Tag Archives: photo

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

White cabbage is widely used vegetable in Russia, it’s eaten raw in salads, pickled to eat during the winter and braised in various stews.

Nowadays it’s pretty popular to eat healthy dishes, such as cauliflower soup, sautéed Brussels sprout, fish with broccoli and etc. It seems like everybody forgets about this simple beauty – the white cabbage.

Even Greek philosopher Pythagoras said: “It is a vegetable, that helps to have a courage and cheerful mood”. In ancient Russia it was a belief, that if one has a headache, they should cover their temples with cabbage leaves to release the pain.

The below recipe is a very simple dish with a modern twist, using fresh ricotta and your favorite cheese. It could be eaten alone or as a nice side dish. A must try! 🙂

Cabbage casserole with farmer cheese

Servings: 4
Time: ~2h
Difficulty: not too tricky
Print

Adapted from Russian magazine ‘The school of gastronomy’

Ingredients:

400-500g white cabbage, thinly sliced

1 small onion, sliced

100-150g fresh homemade ricotta/cottage cheese/farmer cheese

60g any grated cheese + 1Tbsp for the top (Emmental/Gouda/Red Cheddar)

1Tbsp Parmesan cheese for the top, optionally

2 big or 3 small eggs, whites and yolks separated

40g butter

50g flour

400ml milk (preferably low fat)

2Tbsp bread crumbs, homemade

pinch of nutmeg, cumin

1Tbsp fresh chopped dill or 1tsp dried

salt, white pepper to taste

1Tbsp olive oil+1Tbsp butter for frying

Preparation:

1) First, make the sauce. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and turn the heat to low. Sift the flour into the butter, stirring continuously to combine them. Add the milk a little at a time. Cook for 8 minutes more, stirring continuously until the sauce becomes thicker. Remove the saucepan from the stove and let it cool.

2) Meanwhile, put olive oil, butter and onion in a pan, and fry for 4 minutes. Add cumin and fry for 1 minute more.

Add the cabbage, sprinkle with dill and stir fry for 10-15 minutes. Transfer the cabbage into big bowl.

3) Add egg yolks into the sauce, one at a time, nutmeg and combine thoroughly.

4) Pour the sauce into the cabbage, add cheese, ricotta, salt, white pepper and give it a good stir.

5) Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until foamy, then carefully combine with cabbage mixture.

6) Grease the baking pan with butter, sprinkle with bread crumbs, add the cabbage mixture and sprinkle with cheese. Bake in preheated oven 180C/360F for 40 minutes.

7) Serve warm. Enjoy!

Onion cookies with cheese and chilli

The springs has finally come bringing more sunny days, birds sing their songs, flowers are blossoming and days are becoming longer. Sun is shining and my living room now is full of light, all nature is preparing for the hot summer. I love this time of the year when it’s still comfortable to sit and walk outside in the evening, when it’s not cool but not hot yet.

I’be been busy last days and I’m sorry for being away, days were full of life or laziness; my dearest friends came from Russia and despite they brought a huge bag of sweets, I made meringues with coconut and nuts, which were eaten immediately.

And I almost missed the awesome party, on Fridays as usual, at Angie’s place with such amazing co-hostesses as Jhuls and Selma. But ‘it’s better late than never’, isn’t it?

So, I want to serve these hot and delish onion cookies to y’all! 😀

I’m pretty sure you will be absolutely amazed how well they go for a breakfast! Delicious and flavoured with chillies, which are super boosters, they will help you to wake up quicker than regular mug of coffee!

This is a very simple recipe to make and you just have to mix the ingredients and form cookies in the round shape right on a baking sheet. Bake the onion cookies for about 20 minutes and they will be gooey, firm and bursting with incredible flavour.

The recipe itself has undergone a number of changes since I made cookies for the first time, because there is always no limit to perfection. And the result is beautifully browned and great tasted cookies!

I’m using whether spring onion or leek, whatever is available at the moment of cooking, both are suitable and pretty good for this recipe.

Onion cookies with cheese and chilli

Servings: 3-4
Difficulty: easy
Print

Cookies should be served piping hot!

Ingredients:

130g flour, self-raising

50-60g butter, cold and cut into small cubes

3 tbsp corn flour

a good pinch of salt

1/3 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp crushed chilli flakes

70g grated cheese (Red Cheddar or Red Leicester)

180ml single cream or laban

1 tbsp cream cheese

2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

1 leek or 4-5 spring onions

1/2 tbsp butter for frying

Sour cream, creme fraiche or yoghurt for garnish

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.
Chop the leek or spring onions, stir fry very lightly in butter for 3-4 minutes.
Combine the butter with flours, salt and peppers.
Stir in parsley, onion and cheese.
Pour the cream or laban into the batter and mix well.
Spoon out heaping tablespoon of batter and lay on the ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
Sprinkle with some extra chilli flakes, if desired.
Bake for 17-20 minutes until golden-brown.
Serve the cookies hot and optionally with sour cream.
Enjoy!

The ruby-red treat

Who doesn’t like a glorious cherry pie? 🙂

One of the good thing about this pie is that you can use different types of pastry crusts and cherries. I like to use fresh sour cherries, but here such cherries are nowhere to be found, I’ve seen only sweet and they are overpriced. So I quiet often use frozen or canned.

I made it a couple of times during the winter and I wish I would have made several more! The pie is quite easy to make and it came out amazing! Moreover, the fact that you can make the pastry ahead of time, makes the pie perfect for company or holiday parties.

Don’t forget that cherries should be pitted! The sugar amount for the filling varies depending on how sweet your cherries, adjust it to suit your personal preferences.

The ruby-red Cherry Pie

Servings: 1-2
Print

Ingredients (for 13 cm/5 inch pie pan):

Short crust pastry:

190g plain flour

100g butter, chilled and cut into small cubes

1/2 tbsp white sugar

a pinch of salt

30-40 ml cold water

Cherry filling:

300-400ml pitted fresh or canned cherries

1-2 tbsp white sugar, if needed

1 tsp corn starch

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tbsp cherry liquor or brandy (optionally)

1/2 tbsp fine semolina

Glazing:

1 egg yolk+ 1tsp milk

1/2 Tbsp granulated white or brown sugar

Preparation:

Place all ingredients for the filling in a bowl, and gently combine. If you’re using fresh cherries, let them stand for 20 minutes, then toss it again.
Combine the flour, butter, sugar and salt until coarse meal. Pour water slowly and incorporate gently until the dough begins to hold together. Roll into two ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use (at least 30 minutes). The short crust pastry can be kept in the fridge for a week! I suggest to double the quantity of pastry and make it ahead, thus you can prepare a big pie for the family or several individual pies during the week.
Roll one portion of dough into 22 cm circle and transfer to the pie pan. Keep it in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap, while you roll out the top of the pie crust.
Roll the second pastry ball into smaller circle – 18-19 cm. Use a knife to cut vents into the top crust, so the steam has a place to escape while the pie is cooking. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 180C/360F.
Remove the crusts from the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for 5-7 minutes so they have time to soften.
Sprinkle the bottom pastry with semolina, and fill the pie.
Lightly brush the rim with egg wash. Top it with second crust.
Brush the entire surface with egg wash, sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake the pie for about 35-40 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the cherry juices are beginning to bubble. Let the pie cool on a rack for sometime.
ENJOY! 😀

Kumquat preserve

Hi there! First of all, I’d like to say Happy belated Easter to all who celebrated it, hope you had a really great, joyful and warm holiday!
I’ve been out of bloogging for some time, because my sister visited me and I didn’t have free time to post; we were walking, swimming, shopping and chating all days long. We meet really rarely – one or two times a year, and I miss her all the time..

Thus I didn’t prepare anything for the Easter this time, but I’ve got a great recipe of the citrus preserve! It is the unusual one, because made out of kumquats!

I do like kumquats, that sometimes to treat myself I’m buying a kilo and eat them alone. 😀 Just joking. I have never seen any kumquat jams in stores, and if you like it’s citrus bitterness – go for it!

Kumquat preserve

Servings: 2 jars
Difficulty: easy
Print

Such homemade preserve makes a great gift for family or friends.

Ingredients:

500g firm kumquats, cleaned and sliced

400g white sugar

120ml water

2 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

In a saucepan, put sugar, water and spices, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
Add kumquats.
Bring the ingredients to boil.
Then switch off the heat, remove the saucepan from the hob and set aside to cool.
After 1 hour return the saucepan to the medium heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
Repeat the step #5 and #4 two more times.
Pour the preserve into prepared hot sterilized jars and seal, or eat it straight away.

I’ve eaten the result on toast, as topping for panna cotta or cheesecake, and even with chicken!

The preserve is perfect for person who likes the bright, bitter and familiar flavor of orange! 🙂

Vareniki

Almost everybody in Russia knows and adores vareniki! So do I. 😀

Vareniki – are dumplings, stuffed with savoury or sweet filling.

It’s considered that vareniki is a traditional Ukrainian dish, but originally it came from Turkey. It was a dish made from boiled unleavened dough with meat and vegetables filling. When “Vareniki” appeared in Ukraine for the first time, they were called ‘diush-var’. The Ukrainian people liked this dish so much that these dumplings quickly spread over the Ukraine and beyond, and became widely-popular, turned into traditional Ukrainian cuisine and began to call as ‘vareniki, and this name simply means – boiled.

Ukrainian savoury vareniki are usually topped with shkvarki – fried salted pork fat, and also can be topped with fried onions or just accompanied with sour cream according to local taste or preferences (i.e. last two toppings are quite popular in Russia).

The most popular fillings are potatoes, mushrooms or fish. Vareniki could be also made sweet, with cherries or sweet cottage cheese filling.

There are many recipes of vareniki nowadays, with egg or sour cream in dough, based on water or kefir.

My recipe is the simplest one, and I used a mix of mashed potatoes and mushrooms. You can use the same dough for sweet fillings, such as cherries or black currant.

Here is the short video how I make these lovely twisted edges of the Vareniki.

Vareniki

Servings: ~70 pieces
Print

Vareniki can be frozen well, that’s why I usually make a big batch, put them in ziplocks and freeze! No need to defrost before cooking.

Ingredients

The dough:

500g plain flour

1 egg

2 tsp salt

200 ml warm water

The filling:

800-900 g potatoes, boiled and mashed

1 onion, cut into small cubes

300 g wild or button mushrooms, sliced

1 Tbsp oil + 1 Tbsp butter

Small bunch of dill, finely chopped

Salt, pepper to taste

Garnish per portion:

1-2 Tbsp sour cream

1 Tbsp chopped dill

a knob of butter

Method

Dissolve salt in warm water. On a flat surface make a well in the flour, add egg and salted water. Knead until the dough is pliable. Cover with plastic wrap or towel and let rest for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, saute onion and mushrooms in oil and butter. In a bowl combine mashed potatoes with vegetables and dill. Season to taste. The filling is ready.
Roll the dough into 8cm/3-inch circles, place 1 tsp potato mixture into center, fold the dough over filling and press it.
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil (salt the water as for pasta or you like). Put vareniki into water and carefully stir with a spoon. When they come to the surface – cook for 4-5 minutes more.
Serve vareniki with sour cream, chopped dill and a knob of butter on top.

You can brown vareniki a bit in a butter straight after the boiling. Serve with sour cream, but already without extra butter on top.

Enjoy the delicious vareniki! 🙂

Are you going to Angie’s party? You can try superb cocktail there! 😉