Since I often write about the overlap between Soviet food and Jewish life/food, I started thinking about how Jewish holiday foods may have started to develop in the Soviet Union, had it been permitted — much like it has here in North America. Since zakuski — appetizers — are such an important part of the Russian celebratory table, I developed these mushroom savoury hamantaschen, with […]
A quintessential and much-loved Russian soup, rassolnik is a pickle soup, with barley, beef and potatoes – and lots of pickles and pickle-juice. It’s long been a staple of Russian households and survived through the Soviet era, to be brought over with Soviet-Jewish immigrants going back to the 1970s. Traditionally made with beef and pork kidneys, I make mine with beef brisket bones and, occasionally,
It starts, as these things so often do, with food. My (non-Jewish) partner and I, recently reunited after a short separation, in the sad bachelor apartment where he had temporarily landed. Where familiar lonely kitchen things still glared at me woefully, bereft of their mates that had landed up in my kitchen. Where we bumped into each other, all corners and angles and elbows still
Stumbling into Syrian cuisine while searching for a Soviet-Russian seder tradition Continue Reading
I finally made the kompot. What’s kompot? Russian kompot is essentially a homemade fruit juice. It’s been around for centuries and is popular in Russia and the former East Bloc. I only recently learned that what I always thought was kompot was actually compote, which is also made with cooked fruit, but has less liquid and is eaten, rather than drunk. Compote is French, and
Russian Kompot: I’m probably doing it wrong (with recipe) Continue Reading