The recipe is loose but revolves around making the fish broth.  Almost any kind of fresh water fish can be utilized, but small, young fish are more common. We used store bought perch that was only gutted, not scaled or beheaded. Tried to keep things authentic but convenient at the same time.

Ingredients:

• 7 medium sized perch
• 2 large yellow onions
• 1 large carrot
• 2 potatoes
• 1 head of garlic
• Celery/leeks (optional)
• Salt
• Whole black peppercorns
• Bay leaf
• Ground dill
• ½  cup vodka (to make it more Russian)

Since ukha is fish broth based soup, you don’t actually eat the fish you boil. However, we wanted to keep some of the fish for the final product, so there are additional steps involving scaling the fish which can be ignored.

Firstly, get your fire going.

Prep vegetables for the broth. Wash but do not peel one of the onions and the head of garlic, peel the carrot.

Wash the fish in cold water.  Scale cut up the fish you want to use for the actual soup and set aside. Drop  the remaining unscaled fish into a metal pot and fill with water. If you are using small fish, consider using a mesh to hold all the fish to make taking them out of the pot later easier.

Place the pot over the fire and allow it to come to a boil.

Add the unpealed onion, head of garlic, and carrot, salt and pepper. Let the broth simmer for at least 40 minutes. If you have more fish, you can boil them in batches to make the broth richer. Use the down time to dice up the potatoes and the remaining onion. Taste check the broth, well into the cooking, to make sure there’s enough salt.

Fish out the onion, garlic, fish and discard.

Fish out the carrot and dice it. Add the potatoes and cook until soft. Add the carrots back into the broth along with the fish for consumption.  Cook for an additional 15 minutes.

In the meantime, fry up the diced onions in some butter until golden brown.  Add the onions into the soup along with remaining ingredients. The Vodka is more for show, the alcohol will quickly evaporate from the soup.  Let it cook for a few more minutes.

Serve hot alongside your other Russian favorites.

Ingredients:

• 5 medium zucchinis
• 1 egg
• 0.5 cups flour
• 0.5 tsp  baking soda
• 0.25 cup kefir (butter milk)
• 0.5 tsp salt
• 1 tbs sugar

Cut off the ends and peel the zucchinis

Shred the zucchinis, don’t grate. Grating them will release too much moisture.

Add the egg and flour. In a cup combine the baking soda and kefir in a cup and stir vigorously, pouring the product into the mix. This is not entirely necessary, but makes the latkes fluffier.

Mix everything together. What you want is a mixture that is a little bit thicker than what you would normally use for pancakes, adjust flour and kefir content accordingly to achieve this consistency.

Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in a frying pan and spoon or pour the mix in.

Fry just a few minutes on each side to get a nice golden brown color, they should still be soft on the inside.

Makes about 12-15 pancakes. Serve with sour cream

Enjoy!

This particular recipe is Uzbek in origin and is very simple in comparison to some other recipes. As with all the different “bbq” recipes in the US, there are a million and ones ways of preparing shashlik and many people take pride in their particular methods.

When preparing this batch we used 7lbs of pork shoulder and 4 onions for about 5-6 people. The general rule of thumb is for 4lb of meat you need 0.5lb of pork.

Cut the pork into 1-1.5” cubes. Cut off any loose fat. You need fat on the meat for cooking, but loose chunks will only cause flare ups when they drip into the fire.

Clean four onions and use a food processor or knife to mince 3.5 of the onions.

Add 1 tsp salt, favorite meat seasoning (we used Georgian seasoning mix),  0.5-1 tsp ground red pepper, 1 tsp sweet paprika, squeeze 0.25 of lemon, and 2 tbs vegetable oil

Mix all the ingredients by hand working the spices into the meat. Once uniformly mixed, pound down the meat.  You want the meat marinating in the juices that form.

Let the meat marinade in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

To make shashlik, the meat needs to be rotated while on the grill or mangal. Therefore, you will need skewers that are flat or you will need you use two round skewers per shashlik.

Skewer the meat cubes onto the skewers separating by small pieces of the half onion you have left. Clean off any excess marinade chunks you have left, they will only burn when cooking.

We used a charcoal grill to preparing these. Shashlik is generally prepared on high heat in open flame. A trick for checking whether the fire is hot enough to place your hand directly over the fire where the shashlik will sit, you should only be able to handle the heat for 2-3 seconds.

Arrange all the skewers parallel to each other.

Cooking may take 30-40 minutes depending on your flame. Rotate the skewers frequently to make sure the meat is cooked evenly.

How well these turn out is entirely up to the skill of the chef. Serve hot and enjoy!

This will feed about 4-5 people, adjust as necessary.

Ingredients:

• 10 medium potatoes
• 1 medium/large onion
• 1 egg
• 3 tbs white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 0.25 cups kefir/sour milk/butter milk
• 0.5 tsp baking soda

Wash and peel the potatoes

Grate all the potatoes into a large dish. It’s ok if it starts to oxidize and turn gray, watch your knuckles.

Grate the onion into the same dish

Add the egg, flour, and salt. Pour the kefir into a cup and add the baking soda, stirring vigorously. Let the mixture foam up and add it to the dish. The kefir+baking soda make the draniki fluffier and add additional flavor. Buttermilk is the American equivalent of kefir, we used a polish brand of “sour milk” when making this batch.

Alternatively, you can use a blender. Pour in the egg first, add small pieces of potato and onion. Top with the kefir+baking soda and salt. Mix the flour in afterwards.

Stir the ingredients until uniform. The mix has to be nice and thin so it can be poured.

Heat a thin layer of vegetable oil in a pan on medium heat. Pour or spoon the mixture into the pan.

Maintain the thin layer of oil, don’t deep fry the draniki nor burn them. Once the edges star to brown, it’s time to flip.

Serve hot with sour cream (apple sauce if you’re Polish).

Enjoy!

Preparation is relatively simple. Wash, pot, water to cover, cook until all the water evaporates. However, baking in a water bath produces the best results.

So again.

-Place the buckwheat in a pot or pan

-Wash the grains in cold water and leave enough water in the end to just cover the buckwheat, add some salt. 

Place the covered buckwheat  in a water bath (ideally you use a casserole dish and a larger aluminum pan) making sure that the surrounding water level is above  the buckwheat.

Bake in an oven at 350 F for apprximately an hour. Don’t open the pot and don’t stir. When done, the grains have to be soft and lose, not sticking to the sides of the pot. Serve with butter. 

Now the problem with terminology stems from the fact that this variety of dumplings are prepared in a vast region of Eastern Europe, Near East, and Asia. Each region tends to have its own spin on the dish and the fillings, dough, size, and shape tend to vary from place to place. In Russia, the term Pelemni refers to dumplings made exclusively with meat as their filling. They can either be found with pork, beef, or if they’re of the “Siberian” variety it will be a mix of pork, beef, and lamb. They are generally the smallest of the dumpling species, the dough is the thinnest, and the meat filling is not pre-cooked. They can be stored frozen for prolonged periods of time, and are extremely easy to prepare.

• Boil water – add salt
• Drop the Pelmeni in
• Once they float to the top, lower heat a little to prevent boil over
• Cook for an additional 5 minutes and fish them out with a slotted spoon
• Serve hot with a little vinegar, butter, or sour cream

image source: wikipedia

 Alternatively, pelmeni can be fried quickly on a little vegetable oil in a pan. Key is to keep them moving to prevent the dough from burning and using a lid to make sure the meat is cooked through. These can too be served with vinegar and sour cream, though my favorite in the past few years has been to eat them with a little Louisiana or Tabasco hot sauce. 

image source: wikipedia

I want to clarify something else. What I have described are Pelmeni as they are eaten in Russia and a few other former Soviet states. There are regions that use the term Pelmeni to also describe dumplings with mushroom, potato, and cabbage fillings. In Russia, all such dumplings, including the Polish Pierogi, containing anything else but meat, are called “vareniki.” Most often than not, it is a term used to describe dumplings with jam or berry fillings, but also mushrooms and potatoes. They tend to be larger in size and use thicker dough.  Something else more importantly, the term Pierogi in Russian actually refers to an entirely different dish and if you ask a native for Pierogi, they might not understand what you’re asking for.

Felt like taking a little culinary adventure. These bad boys are native the Crimean region and most ex-Soviet states. When I was little, we would get these from street vendors in Russia. Simple dough and meat filling, very similar to Empanadas.

Dough

• 3.5 cups flour
• 1 cup water
• 0.25 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tb. spns. olive oil

Bring water+milk+oil to a boil

Add 0.5 cups of flour and dissolve in the liquid mixture

Slowly add the remainder of the flour and egg

Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to your fingers. Add more flour and it keeps sticking.

Put in the fridge and let it sit there for an hour. Knead one more time half way through.

Filling - adjust ingredients to taste, this is really loose

• 1.5 cups ground beef (orignal made with ground lamb and cilantro alone)
• 1.5 cups ground pork 
• 0.5 cups chopped cilantro
• 0.5 cups chopped white onion
• 0.5 cups chopped white mushrooms
• 1 cup water
• A few minced garlic cloves
• Salt, pepper, spices, hot sauce to taste

Fry up the onions and mushroom in butter until nice and golden brown

Combine all the remainder of the ingredients in dish, making sure it is evenly mixed.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to thin large circles, about the diameter of a plate.

Place about 2 table spoons of the filling on one half of the dough, leaving a little room between the meat and the edge.

Fold the other half over the filling, making sure not to damage the dough. Pinch the edges together, and using a fork press down all along the edge of the cheburek

Fry or deep-fry the pocket in vegetable oil, flipping as necessary, until golden brown. If you’re having trouble with not cooking the meat through, place the finished Chebureki in a pot and bake in the oven on 250-300 F for about 20 minutes or until fully cooked through (this really shouldn’t be necessary).

Enjoy: