Tag Archives: food and recipes

Jam Cake

 This cake is well-known in my home-country, and it’s quite popular among village people, or at least who prepare homemade jams. Oh, we love make jams in Russia! Nothing can beat a real homemade jam, jam for which you picked up fruits or berries yourself in the garden or forest during summer. And like everything is done at home the taste of every jam in every home is unique. When it is dark and dank outside, or even when it’s a snowstorm during cold Russian winters, it’s such a great pleasure to be at warm and cozy home, sip a hot herbal tea with a spoon of jam, or spread it thickly over a piece of bread.
 Many Russian grandmothers used to make this cake, mainly when was a cup of jam left, and nobody wanted to eat it up. Among such ladies was grandmother of my classmate, she used to make delicious cake with strawberry jam! 
 The cake recipe is very easy and quickly to prepare, you need only few ingredients and patience while it cooks, and the result is sweet and tasty cake! Ability to use any jam is excellent, every time you’re getting new-flavoured cake! Isn’t it cool? 

Jam Cake

Jam Cake

Ingredients
200ml jam, not watery (I used plum jam)
200ml full fat kefir
1 tsp baking soda
50-100g white sugar, depends how sweet is jam
1 big egg or 2 small
300-350g all-purpose flour
In a big bowl, mix jam and soda, leave it for 5 minutes. In another bowl, slightly beat eggs with sugar. 
Add kefir and beaten eggs into jam mixture, stir well. Add flour, and combine all ingredients.
The consistency of the batter should be little bit thicker than for pancakes.
Pour batter into greased pan, bake in preheated 180C/360F oven for 50-60 minutes.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and decorate with fruits or berries, if desired.
Enjoy!

Jam Cake with plums

Sweet Galette

 From time to time everyone of us have come across special moments, which we enjoy. What about baking or probably preparing a hearty stew or a pie, which recipe was received from mother or grandmother, or trying something new. It’s hard to explain, but there is something magical, sense of happiness and satisfaction, when I’m making dough for a pie, baking. I adore making pastry, especially when much time is not required to make it. Like short pastry, you need only four ingredients to get smooth, buttery pastry.Cherry-Peach Galette

Simple, but beautiful, always delicious, with apples or apricots, it’s all about Galette. I’m so excited that this crusty cake one day came into my life! I still remember my very first galette, it was sweet galette filled with mix of wild berries, and it’s turned out so tasty and delightful, that I couldn’t expect more. Since then I’ve experimented with various fillings, tried savory galettes too; and I’m sure now that it’s almost impossible to choose the favorite one, I love them all! My fellow-bloggers don’t drop back, just look at aromatic galette from Seana @cottagegrovehouse, I almost can feel sweet-smelling scent of apricots! Or another delicate grape galette from Suzanne @apuginthekitchen, it can be a great weekend brunch with a glass of crispy rosé!

A couple of weeks back I bought sweet cherries from Iran and was nearly to eat them all at once. 😀 I had in a fridge few cherries and peaches. So, all those goodies I put in galette on a bed of cottage cheese, and folded in rich nutty pastry! Yummilicious!

Sweet Galette

You can divide the pastry into 2 partss to make 2 small galettes with different filling
Walnut Short Pastry
170g/6oz all-purpose flour
120g/4.2oz butter
50g/2Tbsp walnuts, roasted and finely chopped
1/2 Tbsp caster sugar
a pinch of salt
50ml cold water
Put flour, sugar, salt, walnuts,  and butter in a big bowl. Rub ingredients together until breadcrumbs. Add water and mix until the dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. You can keep the pastry in a fridge up to 3 days.
Filling
2 peaches, cut into wedges
few cherries
100-200g soft cottage cheese/farm cheese/ricotta
50-70g brown/raw or white sugar
1 egg, yolk and white separated
1 Tbsp brown or demerara sugar
Method
For the filling, beat sugar with cottage cheese with a spoon or hand whisker, then add egg white and beat.
On a lightly floured table, roll out the pastry into 30cm/12inch circle.
Place cottage mixture in the middle of the pastry and spread evenly. Arrange peaches and cherries as desired. Sprinkle with some brown/demerara sugar. Brush pastry all over with egg yolk.
Bake in preheated 190C/370F oven for 45-50 minutes or until the pastry is golden.
Enjoy!

If you like peaches, have a look here to get the recipe of amazing cake!
Sweet Galette

Faskar (fish) with Aromatic Potato Wedges

I love fish. When I was a child I ate a lot of river fish, especially during summer. The city, where I grew up is located on a bank of big and great Russian river – Volga, moreover, there are also few small rivers and lots of lakes around it. My father is addicted to fishing, so quiet often during warm summer days we went to one of those lakes, where dad was fishing, while rest of the family (including myself) was swimming, sun-bathing and enjoying lovely summer. Even though most of the caught fishes were small with lots of bones, we liked to grill it mostly, or make some fish-soup. It was such a great time and delicious meal for the appetite you get on a fresh air!

To be honest, living on the Arabic coast, I don’t buy and eat lots of local fish… I wish they could promote it better; certainly you can buy it in hypermarkets, but in small markets I’ve seen local fish only once or twice. Another option is to go to the fish market and choose good and local fish there, but it’s not always convenient.

Surprisingly, there is only one fish market I know in Dubai, despite the city itself is quite large (generally speaking, there is one fish market per each emirate). And all UAE fish markets open early in the morning, and I do like sleep in the mornings, so it’s not quite convenient for me to visit fish markets at noon, when all fishes has been sold out already 🙂 Most of the fish or seafood available on the market is local and freshly caught straight from the sea, and some type of the fish can be found only on local fish markets, while supermarket fish stalls are selling mix of local and imported seafood. I will show you fish market in Dubai soon 😉

In that way, to support Emirates Wildlife, from time to time I’m buying sustainable species of local fish, like Faskar. You can substitute this fish with any local fish, what you can find at your market.

It is beautiful, isn’t it? 😀Faskar-4 

Faskar Fish with Aromatic Potato Wedges

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients
2 fishes Faskar, cleaned
½  lemon or lime, sliced
½ lemon, juice
2 garlic cloves, sliced
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
fresh flat leaf parsley, small bunch, roughly chopped
sea salt, white pepper
Garnish
4-6 baby potatoes, washed, cut into 4 wedges
some broccoli, optional
1 sprig of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp dried
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
Method
  • Place fish in a baking tray, squeeze the lemon juice over it. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff each fish with rosemary, parsley, lemon slices and garlic.
    Parboil potatoes for 17-20 minutes. Put in a bowl along with broccoli, if using, toss it with rosemary, spices, salt and olive oil. Arrange vegetables around the fish.
    Bake in preheated 190C/380F oven for 25 minutes.

Healthy option!
Let’s eat the fish!

 

Perfectly Simple Cabbage Pie

 I have made a puff pastry! Can you believe?! 😀 And it was a classic recipe, not a cheat one. Though it has turned out not really good as I expected, I think I put a bit much of butter, or it wasn’t very cold.. But I’m still proud of myself, and the pastry is hundred times better then the store-bought. Moreover, puff pastry in stores is usually made from margarine or palm oil, which are trans-fats, the worst type of fat you can consume.

Cabbage Pie

 The below recipe is a classic recipe of Russian cabbage pie. This time I used puff pastry, the pie turned out crispy, buttery, comforting and so tasty! When I lived in Russia, usually we made a good quantity of this dough (which I used in koulebyaka-pie), and made one huge pie with savory filling; if we’d had some remaining dough we made small pirogki (small pies) with jam or sweet tvorog (cottage cheese).
 There is no filling recipe, because it’s hard to count grams of cabbage if you don’t know how big or small will be the pie. One loves when the dough is thick, another when the filling is falling out from the pie. You can have a look ‘the guide how to’ below, but the quantity of ingredients adjust to your own taste.
For the cabbage filling, shred some fresh cabbage, and slightly braise it along with chopped onion and spices. Then add coarsely chopped hard-boiled eggs, and season with salt, that’s it! The lovely cabbage filling is ready!
 I know, the pie is very simple, but it’s so comforting, that after first bite you begin to feel like you are at home.. Sweet home! ❤ I’m bringing the pie to all party-people over there; I truly hope you will enjoy it!

Russian Cabbage Pie

The pie is equally good reheated for lunch or dinner next day! 
Ingredients
Cabbage filling
Fresh cabbage, shreded
1 small or medioum onion, finely chopped
1-2 tsp cumin
2-4 Tbsp chopped fresh dill, optional
sea salt, to taste
2-3 Tbsp sunflower oil
2-3 eggs, hard-boiled
Puff pastry
300g flour
50g chilled butter
a pinch of salt
150ml very cold water
220g chilled butter for layering
Glazing
1 egg  yolk + 1 Tbsp milk or only milk
sesame seeds for decoration, optional
 
Method
 In a big frying pan, add onion, cumin, cabbage and fry on a moderate heat for 5-10 minutes. Reduce the heat, add salt, some water (if the cabbage begins to burn), cover and braise for 15-20 minutes or until tender. Season with salt, add chopped dill, if desired. Mix with chopped eggs.
 Brush the pie with egg wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake in preheated 180C/360F oven for 25-35 minutes (the mentioned time is enough even for a big pie).
 Let it cool for 10 minutes. Enjoy with a glass of milk! 
Russina Cabbage Pie

Grilled Tiger Prawns

 Summer is a lovely time to spend outdoors, having a barbecue, grill meat and veggies, enjoying weather..with some exception for Dubai, it’s terribly hot; the barbecue standing lonely, and waiting for the chilly days to be dust off.. If you are lucky and enjoying weather, I recommend to try this one of the most flavorful grilled prawns recipe I have tried (or grill it in the oven). The recipe is on my list of easy and impressive dishes!Grilled tiger prawns

I’d like to invite all bloggers who’s parting @FF to try these scrumptious prawns! I’ve got a couple of bottles of white wine.. 😉 I’m sure today evening will be a hit!

Grilled Tiger Prawns

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: easy
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2-3 prawns per person are enough for an appetizer, but for the main course increase the quantity as many as desired.

Can be served with a glass of good wine and pineapple salsa.

Ingredients

12 tiger prawns

1 shallot or small red onion

3 garlic gloves

1 small red chilli, optional

1 Tbsp fresh coriander, finely chopped

½ lemon, juice

sea salt, black pepper to taste

Butter Sauce

60g butter

2 Tbsp coriander, finely chopped

2 Tbsp lemon juice

  • Cut prawns in the middle and clean. You can cut off heads or leave it. Arrange them in a big shallow dish.
  • Finely chop shallot, garlic and chilli. Sprinkle it over prawns along with coriander, add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the dish and let it marinate in the fridge for 1-3 hours or overnight.
  • Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before grilling. Grill for 5-7 minutes.
  • Make the sauce. Heat the butter in a small pan, add remaining coriander and lemon juice; adjust seasoning.
  • Serve hot! Enjoy!

Grilled tiger prawns by milkandbun

 

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