucasus region, which includes Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and some parts of Russia.

I wouldn't consider Caucasian shashlik diet food by any means, but it is pretty excellent cookout fare. Here's an essay in pictures on Uzbek lamb kebabs.

Firing up the grill.

Skewering the meat, alternating lean pieces with fatty pieces.

On the grill.

Sprinkling the kebabs with a mixture of water and vinegar as they cook.

All done! Uzbek lamb kebabs are tradionally served with vinegar and thinly sliced onions.

All gone.

For further details, check out the lamb kekab recipe and its variations in Anya Von Bremzen's Please to the Table.

Big bowl of boneless lamb, cut into cubes. The lamb was marinated overnight in a mixture of thinly sliced onions and cumin and coriander seeds.

Poppy Seed Roll

Remember how I wrote about all those wonderful, complicated cooking projects I was planning to accomplish this week? Well. I got back from Mexico (the weather was very nice, by the way) feeling lazy and languid. I grudgingly realized that I have a real life to attend to, but all I wanted to do was sleep until 11 a.m., go to the beach, swim, tan, eat, tan, swim, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. I guess I'm not a real cook at heart. While I was away I didn't miss cooking and barely thought about it. Back at home, I lolled about the apartment and thought about making something half-way interesting, but then I got sick, which turned me off food and cooking for a few days.

So when I got better, what did I finally make? I pulled out some frozen dough from the fridge, smeared some pre-made filling on it, baked the whole thing and voila--I made a poppy seed roll. It's not as slatternly as it sounds. The frozen dough was 1/2 recipe of the sweet yeast dough I had made a couple of weeks earlier. The poppy seed roll recipe was from Please to the Table. I didn't have any poppy seeds on hand and wasn't about to shell out for two cups of them when I didn't know how frozen yeast dough would handle defrosting.

I added some walnuts and lemon zest to the canned poppy seed filling, rolled out the dough into a 12-inch square, spread the filling all around, rolled it up and baked it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. The dough rose alarmingly in the oven. I don't know whether I'm doing something wrong, or if the recipe is faulty, or if this is normal, but Anya von Brezen's sweet yeast dough swells to gargantuan proportions during baking. While the roll was cooling my boyfriend remarked, "It looks pregnant." I thought it looked like a baby beached whale. But the roll was pretty good, canned filling and all.

Will I shake off my post-vacation laziness and cook something from scratch ever again? Stay tuned to find out!

Mazurka (Fruit and nut bars)

This is what I made after an evening of packing for my trip to Mexico. Expecting a long and hungry day of travel, relieved only by airplane food, I figured I should take something that would keep well and keep me sated.

I don't know why I haven't written about these no-brainer fruit and nut things before. I got the recipe from my boyfriend's mom and I've been making them weekly all winter. Don't ask me why they're called mazurka--a dance of fruity and nutty flavors, maybe?

In any case, mazurka is neither a cookie nor a cake nor really a bar. It's simply a jumble of fruit-and-nut goodness, cut into squares. Mazurka smeared with peanut butter and washed down with tea makes a very nice breakfast or snack. I also like to crumble it into yogurt.

This is how I make it: mix 4 eggs with 3/4 cup of sugar. Beat in a cup of flour. Mix in a cup of walnuts, a cup of raisins and a cup of dried cherries or cranberries. Pour into an oiled pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 35-45 minutes. Cut into squares or bars.

You can use any combination of dried fruits and nuts, of course. Just make sure there's something sweet, like raisins, and tart, like cranberries in there. The more generous you are with fruits and nuts, the better your mazurka will be.

Vote for Yulinka

*MKE, a local lifestyle weekly, has nominated Yulinka Cooks in its blog of the week contest. This is a right of passage for Milwaukee bloggers, and I wouldn't mind winning. Vote for me here.

*Unfortunately, I can't woo new readers with tantalizing recipes for kvas (rye bread beer) and vareniki (fruit dumplings). I won't be doing much cooking for the next week as I'm leaving for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Saturday. I should be back next Saturday, June 10. Then I'll have another week of vacation, which I hope to spend playing lady of leisure. I'm planning complicated, multi-step cooking projects.

*I've been busy with work and packing this so I haven't cooked anything blog-worthy lately. The most notable dish was a variation of this shrimp scampi pasta, to which I added cherry tomatoes and spinach.

*"The Virtuous Eater, of course, has underlying health reasons for her food rules--fewer pesticides, reduced additives, no trans fat--not unlike the way many scholars believe Kosher laws were initially formed to protect Jews from unsanitary food. But the Virtuous Eater, like her historical God-fearing counterparts, also considers adherence to her dietary laws an ethical imperative and an important public exhibition of piety, a model for the less observant. It's no longer particularly acceptable to brag about one's church attendance or volunteer details of one's own genealogy or pedigree, but a blow-by-blow account of the short life of an ear of organic, local sweet corn is appropriate conversation for dinner and a credit to any cook."

Are you a Virtuous Eater? There's much more to say about this article, but I'm too tired right now. I do think most food bloggers are voluptuary Virtuous Eaters.

Tokana Two Ways

Reason #3,845 why I love Anya von Bremzen's Please to the Table: In addition to recipes for run-of-the-mill Russian food--borsht, etc.--Anya features food from the former Soviet republics. Everyone knows about kasha and blinis, but have you ever heard of a tokana? Neither have I. According to Anya, tokana is a "Moldavian stew suffused with garlic, fresh tomatoes and sweet paprika." I've been eyeing the recipe for mushroom tokana for a while, so I made it for lunch last week.

Pay no mind to the token photo. I've yet to discover how to make stews look attractive in pictures. But the tokana itself was surprisingly good. I was expecting something like a paprika-flavored tomato sauce, but instead I got a chunky, sweet-and-sour veggie stew. The recipe is online and I followed it almost to the letter. All you do is sauté mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, tomatoes (I used canned) and garlic; flavor with sweet paprika, thyme, fennel seeds (I tossed in some leftover braised fennel) and white wine; and simmer for 15 minutes.

I thought tokana would work well with beef, so a few days later I made a beef stew using the same combination of veggies and spices. I browned some cubed stewing beef, tossed in the sautéed, paprika-and-thyme spiced veggies and simmered for two hours. The sweet and sour, veggie-laded beef was pretty good but I liked the vegetarian version better.

Anya suggests mamaliga, a Moldavian/Romanian corn mush (i.e. polenta), as a side. I've never had polenta so I made a practice version and I'm still split about it. Cooked with water, as suggested, polenta is just blah. Cooked with stock or milk and butter—Anya’s recipe calls for a stick and a half!--polenta isn't bad. I have to grudgingly admit that polenta is pretty good comfort food, but I still think it’s best eaten for breakfast with milk and called by its plain-Jane name: cornmeal porridge.

A Saturday Breakfast

This is a pure vanity post, inspired by today's breakfast. On weekdays I have a piece of fruit, usually an apple, for breakfast at my desk at work. My ideal weekend breakfast, however, features yogurt or tvorog, some sort of a fresh baked good and black tea. It’s indulgent but not so brunch-heavy that you feel like you've eaten your daily allotment of calories half an hour after getting up.

From left: black loose-leaf Indian tea with a slice of lemon, yogurt scones and tvorog topped with plain yogurt and jam. I like to read something—anything—when I’m eating breakfast. This might jibe with the whole savoring-your-food-without-distractions philosophy, but I think everything tastes better when you’re reading while eating. I picked up this bad habit when I was a kid and I still find myself reading labels on jars and bottles when I'm lacking reading material at the table. I don’t get the Saturday paper so today I settled for an old issue of W magazine. Do thin models encourage poor body image? If only! I ate two buttered scones, licked my fingers and wanted more.

Zucchini and Yellow Squash Gratin

It's easy to cook for someone from the same cultural background as you. My boyfriend, P., is basically a meat and potatoes guy. But thanks to spending the first 13 years of his life in Uzbekistan, the former Soviet republic, he knows all about Russian food. Kasha? He was practically weaned on that stuff. Tvorog? A wonderful midnight snack. Beet salad? I want some more, please. How often do you find a big guy's guy who happily eats cabbage and beef aspic?

Unfortunately, P.'s palate is too russified for some popular American foods. Namely pasta, but especially any kind of veggie-sauce pasta, which he says is food for "girls on diets." (Dried pasta gets no respect in Russian cooking. One cookbook I own advises boiling it for 25 minutes.) I love girlie pasta and that's what I often make when I find myself eating on my own. Today's lunch wasn't technically a pasta dish, but it's good with any kind of noodle.

Slice a bunch of zucchini and yellow squash (I used two of each) into 1/4 inch rounds. In batches, sauté in olive oil for a little while until the vegetables soften. Spread the veggies in a casserole dish with a couple of minced and sautéed garlic cloves. Top with some good tomato sauce. I didn't have any sauce so I used halved cherry tomatoes. Sprinkle the whole thing with grated mozzarella--you judge how much is enough--and Parmesan. Bake in a 425-degree oven until the cheese is slightly browned.

Appropriate sides are good bread or new potatoes, but I ate this with linguine, pouring the zucchini-olive oil-tomato juices on top. This is really late summer food and I hope that I'll be eating it by the panful in August.

Pie Oh My

Because I haven't blogged quite enough about things to do with curdled milk, I baked a tvorog and blueberry pie this weekend. Seriously, it's not like I decided to make Yulinka Cooks a tvorog-themed blog. It's just that I always have milk and buttermilk nearing expiration in the fridge. I figure that I'll make tvorog and find some use for it later. Sometimes I'll end up eating it for breakfast or lunch; sometimes I have no choice but to bake with it.

I've actually had my eye on this pie recipe, from Anya von Bremzen's Please to the Table, for at least a year. I like tvorog, I like blueberries and I like a challenge--sweet yeast dough. Remebering what I learned last time--more flour!--I had far less trouble making the dough this time around. The trouble came later.

For the cheese filling, I mixed 1 1/4 cups of tvorog with a couple of tablespoons of sugar, an egg yolk, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, lemon zest (I used lemon juice) and a tablespoon of sour cream. The recipe calls for fresh blueberries, mixed with a little sugar, but I used frozen. This was a mistake, as frozen blueberries release a lot of juice when they bake.

You need 1/2 recipe of the sweet yeast dough for this pie. I rolled out 3/4 of the dough into a 13-inch round and draped it across a 10-inch pie plate. I made my second mistake here, using a pie plate that was far too deep. Use a standard pie plate or something shallow. The other quarter of the dough is for the lattice strips. I tried to make them no more than 1/4 inch wide, as instructed. Even though mine were too thick, I still wound up with a leftover hunk of dough (used for mini-vatrushki).

The above photo shows the pie before it went into a 375-degree oven. I had a few concerns about it looking kind of messy (not to mention the pie-making mess in the background). When it came out, it was... Well, look at the top picture. "Rustic" is a kind way of putting it. "Peasant-style" would also work. But it didn't quite look like an elegant northern Slavic pie that Anya promised.

Because the pie plate was too deep, the shell didn't bake all the way through. I thought the tvorog filling could have used a little more browning, which it didn't get thanks to the lattice. The frozen berries released too much juice. But how did the pie taste? Good! Really, this is a very nice adult dessert (or breakfast). I've become a big fan of sweet yeast dough--it's not too sweet or leaden. The boyfriend had about three slices and proclaimed the pie "yummy" and "not very heavy." So there you go--just use fresh blueberries and don't bother with the lattice. The cheese and blueberry filling would work just as well on a flaky, American-style pie crust, I think, or in a tart, which is what I might try next time.

Lasagna

It’s funny that I’m so big on cooking Russian food these days. Between the ages of, say, 10 and 19, I didn’t get all excited about borsht or sirniki. I didn’t spend my Friday nights sparring with sweet yeast dough for vatrushki. And I certainly wasn’t looking forward to summer so I could make kvas—rye bread beer.

No, what I really wanted to eat as a kid was American food—-or what I thought of as American food. It began with fast food. My mom’s first job in America was at McDonald’s, and I fell in love with Happy Meals, chicken McNuggets and fries. Then we got a toaster and I toasted countess slices of Wonder Bread, which I ate with Kraft cheese slices. After that came the microwave and along with it frozen pizza and frozen dinners, followed by potato chips and Doritos, gummy “fruit-snacks,” fruit roll-ups, Lunchables and other highly processed goodies.

When I started getting into cooking, I had little desire to cook or eat cabbage and beet-based dishes. I wanted to make what Americans eat. And what do Americans eat? Tacos made from taco kits, Hamburger Helper and burgers on cottony buns, of course. Sometimes I tagged along with my mom when she went grocery shopping and cajoled her into buying and making this stuff. We’d have it once or twice before going back to classic Soviet weeknight food—-soups, kotleti (beef patties, kind of like burgers but served without the bun) and fried potatoes.

Occasionally I would hit upon better ideas, including homemade meatloaf, Asian-style stir-fries and lasagna. My favorite was, of course, the lasagna. It didn't matter that lasagna wasn't exacty American. I just knew that it was unheard of in Russian cooking and that the freezer aisle at the grocery store was full of frozen lasagna dinners. Lasagna marks my food evolution because I would usually guide my mom in making it rather than the other way around. It’s also one of the few non-Russian dishes my mom still cooks even though I’m not around to pester her to make it. Our lasagnas went through many variations and food-fad stages over the years—ground beef lasagna, ground turkey lasagna, chicken lasagna, veggie lasagna, low-fat lasagna and others.

It took years of practice but I think I made one of my best lasagnas yet tonight. No recipe—I don’t keep track of proportions and I’ll make it a different way next time. The filling was made of extra virgin olive oil, a huge, sautéed onion, sautéed red, yellow and green bell-peppers, sweet Italian sausage, a couple of garlic cloves, a couple of handfuls of chopped parsley and a can of San Marzano tomatoes. Mozzarella and Parmesan between the layers. The filling was so good that I half-considered ditching the lasagna and just eating it with pasta. But I carried through and had a perfectly good American dinner.

Some Thoughts on Blinchiki

Helen's lovely and poignant post about blinchiki inspired childhood memories and a real craving for these thin Russian pancakes. Like I commented on Helen's blog, as a kid, I had the same fascination with flipping blinchiki when my mom made them on weekend mornings. I wrote about savory blinchiki before and I don't intend to re-post the recipe or the instructions--I urge you to check out Helen's authoritative guide to making and flipping crepes. (I use a spatula and sometimes even my fingers to flip them. Ouch.)

Rather, I want to offer some tips and thoughts on making blinchiki a beloved weekend breakfast tradition on par with fresh-baked brunch goodies.

-Do make blinchiki on weekends only. It takes some time to fry them and you can't hurry this process along.

-The first blinchik will usually tear when you flip it. I think that's because the pan hasn't had time to heat up properly. The French say "La première, c'est pour le chien." (The first one's for the dog.) In Russian, it's "pervei blin komom." (The first one's a mess.)

-If you don't have a dog, do eat the scraps of the first blinchik! You'll be behind the stove for a little while and will need something to tide you over.

-Eat one well-made blinchik while you're working, too. It'll give you a taste of what's to come.

-Sweet fillings are for weekend blinchiki. Savory fillings are for weeknight blinchiki.

-Serve blinchiki buffet-style with a nice assortment of toppings.

-I tried to give an example of appropriate toppings in the above photo. I suggest you offer: at least two kinds of jam (that's apricot and raspberry in the photo), sour cream, butter, honey and sugar. Maple syrup wouldn't be bad at all. Nutella works, if that's your thing.

-Do make a big pot of tea to wash down the blinchki. Coffee will work as blinchiki breakfast beverage, but ideally you want black tea and lots of it. Make sure the tea is hot and ready when you serve the blinchiki.

-Blinchiki with tvorog (farmer's cheese) become blintzes. That's a Yiddish word, by the way, not a Russian one. I has some leftover tvorog so I mixed it with a little sugar and sour cream, filled and rolled up a couple of blinchki and topped them with honey.

-Don't believe those recipes that say two blinchiki per person is enough. If they're filled, maybe. If not, everyone will want more. I know I will. Figure on five per person.

Guest-at-the-Doorstep Apple Charlotte

The frou-frou name is courtesy of Anya von Bremzen. My mom has been making this very easy, not quite a cake, not quite a pie apple dessert for ages, but I had thought the recipe was a family exclusive. So I was really surprised to find an almost identical recipe included in von Bremzen's Please to the Table and described as a classic, last-minute Russian (or, more likely, Soviet) dessert.

This is the sort of dessert you make when you want something sweet to finish up a meal but have no time to bake or shop. I memorized the recipe a long time ago--3 eggs, a cup of sugar, a cup of flour, 4 apples, slice, mix, pour, bake--and even my dad has successfully made this. Because it's so easy we used to make this all the time, but then I got bored with it. Don't make this apple charlotte too often, and you'll be surprised by just how good it is when you do have it. This is my tweaked recipe:

-Oil a 9-inch pan and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.
-Core, peel, quarter 3-4 large, tart apples and slice them into 1/4 inch pieces. I use Granny Smith. Arrange the apple slices in a circular pattern in the pan.
-Sprinkle the apples with a little cinnamon, nutmeg or ground cloves.
-Preheat the oven to 350.
-Beat 3 eggs in a bowl, add 3/4 cup of sugar, beat until the mixture is smooth and pale yellow. Beat in 1 tsp. vanilla extract.
-Beat in 1 cup of flour. Add a splash of milk (3-4 tablespoons), continue beating till smooth.
-Pour the batter evenly over the apples.
-Bake until the top is puffy and golden, about 50 minutes.

This is excellent when eaten warm, but do let cool it for 30 minutes or so. Sprinkle the top with powdered sugar before serving.

On a Month and a Half of Food Blogging

-Wow, blogging takes up a lot of time. I'd estimate it takes me an hour to an hour and a half to write a pretty basic post/recipe. I used to read in my free time! Now I'm writing up my dinner.

-My photos are rubbish and that probably won't change anytime soon. I use a cheapie digital camera that my dad got as a thank-you present at a work conference. But I know that the fault really lies with me, not the camera. I have almost no understanding of basic photography, including stuff like lighting, and I don't feel like learning. Like that Harold guy on Bravo's Top Chef, I'm, you know, a cook, man, not some photographer!

-When reading high-end food blogs, I sometimes wonder why I bother. The stunning photography, the 10-course dinner parties, the Michelin-starred restaurants... I remind myself that I aspire to be a good home cook, a good housewife cook, as some snooty French chef put it on Top Chef.

-Do I post about my failures? I like it when bloggers write their kitchen blunders and recipes that just don't turn out. Still, when I failed spectacularly in making tuiles last week, I tossed out the cookie scraps and put away my camera. I regret this now; it would have made an amusing post. I should have started with a pic of the ruined tuiles and the title "This Is Not a Tuile." But too many mistakes and blah recipes are overkill. I like to pick up tricks and hints and promising recipes from the blogs I read.

-"A blog needs a sense of purpose. The author can't just curl up on the sofa like an overfed retriever and recollect his last bowl of kibble; he should strain forward like a terrier who's late for an appointment with a ham bone."

Some wag wrote the above back in March and ruffled a few feathers in the food blogging world. But I think he's right. My purpose, I suppose, is to write about Russian home cooking. Problem is, I don't cook Russian food every day, or even every week. In the past few days, I made perfectly good and even kind of photogenic food, including an Asian-type stir fry with noodles and swordfish with sauteed potatoes (tonight's dinner).

But I didn't blog about these meals because they don't fit my theme. Plenty of other bloggers can cook and write about this kind of food better than I can. Here's what I do want to write about in the future: Kvas (rye bread beer), plov (Uzbek lamb and rice stew), eggplant and red pepper salad, Uzbek food in general (my boyfriend's family is from Uzbekistan), more good things to do with beets and tvorog.

-I started a blog and the world failed to notice. What's wrong with you, world?! Leave one freakin' comment or something!

Eggplant Caviar

Eggplant caviar, the classic Russian appetizer. Eggplant caviar is like borsch in that there's no standard recipe for it; every cook has his tricks. This is how I make it:

Preheat the oven to 425; pierce one medium eggplant all over with a fork and bake until soft, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Cut the eggplant in half; peel; chop the pulp.

Heat some olive oil in a large skillet. Be generous with the oil, as eggplant absorbs quite a lot of it. No one likes a dry eggplant caviar. It should be nicely oily, but not greasy.

Finely chop and saute: A large onion, two small or one large carrot, 1-1.5 cup bell peppers. You can use green or red or whatever peppers. I used orange and yellow. Cook vegetables until the onion is golden and the carrots and peppers and soft.

Add the eggplant pulp and 1 minced garlic clove. Simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Seasoning eggplant caviar is the hardest part. You typically use tomatoes, canned or fresh, or tomato paste; a little sugar; lemon juice or vinegar; salt and pepper. I end up using a different combo every time and I don't keep track of proportions, tasting until I get it right. This time I used about 1/2 cup of chopped, canned tomatoes, a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, a teaspoon of sugar, a couple of squirts of lemon juice and red wine vinegar and a couple of dashes of salt and black pepper.

After adding the seasonings, simmer for 15 more minutes. Add another finely minced garlic clove or two, depending on how much you like garlic, and take off the heat. Transfer to a bowl and chill for several hours in the fridge. Serve cold or even warm, but never hot.

You can eat eggplant caviar with rye or pita bread, but it's just as good over rice or with some boiled new potatoes. I even like it with pasta. When eggplant caviar turns out very well, people will eat it straight right out of the serving bowl.

An Underripe Pineapple

A few days ago I had an underripe pineapple on my hands, so I roasted it. I rarely make baked fruit desserts because I am too impatient not to eat the fruit as is. However, a very tart pineapple is no fun to eat straight up so I took advantage of the opportunity to experiment.

I chose a recipe out of a swanky Williams Sonoma roasting cookbook. It's a book I often consult for inspiration, but I don't really cook from it. Page after page of food porn-y photos and at least four pricey herbs per recipe. This pineapple dessert is the easiest thing in there.

Core and peel a pineapple. Cut it crosswise into 1/2 inch slices. Pour whatever juice you get while preparing the pineapple into a small bowl and add 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract. Arrange the pineapple in a baking dish and pour the juice over the fruit. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 tsp. of ground ginger and--this is the most important part--1/4 to 1/2 tsp. of black pepper. Roast at 425 for 20-25 minutes.

Let the pineapple cool a little but eat it while it's still warm, preferably with some plain, creamy yogurt. The pineapple will have a spicy kick that you'll really feel as the fruit slides down your throat. The juice that the pineapple produces while baking has even more zing. If I make this again, I will kick it up a notch--sorry, couldn't help myself--with more black pepper. If you're tempted not to eat the entire pineapple in one sitting, keep in mind that the peppery zing will dissapear overnight.

Tilapia with Mushroom Kasha

I'm not a big fan of buckwheat (kasha)--it's too dry for my tastes, so I rarely make it. In fact, I've had a big package of kasha in my pantry for months and I hadn't made it once. But I am willing to reexamine my food prejudices.

I got the idea for the kasha from--what else?--Anya von Bremzen's Please to the Table. She has a promising recipe with lots of butter and wild mushrooms that you have to soak for two hours, but I went for the quick and easy version. I also wasn't sure about serving kasha with tilapia. Usually I do some kind of Asian or Mediterranean sauce when making fish, but what the hell.

To make the kasha, I brought a cup of water to boil and added half a cup of buckwheat along with a little salt. Simmered until all the water was absorbed; about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, I diced and sauteed a big onion and half a pound of mushrooms in a couple of tablespoons of butter, adding some chopped parsley at the end. A sprinkle of sage, salt, pepper. Added the cooked kasha to the skillet, mixed in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream, dumped the whole thing in a casserole dish.

Seared a couple of tilapia fillets and put them on top of the kasha. Made a quick sauce of butter, white wine and lemon juice; poured this over the fish. Baked until the fish was done.

This was surprisingly good, especially the kasha--fluffy and satisfying. I still think that kasha is kind of blah on its own, but it does go well with sauteed fix-ins, especially onions or mushrooms. It's also good with saucy food, like stew. I'll have to make Anya von Bremzen's fancy version of this, but not till the fall. Kasha is really more of a hearty cold-weather food and it actually felt like May today. Ah, well. I still overcame a food prejudice.

Eating Cheap/Eating Local

I have mixed feelings about posting this. Will I lose all my readers? (All five of you.) But here it goes.

I can't get too excited about the eat local challenge. I'm hardly qualified to talk about eating local/organic--most of the time, I don't, because I can't afford it too often It doesn't help that I'm a conservative, careful spender by nature. Yes, I could stretch my income to buy pricier organic groceries, but I'm not about to eat through my 401(k) contribution, those six months of living expenses or grad school tuition.

Six dollar eggs are an occasional treat, not a weekly purchase. I do stop by the Outpost, the local organic co-op, for good yogurt; Sendiks, the local gourmet fancy food chain, for decent bread, specialty stuff or to splurge on cheese. Still, after walking into Sendiks, the first thing I check out is the reduced produce shelf. You never know what exciting cheapies you might find there--today, I got a yellow and an orange pepper for a buck. I shop like an old lady, buying meat, vegetables, fruit and seafood on special.

I suppose I am all for eating local. I wish I could buy organic meat without flinching at the price, happily paying more to support sustainable organic farming. But ultimately, the call to eat local/organic affects me like a campaign to bike to work. It's a nice idea, but... And although I like to cook and eat well, I don't think I have the makings of a foodie. Savings trump organic asparagus!

So I am far more sympathetic to the poverty line challenge. It's closer to my frugal little heart. After immigrating to America in the early nineties, my parents' food budget was pretty small, possibly poverty line, yet the four of us (parents, grandfather, me) ate reasonably well because my mom is a careful and economic shopper and a decent cook. Our meals certainly fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as chicken, pork and beef. I don't buy the complaint that it's very hard to eat well or healthy on a budget. On the other hand, it does take some work and imagination.

Consider this tomato bean soup. My mom has made this sort of soup at least once a week when I was growing up. A big bowl, with seconds--why not?--and some decent bread makes a satisfying, nutritious meal and leaves plenty of leftovers for everyone's lunch the next day. How much does this soup cost to make? A half a bag of dried navy beans is about 60 cents; a onion, a couple of carrots, two cloves of garlic and some celery stalks might run you 50-60 cents. A can of tomatoes--let's say $1.50, if you're getting the halfway decent kind. A couple of cents for a few tablespoons of vegetable or okay olive oil. The stock is made from 3-4 lbs supermarket chicken, always bought on sale for less than a dollar per pound, plus the usual cheap veggies--carrots, celery, etc. Let's say 4-5 dollars for the 16 or 18 cups of stock. A bay leaf, a little salt, pepper, paprika or red pepper flakes won't set you back much.

Still, that's $8, tops, for a big, nutritious, yummy pot of soup. (Eight dollars might buy only two meals at a fast food place.) Yes, the veggies aren't local or organic and yes, the chicken has been pumped with hormones, antibiotics and has led a nasty, brutal and short life. But isn't this kind of homemade, cheap food infinitely better than McDonald's or endless peanut butter on Wonder Bread sandwiches? I'd think that lack of planning, lack of basic cooking skills and sheer laziness is a far bigger enemy of the poor than second-rate supermarket ingredients.

I think I eat pretty well on my budget. My meals are pretty creative; I'm a decent beginner cook; I can afford to experiment and splurge often enough. (Here I am pleading poverty, yet my shopping lists over the last few weeks included the following just-for-fun goodies: A can of anchovies with capers; fresh pineapple; asparagus; tahini; fancy cheese; red curry paste; black bean sauce.) Still, it's irritating to wait for certain foods, especially seafood or meat, to go on sale when I want to eat them now. A visit to the to the local organic or 'goumet' market sometimes leaves me dejected and unsatisfied. Really, you'd think that not being able to afford organic beef is some kind of great tragedy in life.

Don't pity me, though. I am moving up in the world and one day I, too, shall eat local and organic. See you at Whole Foods in a few years!

Salmon Soup

This cheap, fast and easy soup would make a good entry for the poverty line challenge (more on that later). Salmon soup is either my grandmother's or my mom's invention, but I'm claiming the rights. You don't need stock or fresh salmon to make this soup. You do need a can of pink salmon ($2 at the local supermarket; I checked) and the cheap vegetables everyone should have on hand--carrots, potatoes, onions, celery and frozen peas. The salmon makes its own stock as it cooks.

Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a soup pot. While waiting for the water to boil, peel and cube 3 small potatoes. Finely chop a large onion, 2 stalks of celery and 2 carrots. When the water comes to a boil, add the potatoes and some salt; turn heat down to a simmer.

While the potatoes are cooking, heat some olive or vegetable oil in a skillet and saute the onion, celery and carrots until the onions are golden. When the vegetables are nearly done, add a finely minced garlic clove and a handful of chopped parsley; saute for 30-60 seconds. Once the potatoes are almost cooked, add the vegetables, two bay leaves and a couple of sprigs of parsley to the soup pot. Simmer.

Open a 14 oz. can of pink salmon, break into chunks and carefully remove as much skin and bones from the fish as you can. Add the salmon and the water it was packed in to the soup pot ; simmer 20-30 minutes or so. Add some frozen peas; no need to defrost them. Add salt and pepper to taste. A splash of lemon juice at the very end doesn't hurt.

P., the boyfriend, said this soup reminded him of ukha, the authentic Russian salmon soup. But P. is a shameless flatterer, so take this soup for what it is: Good, fast and about $4 for the whole pot.

Orange-Spice Tvorog Muffins

Sometimes I have the chance to experiment with baking. I don't do this very often, since I hate to waste food, but I was practically obligated to play around last night. I had tvorog and half a dozen eggs that were rapidly nearing their expiriation date and an orange that had seen better days. I used an old recipe that didn't give exact proportions or an oven temperature, so I winged it.

I mixed 2-2.5 cups of tvorog with 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a tablespoon of butter (melted), 3.5 tablespoons of uncooked cream of wheat (not instant) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I added some orange zest, the juice of one small orange, a couple of handfuls or raisins and then sprinkled in a bit of: cardamom (leading spice), ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

I oiled a muffin pan, filled six cups with the batter, and smeared some sour cream on top. Baked at 375 or so for 50 minutes or so...And got this:

You may have noted that I made six muffins, yet there's only four in the photo. That's because were good enough to eat at 12:30 a.m., shortly after I got them out of the oven. I suspect they'll be even better when I have then with apricot jam for breakfast tomorrow.

A Man in the Kitchen

A Man in the Kitchen is the title of this little Soviet cookbook, by one Petr Saraliev. My mom has owned it for nearly 15 years, yet the only time it makes it out of the bookcase is when I need some entertainment.

Pubished in 1986, it's intended as a cooking for dummies-type book for men, but I skim it for the intro and advice sections.

From the intro (translation, mine):

"Every moderately intelligent man can successfully cook meals which will not only satisfy him, but also others."

"Of course, gastronomy must not become a cult; there's no need to strive for the rich and opulent feasts of the Chinese mandarins, Arabic sheiks and Roman patricians, as we eat to live, not live to eat."

"I want to note that the health impact of these recipes is of no small concern. Taking into consideration recent scientific findings, frying and sauteeing are kept to a minimum."

From the "Useful Hints" section:

"Well-made food depends in large part on the cook's good mood, and a favorite tune will help you with this."

"Dirty dishes must be washed after every meal, as they quickly pile up in large amounts, making washing more difficult and time-consuming. Besides, putting off washing the dishes is simply unhygienic."

From the "Culture of Eating" section:

"It's indecent to have unkempt kitchen cabinets that would horrify people [with their messiness]...Cleanliness is an inherent part of culture."

"The cultured person always eats at a clean table, using the appropriate silverware. The ability to eat well is a habit that develops with time."

"You will agree that cultured dining is not such a difficult thing, even though it demands self-discipine and self-control."

It's easy to laugh at this old-fashioned advice now, but it's basically true, don't you think?

Unfortunately, the recipes don't live up to the no-nonsense intro . For example, bean soup. Ingredients: 1 can of beans in tomato sauce; 1 onion; 1 carrot; a piece of celery; parsley; mint; salt. Directions: Put the beans in a soup pot; add the chopped vegetables and herbs. Add 4 cups of water and mix well. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring.

Me, I have mixed feelings about men in the kitchen. These days my dad gets home before my mom on weekdays, so he's in charge of starting dinner. I hear the results are tragicomic. When my boyfriend, P., heads to the kitchen, my possessive side comes out. He's is going to meddle in my kitchen! Where everything is arranged according to my needs and every countertop is hygienic! God, I hope he won't make eggs or something and get the stove all greasy and keep asking where we keep the skillet...

Alas, I don't think Petr Saraliev ever had many male readers.

Tomato Bean Soup

Helen of Beyond Salmon once wrote a funny, very true post about growing up in a Russian soup-eating family.

For as long as I can remember, my mom made soup at least once or twice a week. A week without soup was a week gone wrong. She has a dozen soupsin her repertoire, including this tomato bean soup, the family favorite. I made it myself for the first time, with some successful tweaking.

First, I soaked a cup of navy beans in water overnight. When making the soup the next day, I brought chicken stock to a boil, added the beans, and reduced the heat to low. I think I used 7 or 8 cups of stock.

I simmered the beans for about 50-60 minutes, until they were soft and tender. Then I chopped, sauteed and added to the stock pot: A large onion, two celery ribs,a big carrot, a slice of bacon, and, separately, a zucchini. A minute or two before the zucchini was done sauteeing, I added a handful of parsley and clove of garlic to the skillet, minced.

I let the whole thing simmer for 10-15 minutes while I pondered a food blogger dilemma: Do I dare use ingredients that no respectable foodie would admit to eating? You see, my mom's secret ingredients are a can of Bush's baked beans and ketchup. They give the soup its sweet-savory, tomato-y, smoky flavor. The soup was thick enough without the extra beans, but I did go with the ketchup--no regrets.

In a bowl, I mixed half a can of crushed tomatoes, a couple of big squirts of ketchup and a little sugar. I added all this to the stock pot, along with a dried, hot chili pepper. While the soup simmered some more, I decided that adding a couple of small chunks of parmesan that had been sitting in my fridge, wrapped in foil, for much too long was a good idea.

And it was.

The Stock Post

What's your fantasy/science-fiction kitchen gadget? Mine is device that makes rich, hot chicken stock on its own. I don't know how this toy would work, but I want one as soon as it's invented.

This is how I usualy make my own chicken stock: I put a 3 pound chicken in a stock pot, cover with plenty of water, add some roughly chopped celery, carrots and an onion, plus a couple of bay leaves,parsley sprigs, and salt. Then I bring to a boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for an hour to an hour and a half, removing the scum with a slotted spoon as necessary. When the stock is done, I strain it and squeeze every drop of broth out of the veggies by pushing them through a sieve with a spoon.

All this yields a golden rich stock, plus plenty of chicken to use in my lunch salads and sandwiches. The stock makes a quick soup and a meal in itself if you add noodles or rice and some big, moist chunks of chicken. Sometimes I'll toss in some veggies; other times I'll add some sliced carrots 15 or 20 minutes before the stock is done, since I'll end up sieving and tossing the ones I used at the start. They don't have much flavor by this time.

Lately I've been eating chicken soup with dumplings. I don't make own, oh, no--I buy frozen pelmeni at the Russian store*. (Pelmeni are a sort of Russian ravioli.)

Chicken pelmeni are the best, but you can also get beef or veal. The ingredient list looks pretty decent. Dough: Flour, water, eggs, salt. Filling: Chicken, onion, salt, pepper.

After straining the stock, toss in the pelmini for 5-7 minutes. They cook quickly. Ladle into a bowl--a cafe au lait mug is preferable-- and slurp.

*Spartak, 5587 N. Diversey Blvd.,Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin 53217-5202. Phone: (414) 332-3347.

Creamy Beet Salad

I get pretty indignant on the behalf of beets. Why do so many people (i.e. Americans) dislike them? I suspect it's because many Americans have never had a properly made beet dish. Trendy beet salads where you roast and slice a beet and pour on some citrus-based dressing? Eh.

Beets deserve better. In Russian cooking, you never just eat a chunk of beet. Beets are always grated and combined with other ingredients. In fact, beets, like eggplants, are one of those vegetables that are so-so on their own but really shine with other flavors.

This salad is one of the better things you can do with beets. It's easy, it's light and it tastes like spring. Even P., my meat-and-potatoes boyfriend, said so.

You can roast beets at 375 for an hour, but I simply boil them, like potatoes. Bring some water to a boil, put one small or medium trimmed beet in the pan and simmer until the beet is tender and is easily pierced with a knife--45 minutes to an hour. Let it cool. (I cooked my beet the night before and it was nicely chilled when I was ready to work with it the next day.)

Grate the beet into a salad bowl. Add the following, finely chopped: 1 small, peeled cucumber; 1-2 scallions; 1 hardboiled egg; 1-2 good dill pickles; and a handful of fresh dill. Some finely diced red onion wouldn't be amiss if you aren't using the scallions.

For the dressing, I used a combo of a little olive oil, lemon juice, plain yogurt, sour cream, mayo, salt and pepper. You can use just mayo and yogurt or mayo and lemon juice or sour cream and yogurt, etc. Just make sure you have something creamy rich and nicely tart. I think 2 or 3 tablespoons of dressing is enough; eyeball it.

The end result is sweet and sour and fresh. Beets, sugary sweet. Pickles, sour. Cukes, scallions and dill, fresh. Mayo, sweet. Yogurt, sour...

Vatrushki

Vatrushki are brioche-like pastries with a tvorog filling. I've wanted to make these all week because a) I needed to test my mettle in making yeast dough for the first time and b) I had a pound of tvorog to use up.

I followed the recipe from Anya von Bremzen's Please to the Table. I still think this is the bible of Russian cooking--just be aware that it needs more proofreading than it got. The recipe asks for yeast dough, although when you flip to the dough section, you find out that you actually have to make sweet yeast dough--yes, those are different.

I used a mixer to make the dough, like Anya suggests, though I suspect that a KitchenAid would make this much easier. I combined 1.5 cups warm milk, 2 packets of yeast and 1 tablespoon of sugar and let it stand for 5 minutes (the ingredient list calls for 1 teaspoon; the instructions for 1 tablespoon--see what I mean about proofreading?). Then I added 4 egg yolks, 3/4 cup sugar and a stick of butter, melted and cooled to room temperature.

Then you add 4-4.5 cups of flour, one at a time, and mix, mix, mix. After that, knead for 7 minutes. Anya says the dough shouldn't stick to your hands. Yeah, right. It will stick. Christ, how it'll stick! For a while, as I kneaded, I had the weirdest feeling of not having hands or fingers because they were completely covered with sticky dough that had not intentions of coming off. I think I kneaded for 20 minutes and used 6 cups of flour before the dough became reasonably pliant. I put it in a buttered bowl, covered with a linen towel and left to rise for an hour and 15 minutes.

It rose, making a nice, round dome under the towel. Anya calls for 1/2 recipe of the sweet yeast dough for the vatruski, enough to make about 15. Wrong again. Half the yeast dough made about 4 or 5 vatrushkis. So I used all of it, rolling it out and ultimately cutting out 14 4-inch rounds.

For the tvorog filling, I mixed a pound of tvorog with 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, a tablespoon of flour, a tablespoon of sugar (Anya calls for 3) and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Anya calls for raisins, too, but I didn't bother this time.

I made indentations in the dough, put a couple of tablespoons of filling in the middle, and put the vatrushki on a greased baking sheet to let them rise for 20 minutes before baking at 350 for 30 minutes. (Anya has you brush these with an egg glaze, but I didn't, to no ill effect. ) Before going in, they looked like this:


After:


Final verdict: Quite good. We ate them with jam. Next time I'd use raisins in the filling. 30 minutes in the oven may be too long; some of the bottoms were a little burnt. If making these for company, I'd brush them with the egg glaze. I no longer have blind faith in Anya von Bremzen's recipes.

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I roasted a lackluster pint of cherry tomatoes back in December and haven't felt like eating fresh tomatoes ever since. Roasting brings out the sweet, rich flavor that these little buggers just don't have in the winter. I bet I'll still be blitzing them in the oven in the middle of August.

I toss them in salads, pasta, eggs and sandwiches. I made a nice tomato spread, inspired by Chocolate and Zucchini's pesto rouge. (Throw roasted tomatoes in a food processor with some garlic, chopped parsley, parmesan and olive oil. Whirr around a bit. Eat with good toasted bread.) My boyfriend and I have eaten them right out of the roasting pan and licked the spoons.

You should do the same. Preheat the oven to 425. Place as many cherry tomatoes as you want in a foil-lined baking pan. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar; sprinkle on salt, pepper and a little sugar if your tomatoes are very tart. Sometimes I'll toss in a couple of garlic cloves. Roast for 30 minutes or so.

Pirozhki/Head On

Good things I ate this weekend:




Mushrooms and cabbage pirozhki*, made by my mom. I don't have the recipe, but I bet there's a good one in Anya von Bremzen's Please to the Table. Pirozhki are even better when served with a rich, clear chicken broth.

Good things I saw this weekend:

Head On, the German movie about a wild Turkish girl, Sibel, who lives in Germany with her conservative Turkish family and marries herself off to an unstable, 40-ish Turkish rock'n roller guy, Cahit, so she can party without her family threatning to kill her for tainting their honor. A year into this marriage of convenience, the wild girl and her drunk, drugged (but still pretty hot) quasi-husband fall in love and it ends badly.

Lest you think this has nothing to do with food, there's a magical cooking scene, far removed from the seedy backdrop of the rest of the movie, in which Sibel makes Turkish stuffed peppers for Cahit. You see her mixing the meat with the spices; carefully arranging the peppers in a pot; then mixing tomato paste and stock to make a sauce which she pours over the peppers. Cahit watches her, smiling, a cigarette dangling from his lips, and, for an instant, daring you to hope this movie will have a happy ending.

Turkey Stew

It's 30 degrees and snowing here in Milwaukee, you know. We had rain, hail and strong wind today, too. So I have no qualms posting about turkey stew in April. If the weather is ridiculous where you live, say the hell with spring and make this.



I browned 3 pounds of turkey thighs* in a skillet. Then I cooked a big onion, some finey chopped celery and mushrooms until nice and golden, and sprinked in some sage. (You could certainly do without the mushrooms, but mine looked sad and lonely in the back of the fridge when I reached for the celery.)

I put everything in a Dutch oven, tossed in a bay leaf or two and couple sprigs of parsley, poured 1.5-2 cups of chicken stock over the whole thing and brought it to a boil. Then I reduced the heat to low and let the whole thing bubble peacefully for an hour. (I like simmering better than roasting, baking, broiling, grilling, boiling or poaching. There's something very comforting and satisfying about those little bubbles that pop up on the surface.)

A tossed in some roughly chopped carrots and half a rutabaga, cut into chunks. (I confess that I never tried a rutabaga before I made this. Not a bad root vegetable; tastes like something between a potato and a sweet potato. When I heated up the leftover the next day, I couldn't even tell the rutabago from a potato.) Then I simmered the stew for 30 or 45 minutes.

The stroke of brilliance was to serve this with mashed potatoes and rutabagas. I had half a rutabaga left over and I had to put to proper use! I peeled and boiled the root vegetable until tender but not too soft--rutabagas will take longer to cook than the potatoes--drained, then mashed with melted butter, milk, salt and pepper.

*Turkey thighs are relatively cheap, flavorful and work well with root vegetables.

How to Make Tvorog (Farmer's Cheese)

Tvorog, a Russian dairy product, is known as farmer's cheese or curd cheese in the U.S. It's a cross between ricotta and cottage cheese, but doesn't really taste like either. Tvorog is immensely popular in Russia. It's eaten with jam and sour cream for breakfast, as a snack or as a light dinner, and is used in all sorts of sweet and savory baking. In America, you can sometimes buy tvorog in upscale or Eastern-European grocery stores, but it tends to be expensive.

Fortunately, it's easy to make tvorog at home. The process is a bit time consuming, but it requires almost no hands-on work. Here's what you do:

*In a soup pot, combine 1/2 gallon of milk (whole is best, but I've used low-fat and even skim without problems) with 2 cups of buttermilk. Do not use buttermilk containing sodium citrate! In Wisconsin, Kemps buttermilk is good and cheap.

*Place the milk/buttermilk mixture in a warm place until it develops the consistency of thick yogurt (a kitchen counter or the back burner of a stove work just fine). This will take about 24 hours. In the summer and in very warm homes, this may take only 12 hours.

*Place the pot containing the milk mixture over very, very low heat for about an hour. Choose the lowest setting on your stove. If you have a gas stove, use a flame tamer. Do not stir the milk.

*After about an hour, the milk will curdle, and the curds and whey will begin to separate. Take the milk off the heat.

*Let the milk cool for about 30 minutes. Line a sieve with a large piece of cheesecloth. Using a slotted spoon, carefully separate the curds (the thick, yogurt-y stuff) from the whey (yellowish liquid). Place the curds in the cheesecloth-lined sieve.

*The wet curds will look kind of gross, but don't worry. Soon enough you'll have fluffy, creamy tvorog.

*Gather the cheesecloth like a little bag, place the sieve over a bowl, and let the tvorog drain, preferably overnight, in the fridge.

*Next day, unroll the cheesecloth and scoop the tvorog into a bowl. You'll probably have one big chunk--break it up a little with a spoon. This is how it should look:

* Tvorog is used left and right in Russian baking, but sometimes it's best eaten fresh with a lump of jam and a little yogurt and sour cream.

Blinchiki (Filled crepes)

Family lore has it that I had no appetite as a child. True, but I certainly remember enthusiastically scarfing blini--also known as crepes. (Buckwheat blini made with yeast are probably better known in the U.S. than in Russia.)

My grandmother would sometimes make a batch of blini for me, which I would condescend to eat. When I was growing up, my mom made these on weekend morning when she was in the mood to cook. I still like blini for breakfast with jam and other sweet stuff, but they also make a good dinner when filled with a savory filling (filled blini are called blinchiki).

When you have boring, banal leftover chicken in the fridge, keep this in mind.

For blini, I whisked 2 eggs with 1 cup of milk, 1 teaspoon sugar and a dash of salt. I added 1 cup of flour gradually, whisking after each addition, and then two tablespoons of melted butter. You're supposed to let the batter stand for 30 minutes, but I've been known not to. Without any problems.

Filling: Saute two small onions, a grated carrot, a handful of chopped parsley, two cups of cooked chicken, cubed. I made a valiant attempt at my first veloute sauce by melting some butter in a small saucepan and adding some flour, then milk and chicken stock. I added this to the chicken mixture, along with some grated Swiss cheese. My veloute may have been laughably amateurish, but the filling was very good.

Then I made the blini*, stuffed with the filling, and served with sour cream. The batter is enough for 10 or so crepes, but I mucked up and tore a couple while frying. (I ate the scraps for dessert, with leftover tvorog and a sprinkle of sugar. Impromptu blintzes!)

*This is a good guide to making crepes.

Sirniki (Farmer's cheese pancakes)

My mom doesn't feel like much cooking now that I'm out of the house, but the other day I found her making sirniki. These little pancakes are made with tvorog, Russian cottage cheese.

Tvorog is nothing like bland, milky American cottage cheese. Ricotta is a distant relative, but tvorog has a tangy, yogurt-y taste and a thick, creamy texture. It's also known as farmer's cheese, and you can sometimes find it in Russian/European groceries. Making your own is cheaper and usually easier, though. I've seen lots of different techniques for making it--one of these days, I'll post detailed directions, with pix, for mine.

Inspired by my mom, I made a batch of tvorog and whipped up the sirniki on Sunday. I tweaked Anya von Bremzen's recipe from Please to the Table to reflect my Sunday morning laziness. With sour cream and a lump of strawberry jam, they were very good.

I mixed a cup of tvorog with an egg, a couple of tablespoons of flour, a table spoon of uncooked cream of wheat, a tablespoon of sour cream, a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and a dash of salt. Then I formed round, hamburger-sized patties, dusted with flour, and fried in a buttered skillet.