Russian Cookbook

Vegetables and Mushrooms in Russian Cuisine

Ridge cucumbers, with a firm texture and full flavor, are either used fresh in salads or pickled in jars for winter. Other popular vegetables are beetroot, potato, carrots, parsnips and fresh cabbage, all of which grow well in a cold climate and can be stored all year round. Cabbage is also fermented in brine, to make the widely available sauerkraut. As for spring onions, both the white bulbs and the green tips contribute to the characteristic flavor of East European composite salads.

The romance of mushroom hunting belongs to the forests of Russia, where many varieties are found. Mushrooms are dried for use in soups and sauces, or salted or pickled for snacks with bread and vodka. They are also sauteed fresh in butter and herbs, or sauced with soured cream.

Fish in Russian Cuisine

The most celebrated fish of this region belong to the sturgeon family. Of this family, both the beluga and the sevruga produce the highly prized black caviar. Freshwater salmon varieties are also very important, both for their firm flesh and for the “red” caviar so often seen on zakuski tables. Carp is traditional and is nowadays farmed. Herring is popular everywhere. Pike, perch and pike-perch are the grand old river fish, yielding a firm white flesh that is suitable for pies and baked fish dishes.

Dairy Products in Russian Cuisine

Soured cream takes the place of an oil in dressing Russian salads of raw and cooked vegetables. It is the essential accompaniment to soups and pancakes and the basis for modern sauced dishes such as Beef Stroganov. It is also used in baking.

The traditional Russian cheeses are made with cow’s milk and are young and mild. Curd cheese is used to make savoury dips and paskha, the sweet Easter cream. Curd cheese can be used alone or with other ingredients to make savoury or sweet patties; it is also used to stuff pasta and pies, and forms the basis for the traditional cheesecake. Brinza, similar to Greek feta, is a brine cheese common all over Russia.

Meat Dishes in Russian Cuisine

Sucking pig is a traditional Russian delicacy, as is the game bird called ryabchik (hazel-hen). Plentiful use is made of beef for braising and stewing. Sausage is made of top-quality pork and veal, flavored with garlic and mustard seed.

Grains in Russian Cuisine

The Russian word kasha denote any cooked grain. Semolina, millet, oats and buckwheat are eaten at breakfast, usually cooked in water or milk and served with butter. Buckwheat, rice, millet or barley accompany savoury dishes.

Sourdough breads have a distinctive, satisfying quality, thanks to their being made with rye flour by a sour fermentation process. This produces long-lasting loaves with excellent digestive properties, ranging from straw – coloured bread to the distinctly black Russian borodinsky, which is made with molasses and has its crust studded with coriander seeds.

Herbs and Spices in Russian Cuisine

Dill, the most common herb in Russian cooking, adds a distinct freshness to pickles as well as to salads and cooked dishes. The feathery leaves needed for authentic cooking lose much of their taste when dried so they should always be used fresh. The pungent seeds can be used in sauerkraut dishes and stews. Parsley, of the pungent, flat leaf variety, is also widely used in soups and salads and as a garnish, while the root adds flavor to stocks and soup bases. Fresh garlic adds piquancy to soups and stews, while mustard and horseradish give bite to fish and meat dishes.

Fruits in Russian Cuisine

Russia has a strong tradition of domestic jam-making and bottling every available fruit and vegetable, from excellent plum jam to pickled spiced tomatoes. Less solid jams, which preserve the whole fruits, such as Russian blackcurrant varen’ye, are traditionally served in a small saucer with tea, or to accompany a breakfast bowl of semolina kasha.

Drinks in Russian Cuisine

Russians drink tea that is either imported from the Far East or grown in Georgia. The tea is brewed in a small pot on top of the samovar, and diluted with water from the urn below. Nowdays coffee is more popular. As for alcohol, Russia claims to be the home of vodka, which has been made since at least the 15th century. Distilled, ideally from rye, it is then purified and water added. Small additions of chili, herbs and tree bark give further flavor. Additions to the finished vodka make for specialties such as pepper vodka, which is used as a remedy for colds. Plain vodka is best for the zakuski table, however, served ice cold and downed in a single gulp.

The regions occupied by Russia has a tradition of peasant cooking, defined by the tart flavors of sourdough rye bread, pickles and sauerkraut, and complemented by mushrooms, fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, berries and honey. These simple foods reflect what the often poor soil yielded in the harsh climate, and what could be preserved by traditional means – in salt or vinegar or by drying – for year-round use. Hardy root and vegetable crops, a variety of grains, the flavors of garlic, mustard and horseradish, and sour dairy products, were the region’s staples. Cabbage and cucumbers, fresh or pickled, were the primary sources of vitamin C in what, for centuries, was a highly restricted diet.

In Russia and those parts of Russian Empire where the Russian Orthodox Church determined popular eating habits, at least until the beginning of the 20th century, the Church made a virtue out of economic necessity. It divided foods into two groups. For over half the days of the year only Lenten fare was allowed: vegetables, fish and mushrooms. Milk, eggs and meat were permitted on the remaining days.

The result of this intervention was a good number of simple, versatile recipes. A full meal might consist of a cabbage soup (shchi) or a grain porridge (kasha). Meat, if available, would be cooked in the soup but served separately afterwards. On full fast days, mushrooms could be substituted for meat to give the soup flavour and perhaps to fill little pies (pirozhki) to eat alongside it. Pancakes and soured cream, typical of the meat-free Carnival Week, now rank among the best-liked Russian dishes in the world. Russian Easter food, centred cake (kulich), served with a sweet cream cheese (paskha), is a splendidly rich contrast with the simpler Lenten food that precedes it.

Russia’s great expansions of territory, influence, and interest during the 16th-18th centuries brought more refined foods and culinary techniques from Caucasus, Persia, Ottoman Empire, Central Asia and from Siberia and Far East. Migration of population from Germany, Poland, Austria, etc. brought culinary techniques native to West Europe.

Two factors in the 19th century began to modernize the Russian diet. One was the industrialization that brought peasants into the towns and saw middle-class cooking influenced by cosmopolitan ideas. The other was the impact of the eating habits of the royal courts on the cuisines of Russia, which eventually filtered down through the aristocracy to the bourgeoisie.

In the 18 – 19th century, access to French cookery books led to Russian cooking becoming richer. At the same time, however, the Russian upper classes also felt under constant pressure to “Frenchify” their-own cooking, the court and aristocracy mainly employing French chefs to produce elaborate dishes, replete with butter and cream. Antonin Careme, as cook to Alexander I, began a task that was continued by four generations of foreign chefs up to the Russian Revolution in 1917

Generally, however, there was always opposition to this outside influence, and patriotic palates preferred the traditional breads, grains and soups. One such example is borshch, the famous vegetable soup, originated in Ukraina.

By contrast the Russian cold table, originally borrowed from Scandinavia and Baltic regions during the reign of the Peter I, has been wholly incorporated into Russian national cuisine as a first course. Appetizers (zakuski) which are washed down with ice-cold vodka, deserve their fame.

Soviet cuisine, a common cuisine of USSR, was formed by integration of various national cuisines. It is characterized by a limited number of ingredients and simplified cooking.