Nettle soup, done well

It's again this time of the year when foodies and those aligned with them start cooking foraged weeds. What used to be (really) poor man's grub, these days is a social marker of the educated classes. Now, I've seen and tried and number of nettle soups this year and, I hate to say that, people you need to get a grip. Just boiling leaves with random veggies does not do the trick, or any trick for that matter. That's what my 85-year-old farmer uncle cooks for his piglets, literally. Nettle has its own special flavour that, if served to humans, needs to be cherished, flaunted and taken proper care of.

So here I will share the proper nettle soup recipe, as it's been cooked in my family for at least three generations.

1. Pick a bunch of young nettle leaves, they need to be light green and with no flowers forming.
2. Remove the stems and rinse well in cold water.
3. Sautee in butter on a low heat.
4. Add chopped shallots or onions. Cook until soft.
5. Add a can or two of chopped tomatoes with juice. If too thick, add water.
6. Beat a nice large biodynamic egg and add into the boiling soup, as you stir it, making sure it comes out stringy, not cloudy.
7. Let it bubble away for a little while to let the tastes mingle.
8. Salt and pepper in moderation. Sprinkle a few drops of fish sauce to enhance the flavour.

This recipe balances the sourness from the tomatoes and the sweetness of sauteed onions to give the nettle a proper stage to show off its zing.

Old wives' tales (that are quite likely true):  

• Nettles are supposed to stimulate your liver to cleanse blood. 

• It is not recommend to eat too much nettle soup, not more than 2-3 times a year, naturally in the spring.

Tyulka: Southern Russian beer delight (тюлька)

yulka is a sprat-like fish in the Black Sea that, when dried, or rather cured in dry air, turns into veritable vials of most fragrant fish oil and delightfully crunchy meat. A perfect companion for cold beer, it is sold all around Southern Russia, although it is harder to find in Moscow. On the Canaries, a saltier and drier version is called pejines.

Šprotes to shproty: how politics meddle with gastronomy (шпроты)

hen I was growing up, Latvian smoked sprats were a special treat. Tinned in aromatic amber-coloured oil, their lovely smokey taste will forever invoke in me the memories of New Year's celebrations. They were traditionally made in Latvia and sold throughout the whole 11-time-zone expanse of the Soviet Union. Every one from the snowfields of Siberia to the desert sands of Central Asia knew what Rīgas Šprotes stood for.

A couple of years ago, however, Russian oligarch-led government tried to punish Latvia for not conceding to sell oil port terminals: they banished Latvian imports, including sprats. In the wake of an anti-Latvian media campaign, Russians have switched to produce from Kaliningrad, a sizeable Russian enclave wedged between Lithuania and Poland. Articles describing discrimination against Russian speakers in Latvia fuelled the patriotic sentiment to the point where even after the oil port facilities were finally sold to an oligarch-owned corporation, the sales of Latvian sprats never picked up back again. Weeny smoked fishes became the symbol of economic patriotism.

Politics aside, sprats taste better unadulterated on rye bread with some finely sliced red onions. I also use them instead of anchovies in the Caesar salad dressing for the extra smokey kick. Although the label says "smoked in a wood furnace", I think they use a ready-made smoke concentrate.

Russian proso millet cereal & porridge (пшёная каша)

ussians eat a lot of cereals: some kind of porridge is a common breakfast. Proso millet is one of those. It is reckoned to one of the oldest cultivated grain in Eurasia due to it drought-resistance.

Eaten for breakfast proso, or pshyonka in colloquial Russian, is boiled in water or milk and eaten with milk or butter. It can also be made into a savoury dish. The best way to make it is to fry it first in butter until it starts giving out a characteristic nutty smell and then boil it in water and add stir-fried mushrooms and vegetables: onions, carrots, pumpkin.

As has been the case with many poor man's staples, proso has recently been rediscovered as health food. It turns out that it is gluten-free and rich in microelements. It contains as much protein as wheat, about 11% by weight.

Proso flakes are sold in Russian supermarkets for busy people. You can only use them as breakfast cereal because in savoury dishes proso needs to retain its grainy texture.

Russian pearl barley & mushroom soup (перловый суп с грибами)

o Russian dinner is complete without soup. Most recipes are traditional and use  obscure cereals and seasonal vegetables with quite spectacular results.

Barley and mushroom soup is at the very top of my favourites. list. It takes some time to cook but the good thing you don't need to be there to wacth the pot all the time. It is rather light yet very filling, full of fibre and complex carbohydrates. The slowly cooked barley and caramelised onions give it gentle sweetness, while the heady aroma of fried mushrooms will keep you salivating like a Pavlov's dog throghout the cooking process.

1. Soak a cup of barley and a generous handful of dried mushrooms in cold water overnight.
2. Set the mushrooms aside and bring water with barley to a boil. Allow to simmer for an hour or so until the barley becomes al dente.
   
   
3. In the meantime, cut 2 potatoes and a carrot into bite-size chunks. Set aside to dry.
4. Finely chop 2-3 large onions and stir fry with the  mushrooms in olive oil until golden brown. Optional: 100 g smoked bacon.
5. Tip the potatoes, carrots, onions and mushrooms into the pot with barley. Add salt, pepper and a couple of bay leaves, mix well and allow to simmer for about 20 more minutes.
6. Serve with crème fraîche and chopped fresh parsley.

Russian oven-baked salmon pie (рыбный пирог)

n the Western mass conscious, Russian diet inextricably revolves around the images of frozen cabbage eaten out of toilet bowls and people queuing for bread at 4AM on dark winter mornings. Thanks to years of Cold War propaganda, we all know that Russians are sullen-faced ruffians chasing vodka with raw potato peels in the midst of Siberian snowfields.

Reality, however, is rather different. With perhaps the only exception of convicted bachelors, Russians traditionally eat three warm meals a day. That extravagant habit explains why of all industrialised nations Russians spend the most time in the kitchen, one and a half hours a day on the average.

A day without soup is considered a wasted day. Although supermarket chains are doing everything in their power to change this, Russians normally eat whatever is in season. Spices are still used sparingly but fresh dill, parsley, horseradish, mustard are common. Sandwiches for lunch and deep fried food are an imported concept and frowned upon.

For me the most prominent feature of Russian cuisine is oven-baked dishes, particularly pies. Pies are made with leavened dough and eaten throughout the year. Fillings, as is the case with other dishes, are whatever is in season.

My favourite is my Mother’s salmon pie. The filling is de-boned wild salmon with black pepper and onions on a bed of buttery rice. The rice soaks in the fish and onion juices and keeps them sealed inside. The dough comes out golden-brown and crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside. Mother normally serves it with light fish broth in small bowls and a green salad. This time we had it with an underrated Austrian white, Grüner Veltliner. I brought it from my trip to Vienna as Austrians don't seem to favour exporting their wine.

How to make mayonnaise

ayonnaise is easily Russia's national dressing. Although often derided as fatty and unhealthy, in Russia it outsells every other type of commercial condiment including ketchup: the Guinness Book of Records insists that the Russian city of Ekaterinburg is world's leader in mayonnaise consumption.
A Ekaterinburg-native friend of mine told me that when back in the 90s Russian factory workers tried to mess with the newly imported Italian mayonnaise-making machinery by using less expensive ingredients and more water, it would stop working. According to him, that's why Eketarinburgers have been enjoying properly manufactured mayo ever since.
It is somewhat ironic that the jarred variety with all the creepy chemical additives, very likely substandard eggs, inexplicably added sugar and excess of salt is so popular despite mayonnaise being one of the simplest and cheapest sauces to make at home. It takes just about 5 minutes to whip up a bowl of mayonnaise. Here how it goes:

1. Mix well one very fresh egg yolk (I buy biodynamic free-range organic eggs from Orchard eggs) with a tablespoonful Dijon mustard. Both need to be room temperature.
   
2. Add little by little one glass of your favourite vegetable oil while whisking vigorously making sure that all oil is incorporated in the mixture before adding any more. Only use up to 30% of olive oil as it tends to make your mayonnaise taste bitter.
   
3. Now for the flavouring. Mix one tablespoonful aceto balsamico bianco, some finely ground sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, and whisk the mixture in. That said, I use Thai fish sauce instead of salt for the extra kick and add crushed garlic to make aioli. You can also add finely chopped estragon, anchovies, etc. - let your imagination run free!
   
4. In case your mayo comes out too thick, whisk in a tablespoonful of water.

Solid Guinness: Russian Borodinsky rye bread (бородинский хлеб)

here are only two countries in the world that use live yeast for commercial bread-baking: Austria and Russia. This kind of bread can cause minor stomach problems for first-time visitors but luckily there are also more regular kinds of bread on offer.

However, I was brought up on the old-fashioned kind. In my childhood, sweet-tasting Borodinsky rye-bread with coriander-seed-encrusted ears was a favourite treat. Its earthy aroma and heavy dark brown are like nothing else in the world. If anything at all, it is very much like solid Guinness.

These days friends occasionally bring a loaf from Moscow. It's much lighter on rye now, perhaps, to appeal to modern tastes and I can't feel but cheated in a way. It goes well with a slice of Cheddar or with smoked capelin roe and cucumbers. Last time I fixed it with slices of pheasant-and-pear sausage, French black pepper mustard and what can you do without cucumbers!

Russian dainty: physalis jam (варенье из физалиса)

hubarb, elderberries, pumpkin, green tomatoes and aronia - what is common between them? My Mom makes amazingly delectable jams from those.

This is one of her wonderful concoctions: physalis jam. It is not really your traditional Russian preserve but as it is made by a Russian woman in the midst of the Russian countryside from berries grown in Russian soil I might as well categorize it as a Russian dessert.

The land of eternal winter for Westerners, Russia has intensely hot continental summers. My parents grow on their estate peaches, grapes, walnuts and olives as well as a host of exotic flowers and vegetables from as far afield as Argentina and Thailand. In Southern Russia orange and lemon orchards as well as tea plantations are a common place. So much for stereotypes.

Russian smoked capelin roe (икра мойвы копчёная)

ussians are big on fish roe. If you go to any Russian supermarket, you will see tens of various sorts of it ranging from lowly pike's to princely sturgeon's. Smoked capelin roe is my favourite. In Japan it is called masago and used in its plain form but Russians like everything mayonnaise-looking, so here we go.

It is very affordable, just under two euros a jar, and makes a wonderful bread spread. I like to top such a sandwich with cucumber slices for the extra crunch and fresh aroma.

Borscht: the Russian Lent soup (борщ)

never cook borscht myself. I love it, I miss it but somehow I never get around to actually lining up the ingredients and shoving them in the pot. So much the more I appreciate when somebody else makes it for me. It is not the kind of dish you can enjoy in a restaurant. It must be home made. The other day I paid a visit to Olga and that is exactly what she had for lunch for me. Hearty, earthy-flavoured borscht with fresh dill and a dollop of crème-fraîche, served in fancy China with real silverware. She made it the Russian Lent style, that is vegan.

According to Olga it takes just 10 minutes to cook. Here is the recipe:

1. Peel and chop 3 big onions. Fry until golden brown in a generous amount of olive oil.
2. Add 1 big grated carrots and 3 big grated pre-cooked beets. Add more olive oil. Sautée lightly.
   
3. Add black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves.
4. Add 2 litres boiling water.
   
5. Bring to boil. Turn off heat. Serve with crème-fraîche, fresh dill and/or spring onions.

It tastes great with Russian rye bread. If you can't find it, use German pumpernickel.

Divo: a quest fulfilled

ussian food notoriously does not lend itself to restaurant cooking. Laborious time-consuming recipes involve lots of handwork and are normally reserved for home use. Having lived all my adult years away from Russia, I went on my quest for a real Russian meal from Japan to Bulgaria but it only brought me disappointment each and every time. There is always something terribly off, be it watered down recipes, substituted ingredients, liberally invented dishes, or the horror of it all: the replicated fare of a Soviet workers' canteen. Even in Moscow, which these days may boast fine restaurants representing nearly every corner of the world, Russian food is mostly limited to house parties coming from the loving hands of mothers, wives or sisters.

I was not expecting to fall over myself when I went to Divo, a Russian-Ukrainian restaurant on Waterloo Place, 12. The exuberantly sumptuous interior, reminiscent of fin-de-siècle rich merchant houses in Kiev and Odessa, suggested more a beau-monde hangout rather than a culinary-oriented experience. The fully-stocked giant bar with sleek bartenders and hip house music downstairs only seemed to confirm my fears.

Olga and me tried to put the first impression past us and ordered each different dish to try as many as possible. Olga is a professional business psychologist from an uppity Saint-Petersburg family and is very picky about food so I was very curious about her forthcoming verdict.

For the starters, we had two grande dames of the Russian festive table: "herring in a coat"(£6.50), and "olivier" (£7.50). The former is a salad consisting of layers of finely slivered salted herring, beet roots, boiled potatoes, carrot and boiled eggs spliced with mayonnaise. My Mom also adds peeled apples but Divo's version was none less tasty. The latter, "olivier" is a mix of diced boiled potatoes, carrots, meat, pickles and peas bound in the ubiquitous mayonnaise. To the credit of Divo's chefs, they substituted the horrendous Soviet bologna sausage, which Olga thinks is indispensable to the dish (Shock! Olga how could you?!), with lean chicken breast. Also, to celebrate olivier's noble origins in the Hermitage, one of Moscow's most refined restaurants of the 1860s, they top it with red caviar.

A traditional Russian or Ukrainian meal always features soup but we were glad we did not order any because the volume proved enough to feed your average Slavic bloke. That is a trademark feature of our cuisines: we may be drinking cultures but we do get together to eat before we drink. And the amount of food should match the copious amounts of vodka that will be flowing later.

For the mains, I had bliny stuffed with sautéed button mushrooms (£4.50 - technically, it's a hot starter, hence the price). Doused in creamy and unctuous sauce béchamel, it's a hark-back to the finery of the 19th century's Franco-Russian cuisine. Olga had duck oven-baked with apples (£20.50), or rather the enlightened low-fat version of it, probably a bow to the latter-days health-conscious tendencies. Cooked à point, delicate slices of duck breast are drizzled with cranberry sauce.

When the dessert arrived, Olga threw the towel in so I had to work on both. Varenyky, boiled dumplings with cherries (£15.00), are a Ukrainian speciality. I really liked it that they were served with a much leaner than usual whipped crème fraîche. A nice touch! Our waitress kindly explained what a struggle it was for the chef to source the right kind of cherries, the same as they use for this dish in Ukraine. Olga's choice was something I never expected to see in a restaurant: Russian Napoleon cake (£7.50). It takes at least 24 hours to soak the wafer-thin layers of puff crust in custard cream. Napoleon is considered the ultimate Mamma treat and that is perhaps why Russian pastry chefs never bother to bake it.

It appears Divo also offers quite a fancy European fare but this time we wanted to focus on Russian/Ukrainian favourites.

Pro's: Leaner versions of Eastern Slavic classics. Home-baked bread.

Con's: You won't hear this from me very often but this time I found nothing to pick on.

Summary: The closest approximation to Russian home cooking I could find so far.

Lemon and pepper flavoured Greenland shrimp

hen I was a kid, this was our extended family's pastime: three generations would gather around the table over a huge bowl of steaming Greenland shrimp. The grown-ups would have beer, the children had to do with lemonade.

This kind of shrimp is sold cooked and frozen so you only need to re-heat it. Make sure not to overdo otherwise the meat will become rubbery. Greenland deep-water shrimp is naturally much sweeter yet less chewy than any other kind of shrimp. Just like with lobster, it is paramount not to overpower it with condiments or excessive cooking.

I just squeeze a lemon and add its ground zest as well as a very generous grind of black pepper. Or you can fix it the French way, crevette mayonnaise. And luckily, I can have it with beer now. Adult life does have its advantages!

Russian salmon roe sandwich (бутерброд с красной икрой)

ussians who have a very good (affluent) life are said to have "enough money to put butter and ikra on your bread". Ikra can means both salmon roe or caviar. I can't have caviar too often, but thanks to visiting friends and family I have a steady source of salmon roe. It used to be one of the most sought-after delicacies in the USSR's product deficit economy. Along with black "Volga" sedans and smoked salami, it was a status symbol of the Soviet nomenklatura. My parents did not belong to the number, so my Dad had to go to great lengths to make sure we would have some on the table at least for the New Year's. I still remember how wonderful these fishy drops of goodness tasted, a rare, very special treat.

These days ikra is a frequent guest on the tables of the Russian middle class. It is not cheap but if you want some you can just buy it in the supermarket. Mom and Dad are retired now and their cat Musya is very fond of it. We like to laugh now that in the olden days the Communists must have eaten it all up so that nobody else would have it.

I upgraded the traditonal Russian salmon roe sandwich by halving the butter amount and using it to grill the bread. I find the contrast of the crunchy crust and unctuous roe is highly delectable.

Breton cotriade: poor French fisherman's delight

Breton cotriade is basically the same as Russian ukha: white sea fish stewed with potatoes and onions. In Russia most of time it is made of fresh water fish, while in Brittany, naturally, of the catch from the brine.

The only condiments being sea salt and coarsely ground pepper, this dish brings out the best of the flavour in fish. It is very simple yet exquisitely delicious.

The recipe couldn't be simpler:

1. Peel and cut potatoes, let them dry a bit (this way they will less likley crumble).
2. Peel and chop an onion.
   
3. (Skip this part for the Russian ukha!) Fry a few stripes of bacon in a pot. Add the onion and cook until soft.
   
4. Add cold water and put the potatoes (and raw onions for ukha), bring to boil, then add fish.
   
5. Keep skimming the froth that comes up to the surface.
   
6. Add salt and pepper to taste. This comes out even better when you use the heads of big fish.

Stuffed Russian bell peppers

Russian food is much influenced by the cuisines of Russia's own Near East, which consists of Caucasus, Central Asia and the Muslim nations of the Volga basin.

Stuffed bell peppers are one of such Oriental goodies that quite commonly appear on the Russian table. It is a festive dish and takes some time to prepare but the result is totally worth the fuss.

Equal quarters of mince, cooked rice, chopped onions and a pre-stirfried and pre-seasoned vegetable mix go into the stuffing. I gentrify the original recipe with a few sophisticated touches:

1. I use tartare mince which is low-fat;
2. Rice is cooked with quarter less water than necessary, thus it helps trap the juices inside the peppers;
3. I add shiitake and Iranian spices in the veggie mix;
   
4. I steam the peppers in a glass of white wine added at the bottom of the pot.

I have found that Chilean white wine from the Pedro Jiménez variety of grapes, it goes perfect with my stuffed peppers. It is dry with just one tone of passion fruit that rings like an A sharp. It is slightly gassy and tastes the best when left in the glass to warm up and oxidise a bit.

Russia meets the Steppe: manty

ozy or manty is another dish Russians borrowed from their steppe neighbours. It is enjoyed along a vast swathe of land from Mongolia to Russian Finn-Ugric Northwest.
The legend has it that Genghis Khan's hordes learnt this kind of cooking in China. The name is also said to derive from Chinese mantou (饅頭) even though manty is more like baozi (包子).

As is the case with most dishes from the area, the ingredients are simple and the outcome is well worth the labour-intensive and time-consuming preparation.

1. Mix 3 cups flour, 1/2 water, one egg, a tablespoonful of vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. You may need more water as flour types vary from country to country. Russian flour made from soft wheat requires less water.
   
2. Knead continuously for 30-40 minutes into perfect homogeneity which is essential for the right result. Cover and put in the fridge for at least 40 minutes.
   
3. Mix mince or, even better, finely shredded meat with an equal amount of finely chopped onions (apprx. 6 onions per 1 kg of meat) Originally, fatty chunks of meat were used, very much prized during the harsh winters of the inhospitable Eurasian interior. Modern urbanite life calls for healthier options: I suitably use Tartare mince. The only condiments really needed are salt and pepper, I use best quality: hand-raked Guerdaine sea salt and powerfully fragrant Vietnamese peppercorns.
4. Roll the dough into thin rounds apprx. 12 cm diametre. Wrap 2 tablespoonfuls of mine but leave a tiny hole left at the very top.
   
5. You can buy multi-level manty steamers in Russia but I don't have one. I use a bamboo sieve lined with a banana leave instead, that's my Asian background for you. Steam 40 minutes on a very high fire. This brings out juice from the onions and the beef to produce copious amounts of aromatic bouillon.
6. Manty are eaten with hands. The trick is to bite off the tip and drink the juice lest its splashes out. Be careful: it will be piping hot!
   

Traditionally manty are served with a mixture of melted butter and vinegar (tastes way better than it sounds) but I make a dip of sour cream and horseradish - also very Russian. To make them Turkish, you may add some sumac to the mince and serve with yoghurt and garlic.

Best fish companions: crème fraîche and dill

Dill and crème fraîche are fish mates made in heaven. You can only improve those with some sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper - but not too much, not to ruin the delicate flavour balance.

Here dill and crème fraîche are happily married to poached salmon and sweet and succulent Greenland shrimp.

In our family this combination is traditionally used for fried carassius, a common Russian fresh water fish with excruciatingly bony but divinely sweet flesh, "karas' v smetane".

Russian beet and sour cream salad

Simple and delicious, this is a quick Russian salad: sliced beets, sour cream and some salt to create a delightful balance of tastes.