Plan Russian

Russian Cuisine – Pancakes And Salads

What are you planning to cook at your next dinner party?  Why not step outside of your comfort zone and attempt something new and exciting.  International cuisine is great way to show off your cooking talents and today we are going to talk about some hot and cold Russian dishes that anyone can prepare.

Russian Blini – Hot Pancakes

The crepe might be French but other countries will argue their version tastes better.  Russian is no different and the traditional hot pancake is called Blini.

To make Blini you will need:

½ cup plain flour (sifted)

2 eggs

2 ½ cups of milk

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 teaspoon of baking soda (optional if you want a lighter mixture)

Steps:

Start by whisking the eggs in a bowl with the sugar and salt.  Add the flower to the mixture and then slowly stir in the milk to avoid lumps.  Mix well or blend in a food processor.   You should have a thin batter at this stage.

Optional – Add the baking soda to make the mixture more light (porous).  For the best result, cover your mixing bowl and leave your batter in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.  Take the batter out of fridge when you are ready to cook.  If the mixture is too thick, add water or milk.  If your batter is runny, add a small amount of flour.  What you want is a pancake batter that pours like fresh cream.

Start cooking the pancakes by warming a non-stick pan over a medium heat.  Coat the pan with a light cooking oil or butter (though butter does give a better tasting pancake, it just depends on how fattening you want them to be).  Pour a couple of table spoons of the mixture onto the pan and spreak the mixture out evenly into small pancakes.  Traditional blini are thin but this is personal preference.  You should be able to fit 3 or 4 on a standard frying pan to make the process go faster.  When bubbles appear in the center or it starts to look dry, flip it over to cook the other side.

Move the cook Blini to a plate and butter one side and stack them.  Eat them as they are or as a real treat, put jam into the centre and fold them in half.  Fold them a second time to make a neat triangle.  They are best enjoyed with hot black tea with lemon.

Russian Salads

If you are use to salads of tossed lettuce, fresh vine ripened tomatoes and a light vinaigrette,  then you are in for a bit of a shock with Russian salads.  Russia is a cold country, so hardy root vegetables tend to feature on the dinner table that delicate spring salads.

This gives us a traditional Russian salad – a salad with some bite.  A typical salad is the Dressed Herring Under Fur Salad.

Ingredients:

2 salted herring

5 potatoes

4 carrots

4 beets

5 eggs

1 lb mayonnaise

What To Do:

Bring a large pot of unsalted to the boil and add the potatoes, carrots and beets.  Boil until just soft and then drain.

Sking and debone the herring.  Cut the fish into small bite size pieces.  Take a large serving bowl and spread the herring on the bottom.  Cover with a thin layer of mayonnaise.

Take the pototoes and mash them.  Do no add butter or milk to the mash.  Spread the potato as the second layer and cover with mayonaise.  Repeat the process for the beets and 3 of the eggs.  Finish the with slices of the 2 remaining eggs.  Cover the bowl and put in the fridge for an hour before serving.

What else can you cook that is Russian?  Why not try some a href=”http://www.hotrussian.net/russian-food-borsch.html”>Borsch as well?

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