Food sanctions

A recent episode of The Keiser Report described a new trend for locavore cuisine in Moscow and presented this interest in locally-sourced ingredients as an unintended positive from Russian sanctions on some western nations' food (the Russian response to western-imposed sanctions).

Lavka Lavka restaurant. Image

Thinking back to our recent trip, were the sanctions clearly evident? .....

Recipe: Solyanka (soup)/ солянка

One of the culinary delights in Russia is the range of soups and this one is one of my favourites. It's meaty and rich... and delicious.

 

 Here's a recipe (in near industrial quantities)...

Love is...

a Turkish brand of bubble gum that was hugely popular in the former USSR countries in the 1990s and is still available in Russia today.

Tulsky Pryanik/ Тульский пряник

A Tulsky pryanik is one of those things that Russians appear to think that everyone abroad knows about Russia and buys as a souvenir... like vodka and Russian dolls. It might be true for the latter two, but I hadn't heard of this cake until after leaving Russia.

Competition time

Saw this beauty on a Russian social network...

Can you tell what it is yet?

Aaaarggghhhhh!!!

Finally finished off the New Year food...

New Year's Eve - Russian-style in the UK

New Year in Russia is a bit like Christmas in the UK. It's the day when you tidy ready for a clean New Year, exchange for presents and consume a belt-breaking quantity of food.


This year, Lily had to do a mad rush on her business on the 31st so while she busied herself with that, I busied myself with the food and the tidy up.

Before we could get to...

Champagne and the Kremlin

We had...

Getting ready for New Year... Russian-style

So here I am on a bitterly cold, icy Sunday morning in Sheffield. I could've been doing so many relaxing things... sipping tea while reading a Sunday newspaper, taking the dog for a walk (I don't have a dog, but it sounds relaxing, but I'll make do by watching idiots freezing their ass off taking their whippets for a walk) or watching TV (then again, it's Sunday morning and a choice of religion, cartoons or cooking - that's separately of course, together would be kind of weird... a Bible-bashing Bugs Bunny baking biscuits?). But no, with just four days till New Year, talk has turned to the preparations. There's a Russian in the house... peanuts, crisps and booze will not suffice...

Happy New Year!

Salad Olivier - the history

When I first arrived in Russia and started talking to students about food, it quickly became apparent that the two most popular Russian dishes in their eyes were pelmeniy and Olivier Salad. It was to their astonishment that I'd heard of neither.

Going off at a slight tangent, I once nearly made a group of Russian teenagers cry by telling them that Russian vodka wasn't the best in the world (seriously) and 'proving' this claim by pointing out, with a straight face, that Finnish vodka was about 4 times the price because of the relative quality (not true - it's tax) and that even Britain produced better vodka but Russia refused to import it so as to not lower the status of the domestic product (again not true - hell, I don't even know if the UK distills any, but it was a great lie and fun to see a class full of quivering lips and actually so angrily animated in English to defend their prized, national drink).

In the biggest blow to the collective, Russian, culinary ego since then, I'll start by pointing out the fact (yes, fact, not some fibs to tease a class) that one of Russia's most (self-)acclaimed dishes was created by the francophone, Lucien Olivier, probably Belgian, who had trained in French haute cuisine. Not Russian... cue lots of trembling lower lips...

Recipe: kartoshka cake

The is one of the easiest Russian desserts to make. Kartoshka means potato, yet there's no potato in it... the lying bastards! [edit: my wife's just called me a hypocrite on the basis of mince pies not containing mince... touché!] Still, it's delicious and ridiculously moreish.

Alyenka Chocolate

Produced by the Moscow-based Krasniy Oktyabr (Red October) confectioners since the mid 1960s, this is one of the most recognisable products on Russian shelves.

Recipe: Golubtsi #1 (with peppers)

Golubtsi is an Eastern European dish, claimed as theirs by half the nations of the former USSR even though it's found across Europe and the Middle East. Essentially it's something stuffed with rice and/or meat, usually cabbage leaves or occasionally vine leaves, particular further south. The Russian name means little pigeons, hopefully not from the original filling. I've done another Russian variant, what we in the UK would call stuffed peppers.

Photo of the month

I'll be uploading a photo every month - one that means something to me personally or somehow represents something about Russia.

I thought I'd begin with this one...

The Dacha

Many Russians have a dacha, a country house. If a Brit mentions going to spend the weekend at the country house, you think of the landed gentry and large country estates. In Russia, it could mean many things.

Picking potatoes.

Russian food in the UK

When you live abroad for a while, especially when you're talking years, you pick up a taste for the local food, eating habits which stay with you. You miss elements of British food and certain products when you're over there - I remember wanting malt loaf for about a month and having to make do with a dark, fruit bread. Equally, this leads to similar quests for particular delicacies back in Britain...

beer snacks

Recipe: Shortbread with Curds/ Рецепт: Сочень с Творогом

The place where I worked in Russia had its own cafe and they prepared the food in a home-cooked way, but on a larger scale. One of the delights there was the sochen s tvorogom, shortbread with curd filling.

We had two packs of curds in the fridge and the plastic wrapping was starting to expand. They needed using up and there was only one thing for it... shortbread and curds on an industrial scale!

Russian-style shortbread with curds

Recipe: Russian Lace Pancakes

Ready to eat

It’s salad, Jim, but not as we know it.

When I grew up in the north of England, salad wasn’t unusual but it certainly was unspectacular. I’m not saying I’m common but salad was a couple of leaves of round lettuce, a tomato sliced into six and five or six slices of cucumber. The seasoning was salt. Posh people poured drizzled dressings over it. We didn’t, so salad for us was purely vegetables. In contrast...

Mushroom meadow