Hi everyone! My name’s Rita. I live in Denver, USA and I’ve got recently married to a Russian guy (he got a promotion and moved to America). He’s doing great here but he really misses his native food. It seems to be the problem to find something truly Russian in the US so I decided to learn a bit of Russian cooking to make him happy somehow Can you recommend me some traditional recipes. Not too difficult if possible

If you want something really traditional you should start with “borsch”.
That’s one of the most common first courses in Russia. At the same time it’s rather easy to cook.
0,5 kilo if meat (beef or pork)
1 kilo of potatoes
2 carrots
3 onions
3-4 beets
1 small head of cabbage
First you take a big saucepan, fill it with water and put it on to boil. Then you cut the meat into small pieces and put them into the water. Meanwhile you chop onions, carrots, beets and cabbage and fry them with a little oil. Then you peel potatoes, cut them into pieces, too, and as soon as the water has boiled you add potatoes into the saucepan. After about 10-15 minutes you can throw fried vegetables (a so-called “zazharka”) into the water too, add some salt and leave it until everything becomes soft (usually it takes 15 minutes more). Add 1 tablespoon of sour cream as you pour the soup into a bowl.

Thanks a lot. I just didn’t fully get that part about “zazharka” :( Where should I fry the vegetables?

Yes, borsch is a good idea. Your husband is sure to love it . It’s just that I personally don’t add cabbage and put some tomato paste in it.

Why don’t you make your husband pancakes? In Russia we call them “bliny”, if you must know. To my mind, it’s the easiest Russian dish to cook. And one of the tastiest, of course. You just need to mix flour, eggs, milk and sugar together and then pour the liquid dough into a hot pan with some oil.

Speaking about borsch, my mother has always taught me to cook it without frying anything. She used to place all the ingredients into one sauce-pan. It makes borsch taste rather low-fat but just as tasty as it can be.

Borsch is found in most parts of the former USSR, therefore its variations are a great many. But they are all OK so you can try any one you like best.

Here’s a very simple recipe of Russian pancakes - from my own experience:
flour - 500g
water or milk - 3 glasses
eggs - 3
sugar - 1 tablespoon
salt - 1/2 teaspoon
soda - 1/2 teaspoon
citric acid - 1/2 teaspoon
Mix eggs with water, add salt, sugar and soda, then pour the flour and give it a good whisking. Dilute citric acid in a glass of water, pour it into the dough, stir and start frying pancakes immediately.
In case that you don’t have citric acid you can do it like this: mix flour, eggs, sugar and salt with sour milk. Dilute soda in a glass of water, pour it into the dough just before frying pancakes and stir. Hope you’ll handle it

Oh, I see. Thank you so much for your helpful advice. It really seems to be within my cooking skills

NB: Pancakes must be very thin(!) They may be served with honey, jam, sour cream, cottage cheese, mince or what not.

Here’s my favourite one - DRANKI

Draniki are grated potato pancakes with a twist.

Ingredients

  * Salt, ground black pepper
  * 1 egg
  * Potatoes. A LOT of potatoes.
  * 1 tablespoonful of flour

Cooking:

That’s a typical dish people cook in Belarus and Russian regions adjacent to the state, but both Russia and Belarus have bitter disputes who invented the recipe. No matter who the authors are, the draniki – potato pancakes – are a great thing to have on any table.

Grate the peeled potatoes (like a kilo or so) on a small-whole grater – the rougher the tool, the better the taste. Now act fast: beat in salt, pepper, 1 egg and a spoonful of flour, and fry little potato pancakes on a mixture of hot sunflower seed oil and butter.

Draniki are normally served with sour-cream, or salted (or even smoked) salmon, herrings of all kinds, or caviar.