Soup Solyanka (Солянка)

I love soups. I can eat soup any time of day and for any season. It's a good thing that now Jeremy is so into that as well. He travelled to Russia a lot, and has tried my family's cooking over the years. Now he asks me to make him different soups. One of them is called Solyanka, Солянка in Russian.

This soup contains lots of meat, some vegetables, and spices. Be prepared: it takes quit some time to make it. But in the end, it's worth it.

Ingredients


Pork (with bones, e.g. Pork Chops or Shoulder) 3 Lbs/ 1,3-1,5 Kgs
Smoked Pork Sausage/Kielbassa or Smoked Ham 0,5 Lbs/ 200-250 g
Hot Dogs (8-10) or Bologna 1 Lb/ 0,5 Kgs
Dill Pickels 4-5
Onions 2
Salt 1 Tbsp
Potatoes 8
Tomato Paste 1 Tbsp
Bay Leaves and Pepper
Oil




Preparation


In a large pot, boil 2 gallons water (8-10 Liters), add pork (with bones) and salt to make a meat broth. Boil for 2 hours, periodically removing the frothy meat fat that collects on the top of the water.

While the meat is cooking, you'll have time to prepare all other products.












Meanwhile, prepare meats/vegetables, but don't begin cooking them until the broth is about 45 minutes from being done.







Cut dill pickles into small cubes, about 1/2" (1 cm) to a side. Add to a separate pot with some water and pickle juice that almost covers the diced pickles. Later, you'll boil the pickles about an hour to soften them, adding water so that it covers the pickles.

Dice the onions small and fry in a pan until soft and lightly browned. This only takes about a half hour so don't start too early. Add the tomato paste and a little water to mix everything together.













Cut the remaining meats into small cubes, about 1/2" (1 cm)  on a side. Fry smoked sausage a little while to draw out some fat and cook it a bit.






Peel and cut the potatoes into large pieces, about 1-1,5" (2-3 cm) on a side. Fry in a pan until lightly browned. It's not necessary to fully cook the potatoes now, because they'll be boiled in the soup later.

When the meat has finished cooking, remove the meat and cool. Separately, strain the broth to remove any chunks. I always do that because it makes the broth so clear, leaving it without any small bones or other things coming out from meat. Return the broth to its pot.

Once the pork has cooled enough to handle, use your hands to pull the meat off the bones, removing the fat, and then break the meat into small pieces that average 1" (2-3 cm) on a side.

At this point, everything you've cooked, including the onions and tomato paste, potatoes, pickles (with juice), and meat can be added back to the soup. Boil the soup until the potatoes and hot dogs/bologna are fully cooked.



Serve hot with a lemon slice and olive for flavor. Add a heaping spoonful of sour cream, mix it in well and add some pepper to taste.










Once again, one of my favorites.

Have a great day!


Anastasia Kalashnikova

New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients

30-40 Fresh Clams (The More, The Better)

2-3 Cups Reserved Clam Juice

3 Slices Bacon, Diced (Uncooked)

½ Onion (Red and/or Yellow)

3-4 Tbsp Flour

2 Potatoes

1½ Cups Milk

2 Tbsp Butter

1 Tsp Oregano

1 Tsp Dill (Finely Chopped, More For Garnish)

1 Tsp Parsley

3 Bay Leaves

Salt & Pepper to Taste (~½ - 1 Tsp Each)

This menu idea started in San Francisco (far from New England, of course) where Anastasia tried her first American clam chowder in 2008.  More recently, she and I had some San Francisco-style chowder on Pier 39.  It was served in sourdough bread bowls and tasted amazing.  And now, during our current trip to Block Island, I finally had the chance to show Ana the “art” of digging for clams.

We went to the one of the two best places I know to find clams…near Cormorant Cove on the road that runs to the Coast Guard Station.  It was Ana’s first attempt at clamming, and because she didn’t yet have a license…I did most of the digging.  She did try her hand at digging for a few moments, but luckily got tired of the physical labor just minutes before the shellfish warden paid us a visit and asked to see my license.  What lucky timing.

Ana spent most of the rest of the time splashing around in the sandy-muck, outlining areas that she insisted would be good for finding clams.  She said she “felt” them…and I imagined she was using her feet much in the way that robins and other birds use their fee to “feel” the worms in the ground.  Strangely, she was often right.  Of course, the entire flat was a clamming bed, and she could have told me to dig anywhere, and we would have found at least a few clams.

A storm was coming…and we fully intended to only find about 20 clams.  Besides, Ana gets cold easily and I knew we wouldn’t be out for long.  We got our small number of clams and left just in time…a heavy downpour started about ten minutes after we left.

The Clams

Of course, the best way to make clam chowder is to find (or buy) fresh clams still in their shells.  If you can do this…steam them in a pot with a little water to provide the initial steam.  Once they’ve all opened (5-10 minutes), save the clam juice, remove the clam meat from their shells, and set aside for later.  Also throw away any clams that don’t naturally open on their own after they’ve been cooked.  They could be unhealthy to eat…and is one clam really worth the risk?

If you can’t get fresh clams, a 16oz can should be enough…but feel free to indulge.

The Potatoes

For our small batch of chowder, we used two potatoes, which had been cut into cubes about ½” on a side.  In a small pot, boil the diced potatoes with the bay leaves in the clam juice you’ve just saved.  Depending on how many clams you used and how much water you initially added, you may need to use water to adjust the total volume of clam juice.  We boiled the potatoes in about 1 cup clam juice and 1 cup water (2 cups of “clam juice” total).

Cook the potatoes about halfway.  You don’t want them to be completely cooked, because you run the risk of them turning to mush later.

The Bacon, Spices, Onion, and Roux

While the potatoes are-a-cookin’, add the butter, bacon, onion, oregano, and parsley in a frying pan.  Your goal here is similarly to not fully cook the onions, and so, you should aim for a soft, but not browned, onion.

When you’ve deemed your onions cooked, add the flower – slowly – while stirring the fry mixture.  The 3-4 Tbsp estimate is just that…a guess.  When I cook, my goal is to add enough flour to soak up the oils/fats that are in the pan.  In this case, you need enough to make a roux from the butter and bacon fat you have in the frying pan.

And I don’t know what my sister, the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduate would say, but if you’ve never made a roux, I’ve found it best when the final mixture is still oily, but thick enough that as the flour fries, the bubbles are firm enough to pop and then remain for a few seconds afterwards.  Another indicator to me is that I’ve added enough flour so as to eliminate all standing oils, which have been entirely incorporated into the roux.

By the way…I should have mentioned earlier…if you’ve never made a roux, it’s a toasted flour mixture with oil/fat that adds flavor (toasted flour flavor) and thickens your cooking.  The darker you toast the flour, the more flavorful the roux.

Putting-it-Together

Decant the clam juice from the potatoes…

OK…sorry…that’s a term I use frequently in lab and I figured I’d use it here…basically…pour off the clam juice leaving the bay leaves and potatoes behind.

…and add the juice to the roux-onion mixture.  Mix well and then add the mixture to a pot.  This could be the same pot as the one you cooked the potatoes, but again…you’re trying to control how much you cook the potatoes…so set them aside for a few more minutes.

Add to your chowder the milk, salt/pepper, and dill.  Heat to a low simmer and then add your potatoes back in.  Cook for a little while…then add your clams (chopped) in.  The chowder is ready when the potatoes are cooked to taste.

Bread Bowls

If we experiment with other types of bread bowls in the future, a link will appear right below this sentence.

For now, I needed to make a quick bread bowl and so bought frozen white bread dough from the store, thawed one, split it in half, formed each piece into a ball, added some oregano, salt, and parsley as seasoning, and let the dough rise for an hour before baking at 350 degrees until fully baked.  Nothing special. When done, the top crust was cut out and the fluffy bread inside was pushed down to make the bowl more waterproof.

Separately, I tried the following recipe, though didn’t get the chance to use it as a bread bowl.  Anastasia and I did, however, get the chance to try this bread the next night with pulled pork barbecue, which incidentally will be a future blog post...so stay tuned.

1 Loaf White Bread Dough, Thawed

¼ Red Onion, Finely Diced

2 Tbsp Chopped, Fresh Dill

1 Tsp Garlic Powder

3 Tbsp Grated Parmesan Cheese

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Mix all these ingredients, knead the dough a bit, and then form into balls.  Let rise for about two hours (or as desired) and then bake until fully cooked.

Other Ideas

Use more bacon!

Add red pepper flakes to the clam chowder for a little extra kick.  But don’t add too much because you don’t want the heat of the pepper to overcome all the other flavors…especially the bacon.

Enjoy!

JK

Tasty breakfast!

Hi! This post is going to be about one of my favorite meals for breakfast. It's oatmeal. With fruit.
I tend to pick healthier products, because that's what I'm used to. My family always teaches me how to choose better and healthier food. And that's what I'm trying to bring into my community, country and world.

You will need


Oatmeal, 2 cups
Milk, 2 cups
Grapes
Peaches
Bananas
Salt and Sugar to taste

(You can pick your favorite fruits)







Preparation
Make oatmeal with milk and add salt and sugar to taste. Let it sit for a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, slice bananas and peaches, and rinse grapes.

Serve the oatmeal in a bowl and pick your favorite fruits.
(I used grapes, peaches and bananas just because we had some already and others are in season right now. You could pick any fruits you like)

It's very easy, fast and tasty!

Have it with a cup of tea or coffee. Enjoy!




Have a good day!
Anastasia

Chicken Fajitas & Grill-Roasted Corn

Last night, Anastasia was in the mood for grilled chicken*.  So we stopped at the store, picked up some chicken and tortilla shells, and came home to get cooking.  Problem was...those two open bags of charcoal sitting on the porch had only about a handful of charcoal between them....so dinner was delayed further until I got back from the store AGAIN.

* Umm...she just informed me that she "wanted CHICKEN!"  The form of the chicken apparently didn't matter.

On the menu: Chicken fajitas (chicken, peppers, onions, refried beans) and corn-on-the-cob.  But note to self: she isn't a fan of too much pepper or spice.  I, on the other hand, feel that for spicy foods, unless my nose is running and eyes watering, there just isn't enough flavor.  But that's just me.  So below, add only as much spice as you think you can handle.  

Here's how I made it:

The Veggies

3 Peppers

1 Yellow Onion

1 Red Onion

Salt & Pepper To Taste

Cut veggies into large pieces.  Spray a vegetable basket...you know, the one you use to sautee veggies on a grill...with some non-stick spray.  Add the veggies and start cooking on the grill.  Add salt and pepper.  Periodically mix and flip.

For the best tasting veggies (IMHO), you should cook them slowly over an hour.  When done, they should be lightly charred, but also soft and moist.

The Chix

And as you can tell by the lack of red spicy goodness, this
piece of chicken obviously has less spice...namely, salt and
pepper.

This is the [according to Anastasia] too-spicy chicken.  How
dare I!  The chicken was prepared by dry-rubbing salt, pepper,
and Cajun seasoning before grilling over charcoal.

1/4 - 1/2 lbs Chicken Breast (Per Person)

Salt & Pepper

Louisiana Cajun Seasoning

Wash the chicken and dry rub with a mixture of roughly equal parts salt, pepper, and if you like your food spicy, Cajun seasoning.  Throw it on the grill, off to the side.  Slow-cooking the chix will give you a very moist, flavorful chicken that you won't soon forget.  Once cooked through (use a thermometer to cook the middle of the thickest part of the chicken to 165°F), slice the meat into 1/4 x 2" strips.

The Refried Beans

Small Can Refried Beans

1/4 Cup Water

1 Tsp Oil

1 Tsp Louisiana Cajun Seasoning

In a well-seasoned cast iron pan (yes...it's just GOTTA be cast iron), mix all ingredients together.  Cook on low heat and cook well until the mixture has dried to the normally thick consistency of refried beans out-of-the-can.

The Corn

This trick comes from my mom, but where she learned it is a mystery...well...I just don't remember and don't feel the need to ask.

Soak corn whole (in the husk) for a half hour before cooking.  Throw on the grill, turning periodically.  I don't know exactly how long it really takes...I usually press my fingers into the kernels and when they're soft...the corn is done.

Other Ideas

Don't forget the sour cream and cheese.  I'd be willing to bet that a shredded pepper jack with just a little Parmesan would be amazing.

We hope you enjoy your meal.


-JK