Fish selyanka

Here is another Russian cold-weather favorite, fish selyanka. Russia's beloved sturgeon and pickled vegetables come together in a tangy, rich, comforting soup, layered with subtle flavors.

The variations are as many as there are cooks. One version uses rinsed, chopped sauerkraut in addition to pickles, olives, and capers. In another version crayfish or shrimp shells are added to the stock, and cooked crayfish or shrimp tails are used to garnish the finished dish.

The rich fish stock for this soup can be made with any non-oily mild tasting inexpensive white fish, or with sturgeon heads and trimmings. Fatty fishes would add extra heaviness and too strong flavors to the stock, and should be avoided.

Fish that work well:
Perch
Ruffe
Striped bass
Snapper
Sturgeon heads

Fish that don't work:
Salmon
Tuna
Sea bass
Mackerel
Sardines

If using small fish, ask the fishmonger to scale and gut it, but leave the heads and tails on - they contribute to the stock. After making the stock the fish is usually discarded. I was making mine with white perch, and the little sweet fishes from the stock actually made a very good snack; just have to be careful about the bones - they are numerous and tiny.

Fish stock is different from meat and chicken stocks because it cooks very fast. If you put the aromatic vegetables in it whole, they will just begin cooking by the time the fish is completely spent. So, to get the most out of the vegetables, we'll chop them into large chunks.



Fish selyanka
Serves 4

For the stock:

1-1/2 lb small fish or fish heads and trimmings
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
1 whole parsley, with root, or 1 chopped parsnip and 1 small bunch of parsley leaves
1 cup white wine
Water to cover
1 bay leaf
10 black peppercorns


Place fish, onion, carrots, celery, parsley and parsnip into a pot. They should fit relatively tight. Pour in white wine and water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to achieve slow even simmer. Skim the stock, add bay leaf and black peppercorns. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove from heat, strain stock through a fine strainer into a clean pot. Discard the vegetables and fish (or, if the fish looks good, sprinkle it with sea salt and enjoy).



For the selyanka:

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp butter
1 yellow onion, diced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 lb sturgeon, cut into four portions, skin and cartilage removed
20 olives, pitted and sliced
3 large kosher pickles, sliced
2 Tbsp capers, rinsed
1/2 cup marinated mushrooms (optional)
Salt, pepper
Lemon slices, chopped parsley (for serving)


Heat oil and butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Sauté onions, stirring, until soft and beginning to turn color, 5-7 minutes. Add tomato paste, sauté 5 minutes more. Add 1 cup fish stock, stir well.

Bring 3 cups of stock to a boil. Add sturgeon, return to boil, reduce heat, simmer until sturgeon is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add onion-tomato mixture, olives, pickles, capers, mushrooms (if using). Heat through. Adjust seasoning. Depending on your ingredients, you may or may not need to add salt. Serve garnished with lemon slices and chopped parsley.



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Location:San Rafael, CA

Hey, Sweetie! Tasting California wildflower honey

I don't have a sweet tooth. At all. Indifferent to chocolate. Order cheese and wine for dessert. Eat fruit preserves one or two times a year (with cheese). I love fruits, but prefer them not too sweet. When I bake, people who don't like their desserts too sweet spoon sugar on my tarts. Those who like sweets, don't eat them at all.

Honey is different. The flavor of a good honey is so complex that you are not annoyed by the sweetness, you just enjoy the whole experience. It's as balanced as a well crafted wine.

I actually come from a honey producers family: my dad keeps bees at his country house near Moscow. He usually gets a few liters of honey to give to the family and friends, and some extra to sell. The varieties that he gets are clover, linden, buckwheat, and mixed summer flowers, depending on the season.

Now, where are my dad and his bees, and where am I? No chance to get our family honey, so I get mine from the farmers market.





Our farmers market honey people, Marchall's Farm, move their bees following the flowers, in order to produce single-origin honeys.
Here is what I got in their signature red mesh bag:
- Orange blossom honey - very floral, not too sweet
- California sage honey - delicate, very light herbal taste, not sweet at all
- Wild blackberry - SWEET, complex, fruity
- Star thistle honey - very complex, winey, slightly bitter (pleasant) aftertaste




I like my honey served at teatime on a slice of a very strong hard cheese. traveling in Bashkiria as a student, I fell in love with their dense white buckwheat honey, and the way they spread it generously over a thick slice of a Swiss-style local cheese.

Marchall's farms suggest paring their honey with a blue cheese, but I don't want to deal with the mess. So here were are, pairing a French Comte with California sage honey and white tea. You can try this with an off-dry German Riesling too.

Other suggestions for cooking with honey:
- Mix 1 Tbsp honey, 1 Tbsp Olive oil, 1 tsp Worchestershire sauce dash of Tabasco, 1 tsp ground black pepper. Use to marinate beef or chicken for the grill.

- Use a mixture of 2 Tbsp honey, 1 tsp dry mustard, juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper as a rub for grilled chicken breasts

- For a tasty slaw, dress 2 cups shredded cabbage and 1/2 cup shredded carrot with 1 Tbsp honey, 1 Tbsp olive oil, juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper; mix well.

- Parboil young carrots, turnips, rutabagas until almost tender. Sauté in butter, glaze with honey and balsamic vinegar

- Use instead of sugar to sweeten Turkish coffee

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Location:San Rafael, CA

More pelmeni

I am still dealing with 200 pelmeni from one of my December posts. Well, I guess they are down to under 100 now.

Cooking pelmeni in a clear broth and serving them with it makes a fast and warming one-pot meal (Hello, ravioli in brodo, meet wonton soup!)

Any tasty homemade stock will work. I used my fresh made chicken stock, but beef stock would be even better, and vegetable broth or, in a pinch, salted water, are good. I never use store bought stocks for clear soups. They may be OK in sauces or pureed vegetable soups, but in a clear soup you taste the broth straight, and the packaged stocks never taste right. Also, in a clear soup the broth should be clear and beautiful, I haven't found packaged stuff that's perfectly clear. Please, don't do this shortcut. Use water.

So, bring your homemade stock or lightly salted water with a bay leave in it to a boil, drop frozen pelmeni in, bring back to boil, reduce the heat, simmer until pelmeni float, then two more minutes. Ladle the soup into deep bowls, garnish with herbs of your choice - parsley, dill, green onions are mine - and tons of freshly ground black pepper. Enjoy in front of a fireplace, with a shot of ice-cold vodka.




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Location:San Rafael, CA

Last years tomatoes

With the weird weather this year, my garden tomatoes were not producing very much over the summer. But now - in the middle of January! - there are suddenly lots of cherry tomatoes on the last years plants.



They don't ripen completely, I guess the days are too short. So I pick them orange, and let them ripen in the kitchen for a day or two. They are not as super-sweet as summer tomatoes, but they taste great! Even in their orange state the taste is complex and sweet.



The rains and cold weather are coming, and they will kill my plants for sure, but for now we are enjoying tomatoes fresh off the vine in the middle of the winter.

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Location:San Rafael, CA

Russian food. Pelmeni

These pot-stickers probably came to Siberia from China. Then they spread all over Russia, and became a favorite winter food. If the temperatures stay consistently below freezing for 3-4 month, you can invest into making a few hundreds pot-stickers, freeze them outside, put them in a bag, and hang it outside of the window, to be cooked as needed. They cook from frozen in about ten minutes. They are economical, easy to cook, and oh, so tasty! Shaping them is labor-intensive, but if you live in a region with freezing winters, or in a house with a large freezer, you only need to make them once a year.



In Siberia, they make pelmeni with all types of filling: mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage, grains, fish, meat, poultry, or any combinations. In Moscow, where I grew up, pelmeni are always filled with mixed meats, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and minced onion. The usual filling is half ground beef (not too lean) and half pork. Whenever we had venison, we would always mix ground venison into pelmeni filling (1/3 beef, 1/3 pork, 1/3 venison)

In my family, we would spend the afternoon before the New Years Eve making pelmeni. Mom made the filling, dad rolled out the dough, and we all shaped. The first hundred or so would go on our holiday table, the rest froze on all available surfaces out on the balcony, for winter dinners to come. We would put a whole peppercorn into one of the pot-stickers. The lucky recipient could make a wish that will come true in the new year.

In California, I like to make pelmeni for our Tahoe ski trips. After a day of skiing, they cook fast, and they taste great! Rolling out the dough is physically demanding. My dad (who is very good at it) being 9000 miles away and my boyfriend not being part of the culture, I replace them both with my pasta machine, on it's thinnest, ravioli setting. I then cut out dough circles with a 3-inch round cutter. A glass with a thin edge, or a cut tin can can do fine. Pelmeni should be a little larger than ravioli, but smaller than most Chinese potstickers, about 2 inches across.

Serve pelmeni in beef stock with a little white wine vinegar, straight with butter and
a lot of fresh ground black pepper, with sour cream with minced garlic and scallion, or even with mayonnaise!



Pelmeni
Makes about 200, serves 10-12

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2cup water

for the filling:
1.5 pound mixed ground meats (3/4 pound beef and 3/4 pound pork; or 1/2 pound beef, 1/2 pound pork, 1/2 pound venison)
1 large onion, minced
1 tsp salt
1 (generous) tsp fresh ground black pepper

Make the dough: sift flour into a large bowl. Mix in salt. Make a well in the center. Pour egg and water in. Mix, gradually incorporating the flour from the sides, to make very stiff dough, knead. At first it will look like it's too dry and not coming together. Do not despair, keep kneading. If after five minutes of kneading it's still not coming together, add a few drops of water, repeat (you can skip the gym that day). Cover with plastic, let rest 30 minutes.

Make the filling: combine ground meats, onion, season with salt and pepper, mix well.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough as thin as possible, using a rolling pin and a lot of elbow grease, of a pasta machine. Cut out 3-inch circles. Put together the leftovers, and roll out again.

Place about 1/2 tsp of filling in the center of each circle. Pinch the edges together tight. Connect the corners to make a neat ring. Place on a floured plate or cutting board. Repeat 199 times, or so. Freeze. Put in ziplock bags, keep in the freezer for up to 6 month.

To cook: in a large pan bring water to boil over high heat. Add frozen pelmeni, bring back to boil. Reduce heat to medium, cook until pelmeni float to the surface, 5-10 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon.



Serve with:
- sour cream and black pepper
- sour cream + minced garlic + minced parsley or scallion
- white wine vinegar and fresh ground black pepper
- beef stock + dash of white wine vinegar
- melted butter + a lot of fresh ground black pepper
- 1 cup sour cream blended with 1 cooked carrot and 2 minced garlic cloves
- (I didn't say this) mayonnaise


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Russian food. Assorted meat selyanka

I guess it's the season: I've been cooking a lot of Russian food recently. From Russian Californians with a food nostalgia to families who never tried Russian food and want something different for their special occasion dinner, everyone is requesting traditional Russian dishes. I've even been working with a fine restaurant that decided to offer zakuski spread as a part of their appetizer menu.

There is very little information available on traditional Russian cuisine. A friend (of Russian background!) asked me a few days ago: "What do you mean by Russian cuisine? Isn't it all just French food made with available local ingredients?" The answer is "No". The French cuisine became a huge influence in Russian cooking in the 19th century, when French chefs immigrated to Russia to escape the revolution, and were hired by aristocratic families and fancy restaurants; but there are distinctive tastes and cooking techniques that make Russian cuisine stand on it's own, and reflect the character of the people and the land, even after absorbing multiple influences from the neighbor countries. I am going to put together a series of posts about russian cuisine, with recipes, techniques, and serving ideas, for easy reference. I hope I can paint a complete picture.

Contrary to what most restaurant menus would make you think, Russian cuisine is much more than borscht, beef Stroganoff, blini with caviar, and cold vodka.

The short growing season and long winter in most regions forced the cooks to make creative use of vegetables with long storage potential (cabbages, potatoes, turnips, beets, onions) and grains (wheat, rye, buckwheat, rice, barley, to name a few), to develop an assortment of pickled, marinated, and fermented vegetable recipes and smoked and dried meats for storage. During the short spring and summer growing season, fresh young vegetables and herbs are praised and presented in salads, cold and hot soups, or prepared simply to accompany the main course.

Wild mushroom hunting is a favorite national pastime and a competitive sport, and boiled, sautéed, pickled, marinated, dried mushrooms add their charm to many dishes. In modern times, when wild mushrooms are unavailable, cultivated varieties take their place in recipes, but they are never as good as the real thing!

Fish, both salt- and freshwater, was always popular. Two specifically Russian ways to prepare fish are whole de-boned fish or slices of fillet baked in pastry, and cooked fish, covered with jelly, served cold as an appetizer. There is a number of fish soups and salads, using both fresh and smoked fish. Pickled herring, a Scandinavian influence, is enormously popular, as it goes so well with vodka.

The most used meats are beef and pork, both served hot, or cold as an appetizer. Organ meats, such as tongues, harts, livers and kidneys, are cooked in soups, pates, baked in pastry, or made into sausages. Lamb and mutton are a recent fashion brought from the South. As part of Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Uzbek dishes they are very popular now.

Poultry and game - chickens, duck, goose, rabbit, pheasant, quail, grouse - are reserved for festive holiday roasts and stews. They are presented nicely, and grace the holiday table. Organ meats are also used. Chicken liver mousse is everyone's favorite.

What really sets Russian cuisine apart from the rest of the world is it's extensive use of yeast dough to make all kinds of bread, filled bread, pastries, pies, rolls, etc, baked, fried, boiled. Vatrushki (cheese pies) for breakfast. Small piroshki with meat and vegetable fillings as a part of the appetizer spread. The soup is usually accompanied with piroshki with a filling that compliments the soup. A meat or a fish pie can be a main entree at a family gathering, or one of the dishes served at a formal dinner. To finish, hot tea with sweet pastries and fruit preserves.

Assorted meat selyanka

There is no recipe for this soup. It can be made with anything.

In the old times, selyanka (means "village girl") was a soup made with a hearty beef stock, the meat used to make the stock, and any pickled vegetables on hand. 19th century restauranteurs dresses the girl up with tomatoes, olives, capers, and fancy smoked meats, and they called it "assorted meat selyanka". Still, she didn't lose her rustic character. Anything goes. If you serve a cold meat plate at a dinner party, make a selyanka the next day. It will show the meat leftover to their best advantage, and it will cure the hangover, if any.

After you invested time and effort into making beef stock, this soup comes together in minutes. At home, I usually make a lot of beef stock once in a while in my 8-quart stock pot, then freeze whatever I don't use immediately in 1-quart ziplock bags for soups, and in ice cube trays for sauces. This way, I have my "bouillon cubes" at all times.

Serves 6

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 cup roasted tomato sauce (substitute tomato paste)
2 quarts beef stock
3 medium kosher pickles, cut into small cubes
1 pound assorted smoked or cooked meats and sausages (smoked pork shoulder, smoked ham, dry salami, summer sausage, frankfurters, boiled beef tongue, cooked kidney, Canadian bacon, smoked chicken, smoked duck), the more the merrier. If making stock from scratch, include the boiled beef from stock. Cut into small cubes.
2 Tbsp capers, rinsed
1 cup olives, rinsed
1 lemon, cut into thin slices, to garnish
Flat parsley leaves, to garnish
6 Tbsp sour cream, to serve

Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions, sauté until golden, 10 minutes. Add tomato sauce or tomato paste, sauté 10 minutes more.

Add stock and pickles, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low. Add meats. Heat through. Add capers and olives.

Pour soup into hot soup bowls or small crocks, add capers and olives. Garnish with lemon slices and parsley. Serve hot. Pass sour cream at the table.


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Location:San Rafael, CA

All my favorite fall fruits

Now is the magical time when all three of my favorite fruits come together at the market at the same time:

Figs are going out, the few still available are overripe, beginning to dry out, but still delicious. At this point, don't use them for cooking - enjoy them fresh while they last, or, if you are lucky to have a large tree, dry some for the winter.

Grapes are at the peak now. Super-sweet, juicy and wonderful as an accompaniment to wines and cheeses, in salads, or just eat them straight.



Persimmons are just coming in. My favorite Fuyu variety, that is not tannic and can be eaten still firm and crunchy, is good and sweet already. It's great sliced as a part of cheese and fruits board (think soft, sharp cheeses), sliced into salads, chopped into salsas, baked in a pie, or just eaten out of hand.




I don't even mention apples as my favorite fruit, they are too common, and everyone's favorites. But I eat a lot of apples now, when most varieties are at the peak: bake pies and tarts with Granny Smiths, Pippins, Honeycrisps, and tiny tart crab apples; slice Fujis, Honeycrisps, Rome Beauties, Empire, and McIntosh to serve with wine and cheese (lots of pairing options here), sauté Pippins and Granny Smiths to serve with savory meat dishes - poultry and pork work very well with apples; store some, wrapped in paper, in a box in a cool place, for the winter.



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Location:San Rafael, CA