Tag Archives: food

Fish souffle

What do you imagine when hear a word ‘souffle’? An airy and sweet apple souffle or may be a fluffy and cheesy one?

The word soufflé comes form French verb souffler, that means ‘puff up’ or ‘to blow up’. The base of any souffle is beaten egg whites, which provide the lift: a souffle puffs up in the oven.

What about a fish souffle? 🙂

This tender and light dish is a perfect meal for weight watchers and health enthusiasts! Protein food is an important part of any well-balanced diet, it’s also good for growth and development in children and pregnant women; thus why don’t you make fish souffle to vary your diet. Some children refuse to eat fish and fish souffle is a great meal to feed a peevish child. It’s may be not a gourmet dish but it’s certainly light and tasty. Moreover, it’s one the most easy ways to prepare fish, if you don’t want to hang around the kitchen for hours.

Fish soufflé. Russian recipe.

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You can add 1-2 tsp chopped fresh dill or some grated cheese to the fish mixture before baking.

You could also make this recipe with some leftover cooked fish.

Serve with boiled/roasted potatoes or/and green salad.

Ingredients

300g white fish fillet

1 slice white bread

1 tbsp milk, warm (full fat milk or cream)

1 tsp butter, soft

2 egg yolks

2 egg whites

salt, pepper to taste

butter, bread crumbs, for greasing

1-2 tbsp grated cheese, optional

sour cream, chopped dill, for garnish

Method

In a small bowl, add bread and warm milk, soak for 2-3 minutes.
Check that no bones remain in fish. Cut fish fillet into small cubes, mince in a blender until very fine pieces. Add bread, butter and egg yolks, season to taste, bit the mixture to combine.
In a big bowl, beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm peaks.
Carefully fold 1/2 egg whites into the fish mixture. Add the rest egg whites and fold in.
Grease two baking tins with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs. Divide the fish mixture between tins. Sprinkle with cheese, if desired. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden and puffed.
Sprinkle with dill, serve immediately with sour cream and your choice of side dish.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

It’s my very first pumpkin cheesecake! 🙂 I do love both cheesecake and pumpkin, but never tried to combine them together until I baked too many pumpkin slices and already couldn’t eat them.
Cheesecake is enjoyed by millions around the world, and each person has its own take on the best way of making it. Truly a scrumptious dessert! I guess that the pumpkin cheesecake is the America’s favorite dessert. Moreover, I’ve heard about National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day, is that true? In Russia we eat pumpkin, too, but usually it’s sliced and simply baked with sugar, or whole pumpkin stuffed with grains (have a look at my recipe here).
I knew how to make a basic cheesecake, so I just added pumpkin puree and some spices. Oh, I’m so happy with the result! The only thing I was worried that it can be too wobbly, finally it set good, just cracked a little. The texture is perfect – creamy, deliciously smooth and not-very-sweet, everything how I like. Unfortunately, the cheesecake has some unwanted calories, thus for weight watchers I recommend to substitute cream cheese with low-fat cottage cheese or quark.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Servings: 8-10
Time: >1hr 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You need 18cm baking tin for this recipe

Ingredients should be at room temperature

Crust

150g graham crackers, finely crushed

80g butter, melted

Filling

350g cooked pumpkin, then pureed

220-250g cream cheese

30g brown sugar + 40g white caster sugar

2 tbsp double cream (35% fat)

2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk

2 tbsp cornstarch (cornflour)

1 tbsp plain flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger powder

small pinch of ground cloves, allspice and salt

Method

To make crust. In a medium bowl, blend butter with graham crumbs. Press the mixture into the base of baking tin to create an even layer. Chill for 10 minutes in the fridge, then bake in preheated 160C oven for 5-7 minutes. Take the tin out and let it cool for 10 minutes.
To make filling. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with sugar until smooth consistency. Add pumpkin and combine. Break one at a time, add egg yolk, mix to combine. Add double cream, cornstarch, flour and all spices. Beat until well combined. Pour the filling into crust, spread evenly and bake in preheated 180C oven for 45-50 minutes.
Take the tin out of the oven, let it cool at room temperature. Cover the baking tin and refrigerate overnight.
Remove cheesecake from the tin and slide onto a plate, slice and serve.

Enjoy!

[Click the photos for a closer look]

Apple soufflé

It seems I’d been eating and eating during the past two months, too many delicious pies and sweets, so me and my husband decided to limit the amount of sugar and fat in our regime and keep more healthy diet for a month or so. Diet doesn’t mean the food should be tasteless and dull. Thou, plain meal like steamed fish with broccoli or buckwheat isn’t so bad, especially after a few days of eating it without adding too many salt, spices, butter, cheese or whatever makes it more yummy. 😀

Another happy moment – desserts for healthy diet do exist! A good and tasty example is Apple Souffle. Apples are baked, then pureed and mixed with egg whites, after those easy steps you need to bake it and voila – tender, airy and delicious dessert is ready! 🙂
I adapted the recipe from old Russian book published in 1984.

Apple soufflé

Servings: 2
Time: 50mins+
Difficulty: moderate
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You can serve apple soufflé with cold whipped cream or a glass of cold milk.

Ingredients

300-350g apples

2-3 tbsp water

2 tbsp white caster sugar

1 tsp cinnamon, optional

2 egg whites

a pinch of salt

some butter or oil for greasing

Instruction

Wash, peel, core and cut apples into 4 slices. Put on a baking tray, add water and bake in preheated 180C oven for 20-30 minutes or until soften.
Puree apples. Put apple puree in a small pan, add sugar and cinnamon, cook on a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until soft peaks. Continue beating, add warm apple puree and beat all together for 2-3 minutes more.
Brush ramekins with butter, pour in apple mixture. Bake in preheated 180C oven for 15-20 minutes.
Serve warm. Enjoy!

I’m bringing these delicious and beautiful soufflé to all wonderful bloggers who is celebrating Fiesta Friday anniversary at Angie’s place and two co-hostesses Selma and Nancy. Enjoy! 🙂

Macaroni a la flot

Flot means fleet in Russian. This simple dish consists of macaroni mixed with fried minced meat. In 17-18th centuries, in Russia similar dishes were quite popular among travelers and especially sailors; that no-fridge time meat was salted-cured and kept in barrels, thus seamen could cut a piece of the meat anytime, fry it and mix with some boiled macaroni. The dish became popular again during World War, but instead of fresh or frozen meat was used tushonka – canned stewed meat (usually fatty pork or beef), which was always on hand, and it could be stored up for years without loosing its nutritional value. Post-war period was also hard time for Russia, so such not expensive and nourishing dish didn’t get out of use. Nowadays, ‘macaroni a la flot’ are still widely-cooked and well-known dish; normally pasta tubes are used for macaroni, which mixed with fried minced meat (it can be pork, beef or mixture), onions and sometimes tomato paste or fresh chopped tomatoes.

Macaroni a la flot

Servings: 4
Time: less than 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You may try to add a shredded carrot or chopped tomato and saute it along with meat.

Ingredients

500g minced beef meat (with not less then 15% fat, or you may add some pork)

350g uncooked tube macaroni (like maccheroni, maccheroncini, bucatini, ziti or any other)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 Tbsp sunflower oil (or any other veg.oil)

1/2 Tbsp butter

salt, black pepper

chopped parsley or fennel for garnish, optional

Instructions

In a deep pan, melt the butter with oil on a medium heat, add onion and fry for 4-5 minutes. Add meat and use wooden or stiff spatula to break it up into small pieces. Season to taste. Ensure you stir the meat regularly so it doesn’t stick to the pan and to make sure it cook evenly. The meat is cooked when it shows no signs of pink.
Meanwhile, put pasta into a large pot of boiling water. Be sure to add plenty of salt to the water. Cook the macaroni according to package instruction.
Add 3-4 Tbsp of pasta-boiling water to the meat, mix well.
When the pasta is al dente, drain it and add to the pan with meat. Give it a good stir.
Serve warm. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or fennel, if desired.

Enjoy!

Siberian fish pie

This pie is called Siberian. Try to guess why? First of all, fish has always been a favourite food and often the main dish for people living by the sea or river. One of the famous Siberian dishes is “stroganina”, which is thin chips cut from fresh frozen fish (or it can be meat) and dipped into the mixture of salt and pepper. Also fish is used as a stuffing for large and small pies, for soups and stews. Also, it’s necessary to take into account the Siberian weather, during the winter the temperature is very low (or to be exact – the freezing cold), thus any fish can be easily frozen and kept outside for a long time.

So, I used halibut for my Siberian pie, it’s a flatfish that live in the Sea of Okhotsk and Bering Sea (Russian North seas). Halibut is a valuable source of Omega-3 fat acids and vitamins-B, what makes the pie more healthy and tasty. You can substitute halibut with any other white-meat fish. Along with the fish I added cooked millet, it’s unusual cereal for the filling, but an interesting alternative to the common rice, it has a nice tender texture.

The pie is satisfying and makes a delicious weekend dinner!

Siberian fish pie

Servings: 8-10
Time: 3h+
Difficulty: moderate to difficult
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Rich Leavened Dough

500-600g all-purpose/plain flour (or 200g spelt/wholemeal flour+300g plain flour)

350-400ml full-fat milk, warm

11g instant yeast

1+1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

100g melted butter or 2.5 tbsp sunflower oil

To make a sourdough in a large mixing bowl, add warm milk, yeast, 1 tbsp sugar and mix well. Add around 100-120g sifted flour, stir throughly to get the consistency like for pancakes. Cover with a plate or wrap, and allow to ferment for 1 hour in a warm place.
In another small bowl lightly beat eggs (with hand whisker) with 1 tbsp sugar and salt.
Add the beaten eggs into a bowl with sourdough mixture. Sift the remaining flour, pour in butter or oil, mix to combine.
Now, knead the dough for about 20-30 minutes on a flat surface. Add more flour, if needed.
Place the dough in a large bowl, wrap it up and leave to rise for 1.5-2 hours in a warm place.

Filling

550-600g halibut fillet, cut into small cubes

80-100g Tbsp millet

1 big onion

2-3 tbsp sunflower or any other veg.oil, for frying

50g butter, cut into small cubes

salt, pepper to taste

Glaze

1 egg+1 Tbsp milk

20-30g butter, melted, for brushing

Serving

50g butter, melted, optional

cold milk

First, you need to cook millet. Rinse it thoroughly under running water. After that, add millet and two parts boiling water in a small pan. After the water has return to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer for 18-20 minutes. Let it cool.
Heat oil in a frying pan, add onion and fry it on a medium heat until golden color. Mix fried onion with millet. Season to taste.
Divide the dough into two parts. Roll out the smallest dough part into oval shape (38x30cm/1cm thick) and arrange it on a lined baking tray. Spoon millet mixture, then spread the fish cubes. Dot with butter, season to taste.
Roll out the second part of the dough – large enough to cover the filling. Seal the edges. Decorate with trimmings. Cover the pie with tea-towel and let it rise for 20-30 minutes before baking.
Cut three or four slits in the top. Brush the pie with the glaze.
Bake the pie in preheated 180C oven for 35-40 minutes or until golden-brown.
Brush the pie with melted butter, cover with tea-towel and let it rest for 10-15 minutes.
Cut the pie into slices. If the filling is dry for your taste, pour over some melted butter. Serve with a glass of milk.
Enjoy the Siberian pie!