So I just found out that there is a Russian Restaurant in town that I didn’t know about (please lets keep the invasion of Ukraine out of this).
It is now on my “to do” list of dining experiences, and since I just learned of it’s existence, I can tell you nothing of the menu of this establishment.
So tell me about Russian food, if you know anything, have recipes or suggestions, what to look for or look out for, that sort of stuff, please.
Try the Borscht, assuming you like beet soup. If that doesn’t wow you, or they don’t offer it, it might be a pass.
“Borscht is quintessentially Russian. A single bowl of that ruby-red beetroot soup, served with a ladleful of smetana (sour cream) and a hunk of black bread, conjures up images of Red Square and St Basil’s Cathedral almost as much as a glass of vodka or a spoonful of caviar.”
I live in a neighborhood filled with Ex Soviets. The local grocery is a Russian market. You want a loaf of ordinary bread? Look elsewhere. If you want fantastic smoked cheese (The best savoury dairy product I’ve ever tasted), Turkish Delight, babkas, whitefish salad etc- then this is the place. I still haven’t found mameliga there though. I suspect strongly that they sell it. They just vary the ingredients slightly and give it a Russian name.
As mom’s side of the family is from Ukraine, or Romania, or Poland or Russia (records are unclear and her grandfather who came to this country spoke 7 languages) eating this food really makes me feel connected to my ancestors.
We’ve got a restaurant here in downtown Olympia that specializes in pelmeni, a kind of stuffed dumpling similar to a large tortellini. They can be stuffed with ground beef or pork or a mixture thereof, or a potato/cheese blend like you might find in pierogis, and are served with a variety of toppings, such as butter and sour cream, or onion and parsley, or loaded baked potato style with sour cream and chives and bacon and cheddar (which is what I usually get when I go there), or they can be served in soup.
One other unique thing they carry is kvass, a low-alcohol (as in less than 1% ABV) carbonated drink made from fermented brown bread. It has a sort of sweet-and-sour flavor similar to kombucha.
We had a restaurant here in Austin called Russian House that sadly closed last year (probably due to…you know what). They had bear meat on the menu, and also Russian baked apples. Sadly didn’t get to try either, but both sound epic.
There’s a Youtube channel called Life of Boris, hosted by a Russian Slav now residing in Estonia, which, among other things, occasionally features some somewhat tongue-in-cheek videos about making various Soviet-era poverty food and other Slavic foods of questionable desirability.
Here’s his video on kholodets, a type of pork aspic that’s served cold and which I would actually like to try making someday, just for the experience, if I could convince anyone I know to actually put it anywhere near their mouths.
And for those with sensitive stomachs, here’s a considerably more appetizing video about chicken Kiev.
There are many varieties of borshch, some with meat and some without. Some are eaten hot, some cold. They’re always best with sour cream.
Beef Stroganov is chunks of beef in a sour cream sauce. The kind I make has mushrooms in it too. It’s usually served over rice or egg noodles.
Pirozhki are small meat pies that can be either baked or deep-fried. They can also be filled with things like mashed potato and cabbage.
Pirogi are large pies that can be filled with anything from veg to fish.
Khachapuri are Georgian flatbread stuffed with goat cheese. They are delicious!
Solyanka is a hearty vegetable-beef soup.
Okrashka is a cold vegetable-meat soup made with kvass. It’s often served in the summertime.
Lobio is a kind of Georgian bean salad made with cilantro.
Shashlik is meat roasted on skewers, like shishkabob.
Chebureki are deep-fried envelopes of dough stuffed with meat.
Kharcho is Georgian meat soup or stew (depends on how much broth is in it).
Kolbasa is sausage, of which there are many varieties.
Julienne is chopped mushrooms baked in a sour cream sauce.
Stolichnyi is cold potato salad with peas, carrot, and chunks of ham.
Ryba pod shuboi (Fish in a Fur Coat) is herring covered with grated beets and sour cream.
Ukha is fish soup.
I have some real Russian cookbooks. Let me know if you encounter something you want to try and I’ll look it up.
Where I come from, kholodets is called “head cheese.”
Bliny, BTW, are crepes that can be filled with anything sweet or savory. The last time I celebrated Maslenitsa (Pancake Day), I had some with black currant jam and sour cream. They were delicious!
In Moscow, I was once taken to a posh restaurant that served bear meat baked in a honey and beer sauce. From the exorbitant price, I gathered it was at one time a very high-falutin’ dish.
My mother was the daughter of Russian immigrants, but she wasn’t fond at all of ‘Russian food’, which was mostly potatoes, cabbage, and kasha. Peasant food, cheap stuff to feed her and her eight siblings…Later in life, her church participated in a Festival of Nations thing, booths set up by several ‘countries’ serving tchochkes and samples of their native cuisine. I vague recall slices of black bread, and borscht in small cups, and cold peas-and-carrot ‘salad’ mixed with sour cream and dill (variations of which I’ve made myself for years).
I would call it “aspic” myself. While they are very much related, “head cheese” is usually a deli meat, whereas “kholodets” or “aspic” is a jellied meat that is eaten with a knife and fork, usually some vinegar or mustard, and then a hearty bread on the side.
Borscht and pelmeni would be my favorites. Sometimes, Russian restaurants will have a dish or two from outside the federation proper, so if you see any Georgian entrees on there, I would definitely try one of those.
It’s not exclusively Russian but is well known in Ukraine and I imagine throughout much of the Slavic world. The colour may be less than appetizing to some, but it’s actually very tasty. It’s frequently drizzled with vinegar to give it some extra tang. I imagine it would be considered a very rustic, country-style type of food. A restaurant with pretensions to fancy eating probably wouldn’t offer it.
Where was that? I’m disappointed that I never knew about it - my in-laws live in South Austin and we’re down there fairly often.
After a bit of research, it looks like they’re trying again up near 35@290, more or less.
Yep. I grew up with it in Polish cuisine as galareta or galaretka, and in Hungarian cuisine it’s kocsonya.
As for it being served in restaurants, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it around here. Aspics kind of were “fancy” way back when – or so it is my impression – but I suspect not enough people would order it these days. Even in the very Polish restaurants around here, I don’t see it. I can, however, pick it up at the Polish deli in their refrigerated soups/salads/etc section. In Hungary, I would see it at pubs, especially around New Year’s time (it’s a traditional food for that time of year. Of course, that was twenty some years ago.)
I don’t know if it counts as Russian, but a Russian friend introduced me to basturma (pastirma) back in the '90s. She made sandwiches of slices of basturma, feta cheese, and mayonnaise. I went to a shop in Hollywood to buy some, and the clerk asked if I was Russian, or Armenian.
Georgian food is delicious, as are Central Asian dishes that could also be on the menu. At the Uzbekistan (a restaurant in Moscow), I once had an enormous lamb dumpling in a bowl with spicy broth. There are a lot of such recipes on the Internet.
If you see spicy Georgian “beer can” chicken on the menu, definitely give it a try.
Plov (savory rice pilaf) is another Central Asian dish that’s very common.
Golubtsy (cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and ground meat) are also common in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. They’re usually covered with tomato sauce and served with sour cream.
Shchi is cabbage soup that may or may not contain meat. Either way, it’s very tasty. Just because something is “peasant food” doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Peasants have always known how to eat.
There’s a Latvian version of it, too. It’s called galerts. Pig jello. It was a staple on my grandmother’s table when she had a get together at her house. I remember as a kid walking by the table and watching it quiver. No one ever tried to make me eat it, thank goodness. It was horrifying.
“Peasant food” is generally my favorite food. All the best meals I had in Hungary – and I ate in some of the fancier restaurants like the Gundel – were “peasant food.” The term is definitely not indicative of lower quality. For me, it’s an enticement.
The national dish of Latvia is Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi, made with grey peas (which are a lot like garbanzo beans, if you ask me):