Tag Archives: food styling

Small quiches: 4 fillings

I Love Pies! Small and large, closed and opened, with fish and hm less meat, whether it’s cabbage pie or raspberry tartlet. So, it was that day when I couldn’t decide what filling to choose and made 4 different savory quiches! Beautiful and delicious! 🙂 It’s a quick (especially if you prepared the pastry ahead as I did), easy and tasty way of using up all those small cheese pieces and veggies leftovers.

Small quiches: 4 fillings

Servings: 4-8
Time: 1hr 30mins
Difficulty: moderate
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Pastry

160g/5.6oz all-purpose/plain flour

120g/4.2oz butter, cold and cut into cubes

a good pinch of ground sea salt

40-50ml iced-cold water

Put flour, salt and butter in a big bowl. Quickly rub ingredients together until coarse breadcrumbs (or use food processor). Add water and mix until the dough is formed. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight. You can keep the pastry in a fridge up to 3 days.

Roll out 3-4mm thick dough to fit your baking tins. Bake blind in 180C preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

Filling

2 large eggs

100-150ml 30% cream (or double cream)

freshly ground sea salt and black-white pepper, to taste

Broccoli+Gruyère cheese
Leek (slightly sautéed in butter)+Cheddar
Zucchini (raw, sliced or grated)+Thyme(fresh or dried)+Parmesan
Sun dried tomato (chopped)+Olives+Basil (fresh or dried)+Pecorino Romano cheese

Whisk eggs with cream and season to taste. Arrange vegetables, grated cheese and herbs in pastry cases. Pour the egg mixture over veggies. Bake in 180C preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set.

Enjoy!

Russian Winter Salad (Olivier salad)

This salad is a traditional dish in Russian cuisine, and most of the time it is associated with New Year celebration, when it’s always served on a festive table along with another popular salad – “shuba”.

The very first and original version of this salad was invented in the beginning of 1860s by chef Lucien Olivier, who was the owner of the renowned Moscow restaurant “Hermitage”. “Olivier Salad” quickly became popular among restaurant visitors, the salad brought him a great fame and became the signature dish. The recipe and especially the dressing was kept in a big secret, and unfortunately the fact is that the exact recipe is still unknown. But according to some notes, it’s known that the salad contained hazel grouse, veal tongue, black caviar, fresh salad leaves, crayfishes or lobster, some pickled, fresh cucumbers, capers and boiled eggs. And the secret dressing was prepared from fresh raw eggs, some secret herbs and olive oil.

As you can see, all ingredients were posh and expensive. So, lately during Soviet time, these fine ingredients were replaced by cheap and widely-available, like boiled kolbasa (bologna sausage) or meat, boiled potatoes and carrots, pickled cucumbers and peas, dressed with store-bought mayonnaise instead of home-made French dressing. Such simple and nourishing salad was widely-popular, and soon it became a staple and traditional dish of Soviet holiday dinner, and particularly of New Year’s Eve. Lately, it’s even got a second name – “Winter Salad”. Beyond Russia this salad is often called as “Russian Salad”.

Nowadays, the salad is still a traditional part of New Year celebration, but there are lots of versions – with boiled beef or chicken, beef tongue, fish and caviar, fresh or pickled cucumbers and so on. My recipe is a common version of the Winter Salad – with boiled beef, pickled cucumbers and mayonnaise. It’s a little bit on a dark/unhealthy side of my diet 😀 but consuming it on the holiday dinner is also a part of Russian tradition, so eating it once a year don’t make anyone fat. 🙂 Enjoy!

Russian winter salad (Olivier salad)

Servings: approx 8
Time: 2hr
Difficulty: easy
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You can garnish the salad with some peas and chopped dill or parsley.

*Add more cucumbers if using small gherkins.

Ingredients

350g beef (one whole piece, without any bones)

300g/ 2 large potatoes

1 large or 2 medium carrot

4 medium eggs

4 medium pickled cucumbers*

1/2 medium brown onion

1 can of green pea

mayonnaise, to taste

salt, to taste, optional

Method

In a pan, put meat and cover with cold water, bring to boil, reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer for about 50 minutes or until meat is ready. Completely cool and cut the meat into small cubes (about 1 cm).
In another large pan, put potatoes and carrot in their skin, cover with water, bring to boil, reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer until veggies are soft. Cool, peel and cut into small cubes (about 1 cm).
In another pan, hard-boil eggs. Also cut into cubes.
Finely chop the onion, put in a bowl, drizzle with some apple vinegar and cover with hot water. Leave for 15 minutes, then drain.
Also cut the cucumbers into small cubes.
In a large serving bowl, add all ingredients along with drained peas. Dress with mayo to suit your own taste.

You can keep the undressed salad in the fridge up to 2-3 days.

Enjoy Russian Winter Salad!

Top 10 Recipes of 2015

January 3, 2016
milkandbun
20 comments
blog, Blogging, cooking, desserts, food and recipes, food photo, food photography, food styling, holidays, recipes, Russian food

Cheers to the New Year! Let this Year be the one, where all our dreams come true and may it will be filled with lots of delightful surprises!

Happy 2016 to you, dear reader! Hope you’ve met the new year in a good mood, with delicious food and among beloved family and friends!

I want to represent my Top 10 Recipes of the 2015 year, I’ve picked up my favourites that I truly love and enjoyed last year. Under the photos you can find the links to all recipes. What do you think? Which recipe does suit your the most?

I would also love to hear what recipes you’d like to see and read in this year: may be more savoury dishes or from Russian cuisine. Thanks so much for reading and staying with me!

#1 Sharlotka

#4 Baked apple with cowberries

#7 Vegetable tian

#8 Carrot rolls

#2 Millet kasha

#5 Red blini

#9 Knyshy

#3 Braised rabbit

#6 Olive oil and rosemary crackers

#10 Arabian meatballs

Click on the links for the full recipe and post:

#1 Sharlotka – my family recipe of Russian apple pie.

#2 Russian millet kasha with cinnamon apples and walnuts.

#3 Rabbit braised with thyme, juniper berries and prunes.

#4 Baked apples with cowberries and walnuts.

#5 Bright and tasty blini.

#6 Crunchy and aromatic crackers.

#7 Vegetable tian.

#8 Carrot rolls with hazelnuts and orange marmalade.

#9 Knyshy – small round pies with potato filling.

#10 Arabian meatballs.

Holiday Panna Cotta

Cold days, beautiful pine and spruce trees with toys, lots of gingerbread cookies, smell of mandarins and cinnamon.. How does your holiday look and smell?

Today recipe is a well-known dessert among foodies – panna cotta. Many of you already cooked it or tried in a restaurant, but I’d like to show you the festive presentation, how you can serve the gorgeous-looking dessert to your family and guests during the winter holidays.

Everything in this dessert says ‘winter’: delicate and tender snowflakes (recipe coming soon), smooth and creamy panna cotta that looks almost like a real snow-blanket, rosemary “pine needles”, and of course aromatic mandarin -segments. Another great thing about this dessert is that it looks like you really fussed over it. Shhhh… 😉

You can make panna cotta a day or two ahead, and you will need only to saute mandarin segments and garnish the dessert. But don’t forget to cool mandarins, otherwise panna cotta will melt.

Holiday Panna Cotta

Servings: 4
Time: 4hr+
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

Panna Cotta

200ml double cream

300ml full-fat milk

45-50g white sugar

1 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)

2 tsp powdered gelatin

40ml cold water

Garnish

1-2 tbsp demerara or brown sugar

2 small mandarins

few rosemary needles

2 tsp mandarin zest, optional

1 tbsp orange liquor (or brandy), optional

1 mandarin shortbread cookie per cup (recipe is coming)

Preparation method

In a pan, pour cream with milk, add vanilla and sugar, heat (but don’t boil) until sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and let the mixture infuse with vanilla flavour for 20-30 minutes. Then take out the bean, and rewarm the mixture.
In a small cup, add cold water and sprinkle gelatin over it.
Take the pan from the heat, add gelatin and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
Pour the panna cotta mixture into 4 cups, put cups in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.
For the garnish, in a frying pan add sugar, mandarin segments, zest and rosemary, and saute for 3-5 minutes on a medium-high heat. Add liquor, if using, and saute for few minutes more. Leave to cool.
Garnish each cup with few mandarin segments and one cookie.

Happy Holidays!

Sunny pie

Today is the winter solstice, it is an astronomical event that occurs twice a year (summer and winter solstice). Winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. During the paganism time in old Russia this day was a special celebration, which was called Yule night. It was a festive and holy day for the honour of greeting the baby-sun named Kolyada, that was born on this night, which slowly but steady began to be stronger and brighter. That means that with each upcoming day nights became shorter, days longer and sun shone brightly and warmly. In the night people had to get together (there was a superstition that to stay alone in this night was unluckily), they set a big festive fire, sang songs and burnt all old and useless stuff; people also prepared chickens and turkey, baked round pies and praised the Sun.

As you can see, I’ve tried to make a sun-looking pie. Rich and sweet pastry holds lemon-scented milky filling and all covered with lightly soured apricot puree. In a word, I liked this bright and tasty pie! It reminds me another pie that I made – ‘cottage cheese and cranberry pie’, so if you liked that one – give a chance to this sunny pie as well. 🙂

Lemon-tvorog pie with apricot top

Servings: 6-8
Time: 4hr
Difficulty: moderate
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I used 20cm loose-bottom baking pan.

*Tvorog is Russian cottage cheese, you can find it in many European or Russian stores.

Lemon-tvorog pie

Ingredients

sweet lemon pastry

400g tvorog*

100g butter, at room temperature

zest of 1 medium lemon

3-4 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 medium eggs

30g (3 tbsp) brown sugar

30g (3 tbsp) white sugar

60g golden raisins

hot black tea or water, to cover the raisins

2 tsp cornmeal

apricot top

Preparation method

While the pastry case is baking, prepare the filling.
In a small bowl, put raisins and cover with hot black tea or water. You can also add a tablespoon of cognac or brandy for extra flavour. Leave to soak while making the diary filling.
In a large bowl, whisk tvorog with butter until just combined. In another bowl beat eggs with sugars.
Add lemon zest and juice, vanilla and beaten eggs to the tvorog mixture, beat until just combined.
Drain raisins and mix into the filling along with cornflour.
Pour the filling into the pastry case. Pour the apricot puree over the tvorog filling.
Bake in preheated 190C oven for 45-50 minutes. If the top begins to burn – cover it with foil.
Let it cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then carefully transfer onto the serving plate. Enjoy!

P.S. The filling wasn’t smooth as you can see from the pics, if you like it -ok, if not- you may push tvorog through the sieve.

Sweet lemon pastry

170g butter, at room temperature

50g golden caster sugar

zest of 1 small lemon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg (40-45g), at room temperature

260g plain flour

Glaze: 1 small beaten egg yolk, optional

In a large bowl, whisk butter with sugar until just creamy. Add lemon zest, vanilla and egg and mix until just combined. Mix in flour. Cover the pastry with plastic wrap and chill overnight or up to 3 days until ready to use.
Roll out 3mm-thick (or as thick as you like) circle to cover your baking pan. You can also make ‘sun rays’ and stick them to the base and sides of the pan, but it’s optional step. If you have any pastry remains, roll out it and cut out cookies, then bake it on a baking tray for 10-12 minutes.
Put the pan with pastry into the freezer for 10 minutes.
Cover the pastry case with foil, add beans/rice/special stones for baking and bake in preheated 190C oven for 20 minutes. Then remove the weight, brush with the glaze (optional) and return to the oven for 5 minutes more.

Apricot Top (optional)

5 small sliced apricots (150g) (or sub with apricot jam)

2 tsp lemon zest

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp cornflour

20-30g (3 tbsp) golden caster sugar