Russian Food Recipe

A Russian food recipe includes rich sour soups, pancakes and porridges, and yeast-leavened baked goods. In Russia where the Russian Orthodox Church determined popular eating habit, 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, simple, versatile Russian food recipe selection.

A full meal might consist of a cabbage soup with a grain porridge called kasha. Meat, if available, would be cooked in the soup but served separately afterward. On full fast days, mushrooms could be substituted for meat to give the soup flavor and perhaps to fill little pies or pirozhki to eat alongside it. Pirozhki are delicious meat pies.

Buckwheat pancakes and sour cream, typical of the meat-free Carnival Week, now rank among the best-liked Russian dishes in the world. A Russian food recipe for Easter centers on a roast suckling pig basted in sour cream and a cake, kulich, served with a sweet cream cheese. This is a splendidly rich contrast with the simpler Lenten food that precedes it.

Look for words such as "blini", a pancake traditionally eaten the week before lent, served with both sweet and savory toppings, caviar and sour cream being the most popular. "Galushki" are pieces of pasta shaped dough cooked in milk or stock. "Drachena" is a Russian cross between a crepe and an omelet. "Pampushki" is a crunchy Russian potato dumpling with a filling of cottage cheese and chives. "Kulebyaka "is a crusty puff pastry. "Shchi" is the Russian version of sauerkraut.

Also indigenous of any Russian food recipe are the famous cold beet soups, known as borscht, a variety or hors d'oeuvres, zakuski dishes, caviar. And these dishes, of course, are all washed down with ice-cold vodka.

Reference: Chamberlain, Leslie, Russian, German and Ukraine Food and Cooking. Russian Food Recipe - Home