Russian food | thefidgetyfoodie

Memoirs of Russia

Posted on June 11, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Would you like a menu with that?

With the World Cup starting in three days (thanks to work I’ve been counting down for a year) I thought it highly apt to dig back into my Russia files. I’ve raved about the Georgian food in Russia and a brilliant cooking class in Moscow, but what else did I take away from visiting the world’s largest (and often most provocative) country? Well mainly food of course…

A snapshot of Russian history told through vodka.

Vodka
And vodka obviously. Vodka is drunk like water in Russia. So it’s no surprise when you learn that the name stems from the Russian word for water, ‘voda’. It’s everywhere, and I was warned not to buy the dodgy cheap stuff, i.e. 1/2 litre for anything less than 200 Rubles (or about AUD$4.50!). That stuff can actually kill you. The ‘good stuff’ is still a quarter of the price you pay in Australia so what the Russians regard as expensive was still a bargain for me.

And even more vodka…

Naturally I had to check out the Vodka Museum which was a shrine to the stuff and told of its history and the role it has played in society and history. Take the tour and you get a complimentary shot of vodka (for research purposes only of course).

Choose your poison and your fridge.

And it wasn’t uncommon to find a vodka fridge next to a soft drink fridge. Even the Russians need to stay hydrated.

Picking pickles leaves me pickled pink

Pickles
I do love myself a pickle. I took great joy in fishing out pickles from salty brine while in Estonia and was happy to see a similar attitude to pickles in Russia, i.e. bring them out for every meal and feel free to snack on them in between. The pickles always hit the right balance of tartness and sweetness with me, and I even enjoyed the rogue dill fronds that would inevitable be wrapped around each one.

My favourite cranky Russian stall holder and her pickles.

There were entire pickle counters at the food markets where I managed to extract a couple of samples from a perpetually cross looking matron. Then of course there were plenty of tubs filled with homemade pickles lining the streets in smaller towns. I loved how it was entirely acceptable to buy a couple of pickles and eat them as you went about your day. Read More

From a Russian cooking class with love

Posted on January 19, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

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Carefully hand making each and every pelmeni – a Russian staple

I did lots of cool things when I went to Russia last year – like staring in awe from the front row of the Bolshoi ballet and being battered (in a good way) with birch leaves during a traditional banya.

But my favourite experience was the Taste of Russia cooking class I took in Moscow. Not just because I got to cook (which I love) and eat (which I love even more), but because I spent the day with real Muscovites who let me drill them about their lives, their diets, their family and their future.

The day didn’t start well. Ever tried to take the Moscow subway? It’s ridiculously intense. I’m no stranger to large rail systems – I can navigate the tube with my eyes closed and have never had any issues in cities like New York and Paris (except when my sister and I went through two at a time and were almost arrested by French police but that’s another story).

Moscow is a different beast. The subway is HUGE and there isn’t a single direction in English, nor did anyone I ask for help speak English. I can read a decent amount of Cyrillic thanks to its likeness to the Greek alphabet but on my first full day in Russia, pre-coffee, I struggled. I’m not usually one to give up but I did and left the metro thinking a cab had to be an easier option.

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Flipping syrniki – Russian cottage cheese pancakes

Wrong. The traffic in Moscow is a disaster. It’s all one way so the layout forces cars to go in unnecessary directions. Plus I couldn’t see a cab rank or a single cab for that matter and I had no wifi to book an uber. So it was a deep breath and back down to the metro for me, where I finally worked out where to go and made it to the cooking class meeting point with just a minute to spare. Phew!

I arrived to find I was the only person there. Was everyone else late too?

No, it transpired that I was the only person in the class. That was music to my ears. A private market tour and cooking class to myself, what a score!

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My foodie dream team of Nadia, Milena and Zhukova

Firstly I was escorted to the Dorogomilovo market, one of Moscow’s largest, with ‘the chief’ Zhukova, her daughter Milena and daughter-in-law Nadia. A family affair!

The market was so fabulous it deserves a post of its own but essentially we picked up all the ingredients for lunch and I got to try tastings of whatever I pointed to. Which was a lot. Quite often I’d point to something and request identification; if Milena, whose English was excellent, didn’t know the word in English she’d whip out her iphone and google translate it for me.

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Zhukova ‘the chief’ runs the kitchen

From the market we drove 20 minutes away to the kitchen, a modest size room filled with a big table and cooking accoutrements. Our menu for the day included Siberian pelmeni (dumplings with a beef filling), borsch and syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes) with apricot ‘jam’. Zhukova put me straight to work – chopping onions, working dough and stewing apricots while I quizzed her on the provenance of the dishes and life in Russia.

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Zhukova shows me how the dough for pelmeni is rolled out

I learnt that pelmeni are the backbone of Russian home cooking and women are scrutinised on their pelmeni style and output. There’s the proper way to make them and the shortcut route but I got the impression that serious Russian cooks knew exactly which path they should follow. Read More

7 reasons why you need to know about Georgian food

Posted on August 3, 2016 by thefidgetyfoodie

Georgian food stand at the Dorogomilovskiy market

How much do you know about Georgia?

The country nestled under Russia in the Caucasus that is, not the US state.

In all truth I previously knew only one thing about Georgia. In 2007 a little Georgian lass came fourth in Junior Eurovision (for under 15s), and on her return to Georgia she was welcomed like royalty. The Prime Minister even came to meet her at the airport, such was the enormity of this occasion.

Any country that treats its fourth place Eurovision winner like a god is solid in my book.

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Pelamushi is a typical Georgian dessert

At this point I have to fess up and make it clear that I haven’t been to Georgia. BUT, I have just spent two weeks in Russia, in which Georgian food takes a starring role.

There seems to be a few reasons for the proliferation of Georgian cuisine. Firstly, it’s damn good. The benefit of sitting smack in the middle of the ancient East-West trade routes was being able to take your pick at the best of what was passing by, be it pillowy Turkish-style bread or Mediterranean salads. I’d argue that the cuisine is far more sophisticated than Russian food, which is hearty but more rudimentary in its approach to flavours.

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Making Georgian khinkali is serious business

There’s also the Stalin factor. His influence can still be felt across the country, despite the momentous changes since his death in 1953. Just visit the Moscow metro which he designed as an interconnected web of museums ‘for the people’, which features his face at every opportunity. Stalin was from Georgia, so this undoubtedly influenced this prevalence of Georgian restaurants throughout the 20^th century.

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Perfectly folded Georgian soup dumplings known as khinkali

Therefore it’s not at all hard to find a Georgian restaurant in the main Russian cities and you’d be wise to seek one out at least once. I did just this on my first night in Moscow and subsequent nights in Saint Petersburg. It’s possible that I ate at more Georgian restaurants than Russian restaurants. Don’t tell Putin okay?

I narrowed down my favourite dishes to seven – and to be honest I didn’t even really go to town on some of the meat dishes the cuisine offers. And have I mentioned how much I liked the wine? There’s no question that I need a trip to the source to explore this delicious cuisine even further.

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Khachapuri made with sulguni cheese and butter

Khachapuri

My first thought when this molten cacophony of bread and cheese was presented was its likeness to Turkish pide. This version was topped with the crumbly brined Georgian cheese called sulguni, along with chunks of another cheese.

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LOTS of butter

But wait a minute. I gulped and soon realised that the giant yellowy chunks weren’t cheese, they were butter. Meant for swirling through the cheese, just in case you weren’t already in the throes of a dairy overload. Butter, cheese and carbs – does it get any better? Read More