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Russian buckwheat kasha with mushrooms

Buckwheat has always been a popular grain in Russia. It was brought in 7th century from Greece and soon became extremely popular. Buckwheat was new and unknown grain in Russia, so it was called “Greek grain” or shortly “grechka”. It’s not a surprise why buckwheat was very beloved in old Russia: peasants called it “mother”, they grown it in a large amounts, so it was cheap and affordable grain. Moreover, it’s cooked quickly and has a high nutritional value – a plate of buckwheat kasha (porridge) for breakfast can keep you full for a long time. Buckwheat porridge was a favorite meal not only among peasants, it was also cooked for upper classes but with plenty of butter or sour cream.

Nowadays, there are lots of recipes with buckwheat, it’s cooked with milk and eaten for breakfast or as a side dish for meat like beefstroganov. Buckwheat porridge with fried onion and mushrooms is a popular dish in Russia, especially during the Great Lent when grains, vegetables and mushrooms become the main foods.

Hope all lovely bloggers partying at Fiesta Friday will like this Russian buckwheat porridge, it contains vitamins, healthy organic acids and oils! Enjoy! 🙂

Russian buckwheat kasha with mushrooms

Servings: 2
Time: 30-40mins
Difficulty: easy
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During the Great Lent or for vegetarian option omit the butter or substitute it with any veg.oil

Ingredients

200ml buckwheat

400ml water

1 tsp butter

1 Tbsp sunflower or other veg.oil

1 large onion, chopped

200g mixed mushrooms (or 400g frozen), chopped

25-30g butter

salt, pepper to taste

fresh chopped parsley, optional

Wash buckwheat, put it a thick-bottomed or iron-castle pan, fry on a low heat without any oil for 2-3 minutes. Add water and good pinch of salt. Bring it to boil on a medium heat, then reduce the heat to low, add a teaspoon butter and simmer for 17-20 minutes or until all water will be absorbed. Don’t stir buckwheat during the cooking. When it’s ready, take the pan off the heat, cover with lid and few kitchen towels, let it rest for 5-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan, add onion and fry for few minutes. Stir in mushrooms, season to taste and fry on a medium-high heat until mushrooms are ready.
Stir the mushroom mixture and butter into buckwheat. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired. Serve warm as a main dish or side dish to chicken, stewed meat or sausages. Enjoy!

Masoor dal (red lentil) Soup

Masoor dal is a split red lentils, widely used in Asian cuisine, particularly in Indian. Lentil is a good source of protein and fiber. These lentils do not need to soak overnight, they cook very quickly, so the recipe is perfect for everyday cooking. Adding aromatic Asian spices enhances lentils’ taste and brings loads of flavour to the soup! Rich, amazingly good vegetarian thick soup; you should give this recipe a try! 🙂

Masoor dal (red lentil) Soup

Servings: 4
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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You can skip chilli if you don’t want the soup hot, or add more if you like it really spicy.

The longer you cook the soup – more creamy it’ll be.

Ingredients

300g red lentils, washed

200g (2 small) potatoes, cut into small cubes

2 Tbsp olive or sunflower oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp mustard seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/3-1/2 tsp chilli seeds, optional

1 clove

2 bay leaves

5-6 pink peppercorns, crushed

sea salt, to taste

3-4 Tbsp fresh coriander, chopped

naan/flatbread, to serve

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add mustard seeds, chilli (if using), cumin, bay leaves, clove and fry until fragrant. Add onion and garlic, cook for 5-7 minutes until soft. Stir in potatoes – fully coat it in oil and spices. Sprinkle with turmeric, pink pepper and salt, stir.
Stir in lentils, add water to cover the mixture. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until vegetables are cooked. Add more boiling water or continue to simmer further to achieve your preferred consistency. Adjust the seasoning.
Stir in fresh coriander. Serve with bread.

Arabian kofta

Kofta or Kufta is a simple dish, small balls of minced meat – usually lamb or mutton blended with fresh herbs, aromatic spices, garlic and/or onions. These meatballs are very popular in Middle Eastern countries like UAE, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, and there is no fixed recipe, each cook adds their favourite spices like chilli, cinnamon or cardamom. I highly recommend you to not omit fresh herbs; mint, coriander and parsley give kofta amazing freshness. Lamb meat is often used for kofta, but if you don’t eat lamb meat or it’s too fatty for you – you can easily substitute it with beef; in that case I suggest you to add a tablespoon of olive oil or butter for richness. And of course, the meat should be finely minced.

#10 Arabian meatballs

Kofta meatballs can be grilled, fried or even baked. Serve them with rice, fresh tomatoes and olives. I love to eat them wrapped in Arabic bread with a slice of roast eggplant, tomato and chopped fresh herbs, and dipping this lip-smacking wrap into hummus. 🙂

Arabian kofta

Servings: 28 small meatballs
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

500g finely ground lamb

100ml sparkling mineral water

2-3 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tbsp fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

3-4 Tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped

1 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2-1 tsp harissa paste, optional

S&P to taste

2 Tbsp olive oil for frying

Garnish

Arabic bread, hummus, chopped iceberg and herbs

In a large bowl, mix meat with water. Add garlic, herbs, spices, season to taste and mix throughly with you hand.
Form small meatballs, the size of walnut.
Heat the frying pan with oil, add kofta meatballs and fry all over for 6-7 minutes or until cooked through.
Serve with bread, lettuce, herbs and hummus, if desired.

Enjoy!

Golubtsi – Russian stuffed cabbage rolls

Stuffed cabbage rolls is a very popular dish in many countries over the world. In Russia, it’s called ‘golubtsi’ – white cabbage leaves stuffed with sautéed ground pork or beef and rice or buckwheat.

Originally, cabbage leaves were stuffed with meat mixed with millet porridge and the dish was named ‘galushi’. But in 18-19th centuries France had a great influence on Russian cuisine, at least for the upper classes. Many French chefs streamed to Russian to work for royal courts, nobility and other wealthy families.

French cooking was so prevalent among the upper classes that there were not enough French-born chefs to fill the demand. Wealthy Russians began to send their serfs to work under French chefs in Moscow and Sr.Petersburg, and a few were even sent to France for their training. Some of these peasants were allowed to work in the city, provided they remitted to their masters the required obrok or quit-rent, which was a payment in kind or in money. Others were sold after they had completed their training. Count Rostov in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, for instance, spoke with satisfaction of paying a thousand rubles for Taras, a serf who prepared savory hazel grouse sautéed in Madeira for his daughter Natasha’s name day dinner.*

Thus, Russians were hooked on French dishes, and among which was popular a whole grilled pigeon, covered with a cabbage leave. The dish became fancy and well-liked, and soon was called simply ‘golubi’ or ‘golubtsi’ – from Russian word ‘golub’ that literally means pigeon. Lately cooks began to prepare a fake ‘pigeon’ – well-known stuffed cabbage rolls, which were cheaper and affordable for the lower classes.

Also, big thanks to Angie for featuring my post – red pancakes! I’m bringing these cabbage rolls to the super Fiesta Friday party! I know, it’s such a simple dish, that many of you have tried it already, but I hope you are tired of sweets and enjoy Russian comforting food. 🙂

Golubtsi - Russian stuffed cabbage rolls

Servings: 10-12 rolls
Time: 1hr+
Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients

1 white cabbage

500g beef mince (or mix pork+beef)

90-100g uncooked white rice, short-grain

1/2 large onion, finely chopped

1/2 carrot, shredded

1/2 tsp dried marjoram, optional

S&P to taste

Sauce

1/2 large onion, chopped

1/2 carrot, shredded

2-3 tbsp tomato paste

oil, for frying

200-300ml water*

2 bay leaves

5-6 black peppercorns

S&P to taste

Garnish

sour cream, chopped parsley, optional

Sauce. In a large pan over medium heat, heat the oil. Add onion and carrot for the sauce, cook for 5-6 minutes or until soft. Stir in tomato paste. Turn off the heat and set aside.
Cabbage. Discard the 2 or 3 outer leaves of the cabbage. Carefully pull off leaves one by one. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Immerse cabbage leaves and cook for 3-4 minutes. Using tongs, take the leaves out and transfer to a bowl. *Reserve the water to use it lately for the sauce.
Filling. Cook the rice fro 8-10 minutes in bowling water. In a large bowl, mix together the beef, rice, onion, carrot and spices. You can fry onion before adding it to the filling.
Working with one cabbage leaf at a time, slice off the thick outer rib near the stem end. Place the leaf, rounded up like a bowl, stem end closest to you. Spoon about 2 tbsp of the meat mixture, form it into a short log shape. Don’t make the rolls too tight. Transfer the roll, seams down, to the pan with sauce. Shape the remaining rolls in the same way.
Pour in water – just to cover the cabbage rolls, add more if needed. Season to taste, add bay leaves and peppercorns. On a medium-high heat bring it to boil. Then reduce heat to lower, cover the pan with a lid (or you can use a piece of foil) and cook for 40 minutes. You may cut one roll to test it.
Serve rolls with their cooking sauce, sprinkled with parsley and garnish with sour cream, if desired.

Maslenitsa (Butter Week). Blini recipe.

Maslenitsa (Butter Week) is a Christian holiday, one of the brightest and widely-celebrated holiday in Russia, a week before Great Lent. The name Maslenitsa came from Russian word ‘maslo’ which means butter. In the beginning of 16th century, when Church initiated the holiday, it was restricted to eat meat, however fish was allowed, as well as dairy products and butter. Most of the peasants could afford to eat only butter, thus the week began to call Butter Week or Maslenitsa.

During Druids’ times- before 16th century in Rus’ (old Russia’s name) was celebrated a pagan holiday – The Day of spring equinox, which was called Komoedica. It was one of the ancient pagan holidays, celebration of greeting spring, and moreover, worship of the Slavic Bear God: early in the morning people got together, song the songs and went into the forest to praise the Bear God, so they left first and freshly-cooked blini on tree stumps to treat him. After that the Butter Week revelry had been started.

That time Spring was considered as a beginning of new life, people revered to the Sun and made round flat-bread as its symbol. But in 9th century peasants began to make round-shaped blini. Hot and yellowish, blini became new symbol of the Sun; people also believed that with eating blini they had a piece of warmth and power of the Sun.

In ancient times the Komoeditsa holiday was celebrated during two weeks and played an important role for peasants. After a long, cold and often starving winter people had to eat plenty of food (usually it was winter stock remains), cheered up and got stronger for future spring works. Butter week celebrations denoted that winter has passed, and it’s time for a warm season to come. After this holiday peasants began to work from sunrise until sunset during all warm months – spring, summer and autumn. Up to next snow season, they forced to work almost non-stop, without any weekends to get food for their families, fodder for cattle; they repair houses, and cut woods to keep homes warm during the long Russian winter.

When Christianity was established as a state religion, all pagan celebrations and traditions were prohibited; Christian churchmen battle in a vain attempt to stop all holiday habits. After several centuries of unsuccessful fights, in 16th century the Church created new holiday – ‘meatless week’, the week before the Great Lent. People got used to the new holiday, started celebrate it widely and created other name – Maslenitsa.

Finally traditional Maslenitsa celebrations were set in 18th century by Russian Emperor Petr I, who was a famous reveller and party lover. Of course, the main treat was blini, which were baked and eaten in enormous amounts!

One of my fav sweet fillings for blini is a mixture of tvorog (cottage cheese), sour cream, raisins and sugar. For me, it’s a pure indulgence to tuck the delicious filling into piping hot blini! You can also fold blini into half then half again to form wedge, then take the wedge and deep it onto sweet condensed milk.. Incredibly satisfying breakfast or lunch, or even dinner! 😀

This blini recipe suits for any savory filling as well.

Russian blini. Sweet cottage cheese filling.

Servings: 3-4
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Ingredients

2 eggs, medium size

a good pinch of salt

1-2 tbsp white sugar, optional

200ml hot water

1/2 tsp soda

200-230ml kefir (or sour milk/laban/buttermilk), 2-3% fat

150-170g plain flour

3-4 tbsp sunflower oil

some oil for frying, if needed

Filling

300-400g soft cottage cheese

2-3 tbsp sour cream, or more if needed

2-3 tbsp sugar or sweet condensed milk

50-60g sultana/raisins

Garnish

sour cream/sweet condensed milk/icing sugar

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs with salt and sugar.
In a glass or cup mix water with soda, stir and add to the eggs, stirring constantly.
Add kefir and mix well.
Sift flour and add it to the batter. Stir to combine.
Add oil and stir.
Let the batter rest for 20-30 minutes, if you have time.
Heat the frying pan and fry thin pancakes as usual. You can make any diameter you like.
For the filling, soak sultanas in hot water for 5-10 minutes, then drain. Mix all ingredients until well combined.
To assemble, spoon some filling in center of each pancake. Fold bottom edge of pancake over fililng, fold in both sides and roll up. Sprinkle with icing sugar and/or drizzle some sweet condensed milk, if desired. Or serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Enjoy!