Vareniki (Вареники)

Ingredients:

For the dough

1 Egg

2 Cups Milk

8 Cups Flour

For the filling

1 lb Farmer's Cheese
1/2 cup Raisins
1 stick Butter 




Vareniki is a traditional breakfast meal in Russia. In my family we usually make them with the farmer's cheese, but you can also fill them with berries, fruit, nuts. 

Farmer's cheese is very close to the cottage cheese, but it has smaller curds, and is not salty. You can get it at the grocery store or you can prepare it yourself.

For the dough, you will need to blend milk and eggs with a mixer, and then slowly add the flower until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixer. The dough needs to be dry, like a bread dough, as you’ll have to roll it out into thin layers.  

Pinch off a ball of dough, roll it out, adding flour as needed to keep everything from sticking.  Put the layer of dough over a vareniki  mold and in the meantime, prepare a second ball of dough in the same way.

For the filling, you will need to mix farmer's cheese with melted butter and raisins that were previously soaked in warm water. You can use other fillings as well. Pinch off small pieces of the farmer's cheese mixture, enough to fill it in. Press it into the mold, flattening each as needed so the farmer's cheese is roughly level with the dough.

Once the mold has been filled, place the second layer of dough over the top and use a rolling pin to pinch the two layers of dough together.  

Once everything has been sealed and cut, flip the mold over and gently knock out the vareniki onto a floured pan.  Check each to make sure they’re sealed, and then place the pan in a freezer while preparing your next batch.

Freeze the vareniki, and use what you need for the breakfast throughout the week, month, or year. 

Boil them for about 5 minutes until they float. Serve with sour cream, condensed milk, or preserves. 

Bon appétit! 

Kotleti (Котлеты)

Kotleti (Котлеты) – Russian Meatballs

Ingredients:

2 Lbs ground beef

2 Lbs ground pork

2 Medium Onions

2-3 Cloves Garlic

15 Oz Italian / White Bread Loaf

4-5 Cups Milk

1-2 Tsp. Salt

½-1 Tsp. Pepper

Russian Kotleti (Cutlets) are in my mind, a cross between my mom’s Italian meatballs and meatloaf.  They’re typically much larger than meatballs – roughly egg-sized, 2” in diameter, and 3” long.  Serve them hot with a side of mashed or fried potatoes, or even pasta.

Start by shredding the onions and garlic in a food processor.  Cut them until they’re small – roughly the size of rehydrated minced onions.  Similarly, but separately (I don’t know why, but I not allowed to argue with my mother-in-law’s recipe), shred the potatoes until cut just as small.

Cut the crust from the bread and soak in the milk.  The bread should be soggy, and there should be just enough milk so that it’s all soaked-into the bread when resting, but the milk would immediately start coming out if pressed even the slightest bit.

 

Mix everything together, including the salt and pepper to taste.  You could use a mixer of some kind, but as with meatballs and meatloaf, using your hands is just as easy.  The final mixture will be soft and moist.

Heat a frying pan to medium, add a little oil, and then start frying the Котлеты.  They should be formed into egg-shaped balls as described at the start of this blog.  A ½-cup measuring cup works well for this purpose, but you may choose to make them larger or smaller to taste.

The goal of frying is not to cook them completely, but rather, to set their shape enough so they can be lined-up on a baking sheet and still hold their form.  Fry for a few minutes on top and bottom, then transfer to a deep baking pan.  Squeeze as many as you can into the pan before baking them for 30 minutes at 350 ^oF (175 ^oC).  The internal temperature should be at least 160 ^oF.

If you’ve followed this recipe, you’ll have somewhere between 25 and 40 kotleti.  Eat as many as you want for dinner, and then refrigerate or freeze the leftovers.

Dutch Oven Gumbo

Jeremy’s Dutch Oven Meaty Gumbo

(With Day-Before Preparation)

Ever since my first trip to New Orleans in the spring of 2008, I’ve loved the taste of gumbo.  Whenever I find it on a menu, I try the many varied recipes one can encounter around the country.

The recipe I typically follow is based on one I found, of all places, on a souvenir tile I bought during that first trip to New Orleans.  It doesn’t use okra, but instead uses celery, which avoids that supposedly-slimy texture I’ve heard is associated with okra.  But I must admit that I’ve never actually tasted okra.

For this post, I’ll outline the way I prepare my gumbo when cooking for a large group.  I often prepare this meal when hosting a barbecue at my house, and typically pre-cook the meats and pre-cut the vegetables, staging them in five 1-gallon Ziploc bags, so they’re ready to be added to the large Dutch oven in stages as follows:

• Butter, Spices & Vegetables for Sautéing
• Ham (to Fry Before Adding Stock)
• Meats & Rue
• Shrimp Stock
• Shrimp (to Add Just Before Serving)
  

Ingredients

½ Stick Butter or Margarine (For Sautéing Veggies)

1 Pound Bacon, Cooked, Fat Reserved (For the Rue)

5 Stalks Celery

2 Onions

5 Toes Garlic

6 Red and Green Peppers

½ - 1 Cup Flour (For the Rue)

8 Bay Leaves

½ Gallon Shellfish Stock

2 Pounds Andouille or Chorizo Sausage (Hot Italian Sausage Also Works)

2 Pounds Shrimp (Uncooked)

2 Pounds Chicken

1 Tsp Filé Powder (Ground Sassafras Leaves)

4 Cups Rice

Salt & Pepper to Taste (Probably at Least 1 Tsp of Each)

Day-Before Preparation

In no particular order…

Cut an entire pound of bacon into 1” strips (cut across all the slices) and add to a frying pan.  Cook at a medium-high temperature until crispy.  Remove the bacon by straining, and save the fat.  (Alternatively, you can just save the bacon fat from any other time you’re cooking bacon.)  Add at least one cup flour and stir thoroughly.  Continue adding flour until the mixture takes-on the consistency of toothpaste.  Fry the mixture over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the rue reaches a light brown color.  The final darkness of the rue is your choice though.  Allow to cool, and then store separately until you cook the gumbo.

Pre-cook the sausage by heating a large frying pan (cast iron is best) to medium.  Using a sharp knife, cut each link of sausage lengthwise to cut the casing.  Remove the casing by sliding it off the sausage meat (this works better when the sausage is cold).  As you fry the sausage, use a wire-type potato masher to mix and break-up the sausage.  I’ve found this method to be much more effective than cooking the links and dicing the links post-cooking.

For the chicken, cut into large cubes (1-2”) and fry until well done.  Don’t worry if the chicken isn’t fully cooked, as you’ll be cooking it in the gumbo later.  Cool the meat, and then chop finely, either by hand, or in a food processor (this method works wonderfully).

Finally, dice the ham (by hand) into small ½” cubes.

You’ll also need to prepare a shellfish stock.  It’s best to buy uncooked shrimp so you can extract the maximum amount of flavor.  Thaw the shrimp and remove the shells.  (Retain the uncooked shrimp…you’ll add them in the final step of cooking the gumbo.)  Add the shells/tails/legs of the shrimp to a soup pot and add about a half-gallon of water.  Heat until boiling, and until the shells turn red and a foam builds-up.  Cool and strain.  Recently, I also used all the leftover vegetable cuttings for the stock as well (pepper stems & seeds, onion skins, etc.).

 

Once all the meats have been prepared and fully-cooled, place the chicken and sausage in a gallon Ziploc bag and refrigerate.  Store the shrimp and ham separately.  Finally, store the shrimp stock in a leak-proof container (or freeze it).

Chop all vegetables (peppers, celery, onions, and garlic) and store together in a gallon Ziploc bag.  Also add to this bag the butter for frying, a minimum amount of salt and pepper (though you could just add this later), and a pinch of gumbo filé.

Cooking the Gumbo

In a very large Dutch oven (or large soup pot), melt the butter and then fry the vegetables until soft.  When the vegetables are nearly cooked, add the ham to fry for a little bit.  Add the bag of chicken/sausage and the shrimp stock, along with 2 Tbsp of the bacon-flavored rue (or more if desired).  Add bay leaves, salt and pepper, and simmer for at least a half hour.  Add additional water as needed (when I cook gumbo, I prepare it to the consistency of a thick beef stew).  When ready to serve, add the shrimp and cook for about five minutes.

Serve over a bed of rice (for thicker gumbo) or as a soup/stew (for thinner gumbo).

If you're reading this blog, and have your own recipe, I'd be interested to hear how this recipe matches with yours.  And more importantly, how does it taste?

Pelmeni (пельмени)

For the filling:

2 Lbs Ground Pork

2 Lbs Ground Beef

2 Onions

2 Tsp Salt

2 Tsp Pepper

Finely-chop the onions in a food processor and then add to a mixing bowl with the pork, beef.  Add salt and pepper to taste and mix well.  Refrigerate while you prepare the first batch of dough.

For a single batch of dough:

(Enough for about half the meat filling recipe above.  On 2/28/16, two batches of dough was just barely enough for 5 Lbs of meat.)

1 Egg

2 Cups Milk

~6 Cups Flour

Blend milk and eggs with a mixer, and then slowly add the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixer.  It’ll need to be fairly dry, as you’ll have to roll it out into thin layers.  But it shouldn't be so dry that the two layers of dough that will be pressed together later won’t stick together (and seal the meat inside).

Pinch off a ball of dough, about the size of a peach.  Cut the dough into eighths.  Roll a piece out, adding flour as needed to keep everything from sticking.  Put this layer of dough over a pelmeni mold* and in the meantime, prepare a second peach-sized ball of dough in the same way.



* An all-metal mold is best, as it doesn't break easily.  Here's one I found on Amazon, but they're not cheap here in America.  But if you find yourself in Eastern Europe sometime soon, I'm sure you can find one for much cheaper.

Pinch off small pieces of the meat mixture, about the size of a grape.  Roll each into a small ball, and press into the mold, flattening each as needed so the meat is roughly level with the dough.  Most of the meat should be sunken into the mold.

Once the mold has been filled, place the second layer of dough* over the meat and use a rolling pin to pinch the two layers of dough together.  Once everything has been sealed and cut, flip the mold over and gently knock out the pelmeni onto a floured pan.  Check each to make sure they’re sealed, and then place the pan in a freezer while preparing your next batch.

* Updated on 2/28/16 We've found that wetting one side of dough (after being rolled-out) with water...enough so it's slimy...allows the top layer of dough to stick to the bottom much more effectively.  So much so that when you roll-out the pelmini on the mold, they tend to seal themselves much better.

Freeze the pelmeni, and use what you need for meals throughout the week, month, or year.  Boil in enough water to cover the pelmeni, and serve with broth (the water they were just boiled in) along with sour cream and salt & pepper. You can also boil them and drain the water. Russians basically eat these as a soup, but you’re welcome to strain them and eat them like tortellini.

Farmer's Cheese

Farmer’s Cheese

This simple, yet tasty cheese is easy and quick to make, and is a key ingredient in many Russian dishes.

1 Gallon Milk

1 Tsp Salt

½ Cup White Vinegar

In a soup pot, heat the gallon of milk and salt to 180-190^oF.  If you’re busy, heat slowly with periodic stirring so as to not scorch the milk.  But if you’re in a hurry, I’ve found that it’s possible to heat the milk on a high flame as long as you stir constantly.  Once the milk’s been brought up to temperature, turn off the heat and add the vinegar.

Stir for two minutes, then let stand for about 15 minutes.  The white curds will separate from the yellowish whey.  

Drain the curds and whey through cheesecloth. 

Squeeze out as much whey as possible (thick gloves suitable for cooking, such as those made from silicone or neoprene, make the squeezing much easier).  In lieu of a good squeezing, you could tie-off and hang the cheese ball for a half hour to drain.

Allow the cheese to sit in a plate to cool for at least an hour, and then remove the cheesecloth before moving to the refrigerator.  The cheese should be broken up into chunks, and should appear as dryer cottage or ricotta cheese.

You might consider retaining some of the whey and mix back into the cooled curds to make simple, homemade cottage cheese.