Tag Archives: My Life

Russian roll with Argentinian pears

Everything is simple here. A few days ago, Argentinian pears were sold in a supermarket here, I’ve never tried them before and the price was attractive, so I bought a huge pack. Even though they turned out juicy and very delicious I still had some not-so-ripe left. Good to highlight, that using a bit hard but ripe pears that retain its shape during the baking process is a key to the good and not mushy filling.

I added tvorog (as I mentioned many times in my blog – it’s very Russian product) into the dough for my roll, it makes the dough softer and more tasty. Don’t worry, the dough won’t rip but make sure you carefully roll it out on a floured surface.

The roll looks like a strudel, but the dough is absolutely different, it’s not that thin and thus much easier to roll out! It is tender&delicious and absolutely deserves to make it again and again. Another bonus, the dough can be make a day ahead! Plus juicy pears, sweet black raisins and crunchy nuts in the filling! Doesn’t it sound luscious? It is! 😀

Russian roll with Argentinian pears

Servings: 6-8
Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

Dough

250g tvorog

90g soft butter, at room temperature

1 large egg

1 tbsp white sugar

200-210g plain flour

a pinch of fine salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

Filling

40g black raisins

hot strong black tea or water

1 egg white, optional

80-100g roasted almonds, chopped

450g (3-4) pears, cut into small cubes

2 tbsp brown or raw sugar

Glaze

1 egg yolk

2 tsp milk

1 tbsp demerara or raw sugar, optional

Method

For the roll dough, whisk tvorog with butter.
In another small bowl, whisk egg with sugar until pale. Add beaten egg into the mixture.
Sift the flour along with salt and baking powder into the dough. Combine to get the soft dough, shape into the disk. Cover in a plastic wrap and put in a fridge for 30-60 minutes to cool.
Preheat oven to 180C/360F.
Wash raisins and cover with hot strong black tea or water. Leave to soak while ready to use. Drain.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into 30x40cm rectangle, making sure it doesn’t stick to the surface.
Brush the surface of the roll with egg white (optional). Sprinkle with nuts, spread pears and raisins. Sprinkle with sugar. Slightly fold in all sides (thus the filling will stay inside the roll and don’t fall out). Roll the dough into a barrel.
Carefully transfer the roll on a greased lined baking tray. Brush the roll with egg glaze and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden-brown.
Leave to cool for 15-20 minutes. Slice and serve as is or with whipped cream/frozen vanilla yogurt/ice cream.

Enjoy!

Spiced cauliflower with peas

A year ago I visited “Taste of Dubai”. It was a large, full of fun and activities festival, dedicated to food, cooking and eating! It brought together restaurant and street food, music performances, cooking classes and live cooking demonstrations. You could order some nice food, relax and enjoy the music, another great way to spend the evening was to cook along with top chefs. Many world-famous and celebrity chefs were invited to the festival, and I could watch how they are preparing amazing and tasty food, and then taste it. Among many chefs was Dhruv Baker, he is known as a winner of MasterChef 2010, and I didn’t miss a chance to sign his cookbook ‘Spice’.

Honestly speaking, I’ve prepared only few recipes from his book so far. 😀 They were not spectacular as I expected: for example, “caponata” turned out as a regular eggplant stew, that I make often too – only without vinegar and olives. But I really liked this recipe made from fried cauliflower florets with peas, tomatoes and a mixture of spices. Mustard seeds, fresh ginger and cumin infuse the dish perfectly, while chilli adds a mild spiciness. The final addition of fresh coriander leaves on top and lime juice adds a beautiful touch. I served this simple but tasty cauliflower with roasted chicken.

I am curious about all new foodie things and lately, I have discovered on the Internet that the combination of cauliflower and peas is a common in Indian cuisine. I really liked this easy and healthy dish. Spices do wonders! 🙂

Spiced cauliflower with peas

Servings: 2
Time: 30min
Difficulty: very easy
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Adapted from “Spice” by Dhruv Baker.

Double the qauntity of cauliflower and peas to serve the dish as a main vegetarian course.

Ingredients

200-300g cauliflower

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp cumin seeds, crushed

1 tsp grated fresh ginger

3 small round chilli

100g frozen peas

1 large tomato, finely chopped

2-3 tsp lime juice, optional

some fresh coriander leaves, chopped

salt, white pepper to taste

Method

Wash the cauliflower and cut into small florets.
Heat the oil in a frying pan on a medium heat, add mustard seeds. As soon as the start to pop add all spices and stir for a minute.
Add cauliflower florets and stir to coat with spices. Cook on a medium-high heat for 5-6 minutes.
Add frozen peas and tomato, season to taste. Reduce heat to low-medium and cook for 20 minutes or until cauliflower is cooked.
Arrange on a serving plate, drizzle with lime juice if using and top with coriander.

Enjoy!

Fried cauliflower with peas, mustard seeds and round chilli

Russian pirogki

Small, large, festive, with cabbage and eggs, potatoes, with wild mushrooms or rice&fish, with jam.. It’s all about pirogi (pies in Russian) and pirogki (small pies). Pies have been always prepared and enjoyed in Russia. The word “pirog” came from a word “pir” that means feast and therefore in old Russia every festival and banquet could be hardly imagine without a large, beautiful and delicious pie.

In old times pies were generally made with rye, wholegrain or any similar flour (which is considered very healthy nowadays), such flour were available among poor people and thus pies could be eaten very often. While the white wheat flour was an expensive thing and using it was an luxury, affordable only among novelty, bourgeoisie and other high classes.

The dough could be prepared with yeast or simple unleavened, based on a soured milk or cream, also made with oil or butter (shortbread pastry). Pies fillings were diverse as well, it could be meat of wild birds like pheasant and black grouse, vegetarian – with fresh forest mushrooms during summer and autumn, with soured cabbage, eggs or dried mushrooms on a winter time, sweet – with wild berries, dried fruits or homemade preserve.

Without a doubt, serving a large pie or even several pies on a festive table was an indication of the host’s wealth and prosperity.

The dough for these pies was made with yeast and soured liquid yogurt (I used local soured drink-laban, which is very similar to Russian kefir). The dough is very tender and fluffy, and of course very easy to prepare. Pies made from this dough stay soft even on the next day!

I’m loving mashed potatoes filling since childhood, I haven’t made it pretty long time.. Second favourite filling is a mixture of chopped hard-boiled eggs&spring onions, that reminds me spring! I posted the recipe that you can find here, moreover the dough I made that time is unleavened (no any yeast) and even more quickly to prepare, but not thick and fluffy as this one. The choice is up to you, I love both. 🙂

Russian pirogki with potato filling /sour milk&yeast dough/

Time: 1hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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Instead of kefir you can use laban, buttermilk or any soured milk.

Ingredients

Dough

180g plain flour

6g instant yeast

250ml kefir, warm/at room temperature

50ml sunflower oil

a good pinch of fine salt (about 1/2 tsp)

1 tsp white sugar

1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tbsp milk, for glazing

Potato filling

400g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 bay leave

1 tbsp oil (olive or sunflower)

a small knob of butter

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 tsp dried thyme (or 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves)

15g butter

a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, optional

salt, black paper to taste

some finely chopped parsley (2-3 tbsp)

Method

Dough

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, combine with yeast.
In a cup/bowl stir kefir with oil, salt and sugar.
Pour kefir mixture into flour. Mix to combine a dough. Cover with kitchen towel or plastic wrap and leave to prove for 45-60 minutes.
While the dough is proving, prepare the potato filling (recipe below).
When it’s risen, divide the dough into several equal balls. The size depends on your taste: if you wish to make small pirogki – you need small dough balls. Roll each ball slightly into round shape. The dough is soft and tender, that sometimes I don’t use rolling-pin and carefully stretch the dough with hands.
Put a tablespoon or two of potato filing into each round, close and arrange onto lined with baking paper baking tray.
Leave to rise for 10-15 minutes. Brush with egg wash.
Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 20 minutes.
Optionally, you can brush pirogki with butter. Cover with kitchen towel: it helps the dough to stay softer.
Serve warm with milk or tea.

Potato filling

In a large pan, bring water to boil. Add potatoes and bay leave, bring to boil again, reduce the heat and simmer on a medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are soft and ready.
Meanwhile, in a small frying pan, heat oil and butter, fry onions on a medium heat until soft and lightly brown. Stir in thyme and saute for a minute more.
Drain potatoes (leave 2 tbsp of water in a pan). Add butter, nutmeg and season to taste. Mash it. Stir in fried onion and fresh parsley.

Enjoy Russian pies!

Eat the World Dubai

Hello guys! How is your week going on? Today I’d love to share with you how I spent last weekend!

I visited “Eat the World Dubai” as a part of the Dubai Food Festival 2016. It was held on a green lawn (which is called Burj Park), right next to Burj Khalifa and the Dubai mall. It was all about street food. The most exciting thing was that 15 food trucks were brought from the UK, and as it was announced ‘the best ones’- winners and finalists of British Street Food Awards. Of course, some local street food there was as well.

I think nowadays street food means more than regular hamburgers and hot-dogs. There are lots of people/cooks who are passionate for food, who have a creativity for what they cook; people who desire to prepare something extravaganza in front of you. Plus, it should be affordable and don’t ruin your family budget.

One of the thing I wanted to try was “Crabbie Shack”. I imagine myself a huge, unreal ans super tasty patty made from crab meat. After a pretty long line of waiting, finally I got it. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed. Crab was deep-fried (I rare eat such food) and seemed it was left in some skin.. plus the bun was too greasy and it was complicated to bite the huge burger. What I like – the combination of fennel seeds and almond flakes; definitely I will use it in the future cooking. Harissa (not spicy one) and smashed avocado was another delicious touch.

It’s worth mentioning the remarkable pizza preparation. Guys were made it in a truck! Can you imagine? Oven truck! 😀

Dark Sweet side was an ice cream! One of the UAE team trucks “from Miami to Dubai” sold gelato on a stick, that you could dip into various chocolate and cover in nuts, sprinkles or coconut flakes. I tried strawberry covered with white chocolate and walnuts. Yummy! 🙂

British crew “Milo&Hector’s” brought a cute little truck and made ice cream sandwiches. Never tasted before, it was soooo good! Especially after a sunny afternoon in the park. May be I’d reduce the sweetness of cookies..

And so much more..

I enjoyed every minute of this open-air festival. There were lots of amazing smells and flavours around. Music, cooking demos, smiling people who were eating&eating, siting on a grass, relaxing..

Hope you had a fabulous weekend too!

Black Forest Pancakes

When I decided to make chocolate pancakes, I didn’t expect them turn out so good and delicious: a pure indulgence! I wanted to serve them only with a black-cherry jam. But when I stumbled upon a pack of mascarpone in my fridge, that I wanted to use somewhere else, the decision came itself – use it as a topping! Mascarpone worked perfectly as a cream and cherry syrup (I mixed jam with some water to make it thinner) sucked into pancakes very well, like into a sponge cake. All ingredients worked more than good together, dark chocolate and fresh cherry on top added a nice and charming touch as well. Plus, the taste reminds the famous cake – “Black Forest”. It’s my husband’s favorite cake, so he was on a nine cloud! Honestly, these are highly recommended pancakes!

Black Forest Pancakes

Servings: 3
Time: 1hr
Difficulty: very easy
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Ingredients

200g sour cream

250ml full-fat milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp white sugar

a pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

20g butter, melted

270-300g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

5-6 tsp unsweetened pure cocoa powder

40-50g dark chocolate (70%cocoa), chopped

sunflower or any veg oil for frying

For serving

200g mascarpone

2 tsp maple syrup or pure honey, optional

100g dark cherry jam

70ml warm water (or more to make it thinner)

1-2 tsp lemon juice, optional

Garnish

some chopped dark chocolate

fresh cherries, optional

Preparation method

In a large bowl, beat eggs with with sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk in butter.
Pour in milk and sour cream, stir all together.
Sift flour along with baking powder, soda and cocoa into a batter. Whisk until combined. Fold in chopped chocolate.
Heat large frying pan on a high heat, pour in some oil. Using large spoon, pour in batter. Cook each pancake until bubbles appear on top, then flip and cook on another side.
For cheery syrup, in a small saucepan, bring jam and water to gentle simmer. Simmer on a medium-low heat for few minutes. If it’s too sweet, stir in lemon juice. Add more water to make it more thin, if desired.
In a serving bowl, stir together mascarpone and maple syrup or honey.
Serve pancakes with mascarpone and cherry syrup.

Enjoy!