I’m still mired deep in schoolwork with no end in sight. And I’m kind of grateful that it’s winter, because as everyone knows, the winters in Canada are long, dark and deep and there is far less to do, so studying does not feel like such a deprivation. Let’s face it, I’ve spent many a winter surfing the internet aimlessly and dreaming of tropical vacations, so it’s hard to say I’m missing out on much. And James is taking some courses as well, looking for a change from his present career, so we’re both in the same boat of studying every night and weekend. It’s kind of a lovely way to spend our evenings. We swear a lot.

It also leaves time for those ambitious, leisurely recipes that I always bookmark, yet seldom take time to make. You know the ones I mean – coq au vin made with a proper rooster, choucroute garnie, pot au feu, biryani, and many other recipes that take plenty of time and ingredients. If there were restaurants that served proper versions of these dishes, I’d gladly pay someone else to do the cooking, but there really aren’t many in Calgary, so in order to experience the glory of poor, regional cooking, I must find the time to make many of them myself. Plus I enjoy mucking around the kitchen as a reward for studying. That and exercise keep me sane.

Surfing a Russian recipe blog, I came across a beautiful tutorial for  a beef daube, and it looked so good that it started a veritable craving. The ingredient list seemed pretty reasonable  – not much beyond beef, aromatics, a bottle of wine, bacon, shallots and onions, and it looked and sounded glorious.  Then I remembered seeing a daube recipe on one of the most drool inducing sites, fxcuisine. (Take a peek, the photos are amazing.) I promptly combined the elements I liked in both recipes, and came up with my very own version of a rustic beef stew that was close to divine.

If you feel like attempting such a feat, the steps are very easy. The hard part is mentally coming to terms that it will be four days before you eat it.  (Although for the record, everyone cheats and has a small serving the day it’s finished).

So without further ado:

3.5 lbs grass-fed stewing beef/chuck/blade (preferably from your local farmer), we used the excellent Hoven farms beef

1 bottle red wine (all the recipes say the best you can spare, but we used a $6.99 store special (Naked Grape?) ’cause, well – it’s stew)

1 orange (I had some mandarins that I repurposed)

5 – 7 juniper berries (I used rowan berries, where we get to the attempted murder part), honestly you can skip it and it’ll be fine, or use gin

3 cloves

8 black peppercorns

1/3 cinnamon stick, or a 1/4 tsp cinnamon

lots of garlic, bunch of thyme, parsley

bay leaf

salt

flour

1/2 package bacon/lard/salt  pork

shallots or onions

1 lb carrots

1 pigs foot (there is no ewwww, you eat the animal, use all the parts)

1 oz whiskey/cognac/vodka (also not mandatory)

So the first step was pretty easy. Put the meat into a dish/bowl to marinate. Add smashed garlic cloves, chopped onion quarters, and orange quarters.  In a mortar/bowl/cutting board smash the cloves, bay leaf, peppercorns and cinnamon and sprinkle over the meat.

Aaaand this is where I improvised and instead of trying to find juniper berries, I had a stroke of inspiration and grabbed a bunch of rowan berries from the rowan tree in my front yard.

I know they have a slightly bitter, astringent taste not too far removed from juniper, although they lack the piney scent juniper has. James saw this turn of events, and proceeded to read me the riot act about how ‘everyone knows those berries are poisonous’ and how this is a plot to kill him. This is partially a long running joke in our house, and partially his very real fear of poisonous berries.  I calmly and lovingly mushed the hard berries in the mortar and added them to the meat, telling him that as soon as ‘everyone’ becomes a botanist, we can discuss the dangers of rowan berries, until then, I’ll take years worth of empirical nibbling over his prejudices. He told me ‘if you put those in there, I’m not eating it’ and I told him ‘then don’t’. On that note, I sprinkled the meat with salt, poured on the wine, and left it wrapped in the fridge to marinate for the next two days.  This was Sunday evening. Do give it a flip every day or so.

Tuesday night was when the stew was actually made. This part of the process took me about 40 minutes, you may well be faster.

First, take out your well marinated meat, and strain the marinade into a separate pot.

Then cut up the bacon, carrots and the onions that I used instead of shallots.

Then prepare the bouquet garni – this is where you take the pigs foot, bay leaves, and thyme (also parsley if you have it) and tie it up in a square of cheese cloth.

Brown your bacon, then fish it out and place it at the bottom of your stew pot, ideally cast iron.  Leave the fat alone.  Now, many classic recipes talk about blanching the lardons, including the one from fxcuisine. Apparently this is to remove excess salt and smoke. You know what I like in bacon? Salt and smoke. So I said no way to that nonsense and left the bacon as the golden goodness that it is.

Brown the onions in the bacon grease.  Also toss them in the stew pot.

Turn your heat on high, and brown your meat, in batches if you have to. Be sure to carefully fish out the bits of spices, as they’ll burn viciously. The idea is to just sear the edges, not cook much, so high heat, quick tosses. Add it to the stew pot.

Here you can multitask – turn on your thick, fragrant marinade, and add a splash of hard alcohol.  Let the whole thing come to a boil, and simmer for a few minutes to dissipate the alcohol itself. In the meantime, make a small batch of dough  – about a cup of flour and a bit of water. The reasoning here is that no steam can be allowed to escape, along with any flavor components.

Place the dough around the rim of your pot, add carrots, tomatoes, and whole peeled garlic cloves. Make a little nest in the middle, and drop in your pigs foot bundle, pour hot marinade into the pot, and smack down the lid.  Cook at 320 or so for about 3.5 – 4 hrs. Then, it’s probably pretty late, so take the whole pot and stick it outside. If it’s not cold enough to stick the pot outside, then there is no reason to be making daube. The idea here is that as the meat cools down, it absorbs a great deal of fragrant liquid, gorging on the sauce and becoming plumper than ever.

The next day, take in your pot, and break open the dough seal.  Take the substantial layer of fat off the top, and the cheesecloth bundle, and discard. Place on gentle heat to warm up the stew. Inhale the magic fragrance of the steam. See how the pigs foot contributed magical collagen to the stew, making it unctuous and rich. Dip a spoon into the sauce and taste. Now it’s time to gild the lily.

Depending on the quality of wine, and how much salt you added, and how acidic the tomatoes were, the stew may need a gentle tweaking of flavors. You can increase the acidity with a spoonful of red wine vinegar, or some lemon juice. You can add some umami by adding a bit of Worcestershire sauce or a mashed up anchovy, or olives, you can mellow the sauce by using beurre manie – butter blended with a bit of flour.  Our cheap vino definitely called for a bit of mellowing, and umami is never a bad thing, so I decided to go with a paste of two or three mashed up anchovies, a tablespoon of butter, and about a tablespoon of flour. While the stew was heating up, I mashed up all the ingredients and stirred them into the pot. Anything with flour should be boiled for a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste, just like gravy.

To serve, we boiled up some egg noodles and tossed them with a bit of butter and parsley. Mashed potatoes would not have been amiss at all, but we were out of potatoes and too lazy to leave the house.

So of course, the stew smells amazing and looks like comfort. The offending berries are a long forgotten danger. And James’ resolve melted slowly with the smells of a rich beef ambrosia.  And of course he could not resist the siren call of a daube, and now he’s in the hospital with food poisoning. Just kidding.     In a way we’re both right – rowan berries do contain a toxin that is neutralized by cooking or freezing, but really, they’re a pretty harmless berry. They’re too bitter to eat raw in any quantity, so they’re great for adding punch to a marinade.  Also, sorrel contains oxalic acid and apricot seeds contain cyanide, so whatever substance rowan berries have, they’re not that exciting in the culinary world.

Bon appetit! And needless to say this recipe doubles like a charm, and gets better and better each day you eat it.

In my desire to make a dent in the ever increasing pile of recipes that I wanted to try, I ended up with a lovely roast, and a wonderful cake.

The roast was courtesy of Marcella Hazan, whose Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking is the gold standard in many kitchens. It sounded like an intriguing recipe – a pork roast slowly braised in milk, seasoned with nothing more than salt and perhaps garlic. The milk is supposed to cook down to deeply brown curds and the tenderness is supposed to be unparalleled. And then I screwed it up, as only I can do. See I had some leeks and fennel that were languishing in the fridge, and in interests of good fridge management (and haunted by ghosts of slimy veggies past), I chopped’em up and added them to the roast with the milk. It just sounded good together, y’know?

And the fennels and leekses gave off so much juice, that the cooking of the milk was pretty much not happening. A loooong braise later, I had to admit that my milk was never going to develop the dark brownness that is called for, and settled for the color along the lines of baby diarrhea. Now I should mention that I grew up in a country where the visual aspect and appeal of food ranks dead last, so this was not going to stop me in any way from trying it.  And the taste delivered. It was not fantabulous by my standards, but it was rich, tender, and made for a unique meal. I rated it a 4/5 and gave the leftovers to my brother.

The second recipe – a gorgeous Mediterranean Lemon Cake was much more successful, only because I don’t know enough to mess around with baking.  The only change I made is cut down on the sugar – I used about 3/4 of a cup, and next time would be tempted to bring it down to 2/3 of a cup. I should mention, that I don’t know what it is about US recipes, but man, you guys like sugar in insane proportions! I like a decent amount of sugar, enough to support other flavors, but every time I make a recipe that originates down south, I know to cut out a third to half of sugar to make it palatable.  I’ve seen carrot cake recipes with 2 cups of sugar. Eeeek.

Moving on, I found the recipe on the fabulous blog of Leslie Land, had all the ingredients, and found her description of it somehow irresistible.  It comes together super quickly and it gets better on days 2 and 3. In fact, when you eat it on day 1 you may wonder what the big deal is. It’s a fine simple cake, but nothing to write home about. Yet on subsequent days some magic happens, and the faint grassiness of the olive oil comes through. This may not sound like a good thing, but it is, and it sings lovely duets with the lemon zest.  A keeper of a recipe  4.5/5.

After zesting three lemons for the cake, I had three skinned lemons to put to use, so I decided to make something I’ve never had, only read about – lemon curd. I got the recipe from a book which I plan to put to heavy use this summer – Blue Ribbon Preserves by Linda Amendt.  The book is a joy to read, all the recipes sound phenomenal, and lemon curd sounded easy. For the recipe you needed a double boiler, which I didn’t have, and the bowl kept hitting the water, so I had to improvise with balancing a bowl on two butter knives in a pot of water. MacGyver ain’t got nothing on me.

Again, I cut down the sugar to something like less than half of what the recipe calls for. Next time I’d use less lemon juice too. In fact, I’ll just gently flavor the butter and yolks until they taste like heaven, and call it a day. But the curd was great - like a lemony pudding, rich and creamy and great with the cake.

And that, folks, was my lovely Sunday during our last rainy weekend. Mucking around the kitchen, baking bread, trying out recipes. Pretty much my idea of a perfect weekend.

It’s probably no secret that I love food, cooking and eating probably as much as I love animals. I mean, I eat animals.  Not all every day, but reasonably frequently, although I do have long vegetarian spells here and there.  And like many people who enjoy food and cooking, I visit sites like Serious Eats, Urbanspoon and cooking blogs, as well as own a ton of cookbooks.  And most of my cookbooks never get used.

I’ve thought a bit about this the other day, and there are very good reasons for owning cookbooks that are not cooked from. Some are visually stunning with great writing and are enjoyable on their merit as books alone. Others are so regionally oriented that to cook from them out of context seems if not sacriligeous, then at least extremely unsuitable. For instance, I have several great Southern cookbooks, and all of them are so saturated with the soul and spirit of the south, the terroir if you will, that huddled in our cold Calgary winter it seems wrong and uncomfortable to hunt out of season ingredients like okra and grits. And say what you will, but a good crabboil can only be accomplished on the coast.  This happens with many California inspired cookbooks as well. Our farmers markets don’t get going until early June, and gallop through the seasonal offering SO fast, that you can’t keep up ‘seasonal’ cooking from places that have ummm seasons.  For some reason few ‘seasonally’ insprired cookbooks really delve into the bounty and beauty of beets, cabbage, turnips and potatoes, being much more likely to praise tender asparagus, ripe tomatoes, and perfect figs, none of which we are likely to see for more than about two weeks out of the year.

Then there are the cookbooks whose recipes simply don’t speak my language. I’ve heard amazing things about the Barefoot Contessa recipes, yet every time I pick up a cookbook of hers, I am uninspired to the max. Either the recipes seem way too simple and easy – a salad! with tomatoes! thanks! or they are just not a good fit for the day. Every day. I also find that the more information is given about the origin of a recipe beforehand, the more likely I am to want to make it. Which is why Raghavan Iyer’s 660 Curries is fantastic to read and browse through, he seduces the reader before they crack a spice jar. 

But every so often I look fretfully at my growing cookbook collection, and make resolute efforts to cook more from them. Or at least work my way through the piles of randomly bookmarked recipes all over my computers at home and work.  Which is where my inability to follow a recipe exactly comes in. I’m a fickle cook, and typically a cookbook has one chance to impress me.  I will typically choose a recipe based on a complex matrix of whether I can obtain the ingredients, how much I like the main elements, how unique it is, how much the author praised it, and whether I heard great things about it on a cooking forum. 

I know that to do a recipe justice, I should make it as written the first time, then tweak it to my preferences if I make it again. But for some reason I am constitutionally unable to do so. Most of my tweaks are minute – a bit more garlic, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a hint of red wine, or a bit  less sugar. But sometimes I deviate from the recipe so much, I know that I was no more than ‘very loosely inspired’ by it. I don’t know why I can’t help myself. I actually have a pep talk with myself when I first make a recipe, and still I fail, as I see my hand reaching for something clearly not written anywhere. I need a supervisor. It’s not that I want to deny myself creativity in the kitchen, but it hardly seems fair to cook from books that writers have put great efforts into, and muck about right out of the gate. 

Next post I’ll tell you about three new recipes that I tried to make AS WRITTEN, and failed. Two were successes despite myself, and one – I should have smacked my hand harder.  Which brings me to you, dear reader? Do you follow recipes as written, or are you an improvisational maestro? Is it possible to subvert my tinkering nature and learn to give recipes a chance?

In a totally bizarre twist, the company where I currently work is outsourcing our entire dept to… wait for it – the United States. The irony is not lost on me….    but apparently it’s a sound business decision as they can use economies of scale with their existing departments and become a bit leaner in these difficult times. I am personally not too worried as good people are hard to find, and I’m pretty good.

But it has made for a less than stellar work environment lately. People are noticeably upset, worried, stressed, and in general not pleased. Why am I largely escaping this condition? Mainly because I’ve been a contract worker for the last few years, and am used to living with large degrees of uncertainty. Lets face it, if a company wants someone gone, they hardly need many excuses to accomplish this fact, and whether one is a contractor or a full-timer, there are no guarantees in this world.

But I did have a couple of weeks of emotionally strained times, and when I feel blue, even a bit, many tasks suddenly become less important. You know how people that have a health scare suddenly become crystal clear about their priorities? That’s what stress does to me. All of a sudden, eating, sleeping, reading and cooking become the few things that are mandatory and much else falls by the wayside.  Okay, showering’s in too, I suppose, but that’s it!

My routine becomes very predictable – work, exercise, home, and then the eating-reading-sleeping in a lovely cycle of stability and comfort. That way I can conserve my precious emotional reserves and not lash out from stress. It’s a good technique if you can swing it.  On the weekends I do the minimal housekeeping and shopping, preferring to spend the bulk of the day lazing around the sun-filled house and either cooking or baking.

The last two weekends were all about baking. Bread, specifically. See I’ve spent most of my life firmly in the cooking camp, being very unprecise by nature and throwing together the very odd loaf or two but generally abstaining. And then, inspired by the very famous, very successful no-knead bread by Jim Lahey, I decided to give other breads a try. Surfing a baking forum or two, I purchased a copy of the iconic The Bread Bakers Apprentice, made sure I had some yeast in the cupboard and went to town.

The fist hundred pages or so, are reserved for the overview of what makes good bread, which was fascinating and invaluable reading. From flour to hydration to shaping the loaves, I learned an abundance of neat things. Like did you know that the bread continues to develop its flavor as it cools?  And that if you cut into it too soon and let out all the steam you’ll lose out on some flavor development, so it’s best to let it cool for 20 – 30 minutes before digging in.  The rest of the book is full of recipes: from cinnamon buns, challah, french bread, baguettes, pizza dough, ciabatta, foccacia, sourdoughs and more. The book is very light on rye breads and whole wheat breads, but I guess there is a book dedicated to that out there, that’s now on my list.

Many breads are two day breads, where you make a starter out of flour, water and yeast, stick it in the fridge, then mix up bread proper, rise, shape, proof and bake. The process is ludicrously easy if you’re already puttering around the house, just walk up to it, deflate it, turn it perhaps and go on your merry way. The baking is also neat, with an improvised steamer that gives your bread great ‘oven spring’ which is a quick rise as it hits the heat and steam.

It’ s hard to believe how much fun I had, and how good the results were. Check it out:

This is a no-knead bread that started the whole thing.  It’s a slow ferment bread that takes 2 minutes to put together, and makes a very good loaf. 

The ciabatta has a golden crumb, an airy interior and a lovely nutty flavor.  FYI: This recipe needs more water than written, as it is,  the dough would be too dry. Luckily I found this out the easy way, by googling the recipe first and seeing how it did for other bakers.

The baguettes are as good as a bakery. Soft inside, with a wonderful flavor they are an awesome daily bread. Or dipped in soup. 

The foccacia is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Soft, flavorful, soaked in herb oil and flaked with salt and cheese on top, it’s nothing short of bliss. I chopped up a quick bruschetta to eat on top of it, and I made a dinner out of it.  It’s to die for, and I don’t say that lightly.

The only thing that didn’t work as it should have is the cinnamon buns.  For some reason they didn’t rise like they should, so while being soft, rich and delicious, they were shy of the cinnamon bun nirvana. But I’ll get ‘em yet.

So that’s been my life for the last two weeks. Lots of stressful events, and lots of bread to balance it out. The orange kitty is still on the loose, and I’ve given up trapping him myself, as I don’t want him to associate my house with traps, or he’ll stop coming by to eat. As it stands, he comes by every evening, right around suppertime, and waits patiently to be noticed. Then he gets plenty of food and water and gets to hang out on a yoga mat so his paws don’t have to freeze. That’s about as far as we’ve gotten.  He is running away less now though, so perhaps he’ll let me touch him yet.

PS If you’d like to try your hand at any of the recipes, let me know and I’ll post one up.

When I was a teenager I spent less and less time at home, being always out with friends doing various nefarious things.   Often meals were skipped, rushed or on such a budget that a dollar worth of fries would have to suffice.  Shortly after turning twenty I moved out, and joyfully took over cooking my own meals, which consisted of a great deal of roast chicken and pastas. But slowly a certain lack appeared in my soul, a void of sorts, and that void cried to be filled up with soup. I’m sure my mother was surprised to learn that both her kids often chose soup as a meal, upon arriving for lunch or dinner, after disdaining it for many years. 

Of course my favorite soups are all hearty, no wimpy broths or purees here, they are all chock full of veggies, grains and potatoes, with meat providing mainly the broth. They are very much a main dish affair, needing nothing more than a good crust of bread, sprinkled with cheese and broiled, if you’re feeling luxurious.

A few of my childhood soups are now firmly ensconced in my repertoire, a couple I have yet to master, and one I’ve made not once, but twice in the last two weeks.  It’s a humble split pea soup, cooked with a smoked ham hock for a rich, golden broth, with smoky undertones.  The ham hock needs  a couple hours of simmering, so it’s perfect to make on a lazy weekend afternoon.  It’s filling and delicious, perfect for our first cool fall evenings. 

It starts with a simple pot of water and one smoked ham hock. You can skim the scum thoroughly or lazily, your choice.

 (If you’re a vegetarian, I’d start with your favorite stock, the soup will take less than an hour, and you really should add a teaspoon of smoked paprika to the sauteeing veggies below. )

The ham hock needs at least two three hours to simmer, I start adding stuff when the meat is almost falling off the bones, at the two hour mark.  The first ‘stuff’ to get added is about a cup of split peas. A cup will be good for a medium pot of soup. A regular large pot will need two cups. This is about where a half a tablespooon of salt will go in.

The split peas will take about 30-40 minutes to cook, which gives you time to prep some veggies. I typically use leeks, carrots, celery and a couple cloves of garlic. 

Veggies get a brief sautee on medium high heat in a teaspoon of butter. If they start to lightly caramelize on the edges, that’s not a bad thing.

Dump them into the pot, and add two medium diced potatoes. Some people think this is a travesty. I say those people are very misguided.   At a fine dice the potatoes will cook for about 15 – 20 minutes, and the soup is ready. (If you’re like me, this is where you’ll fish out the ham hock, strip the meat off the bone and plop it back in the soup.)

This is a soup that should be refrigerated, if for no other reason than to be able to skim the decent layer of fat that the ham hock produced. I always fail, and have a bowl as soon as its ready, then stick the cooled pot in the fridge, and wait for the next day to eat the rest in a guilt free fashion.

Inevitably somewhere in the store you will come upon a large fridge. This fridge will contain a number of indispensable items dear to the Russian soul. A number of them will have been fermented. This is THE place to come for real sauerkraut. Lightly fermented, crispy and delicious it should be used within a week of purchasing. Try it next time you’re making a German supper or eat as a side dish with a thin drizzle of sunflower oil. No it’s not pretty, but it’s real kraut and it sells fast. You can serve it as a side or make them amazing German meals with bratwurst or go French with choucroute garnie.

Pail of sauerkraut

If you’ve ever been to Montreal and had the pleasure of eating at Schwartz’s, you will fondly remember the barrel pickles served with the mountains of tender brisket. You can find those pickles here, also in a barrel (or pail as the case may be), and they will be just as good as you remember them. Simply ask the nice people behind the counter for ‘solyonie ogurtsy’. To write the name phonetically is difficult as the Russian language has a few indispensable extra letters. You can specify regular or low salt pickles, and while both are delicious, low salt pickles are my personal favorite. Crunchy, dilly, and with a perfect flavor they accompany half of my dinners and make a great snack. They are called ‘malossolnye ogurtsy’ and even if you just copy and paste the name onto a piece of paper, they’ll sort you out.  (This photo did not turn out, so I’m borrowing from http://www.domsovetof.ru/publ/29-1-0-979).

You can see the liberal borrowing of foods from other cultures in these stuffed eggplant slices and halvah on the counter. And speaking of foods borrowed from other cultures, if you happen to spot a container of what look like julienned carrots in the fridge – grab them. They are indeed julienned carrots, but marinated in a mixture of oil and spices. The recipe hails from Korea, brought over by their many immigrants and renders the carrots fragrant, spicy and wonderful. It’s one of my favorite side dishes of all time, and given the fact that the store was sold out, I am not alone.

Russians love their fish. There is a veritable love affair with all sorts of fish – freshwater fish goes into a simple soup called ‘uha’ which is delicious if prepared carefully, ocean fish gets canned, made into savoury pies or smoked, and sprats are considered veritable picnic food. Salmon gets made into a sort of gravlax and tiny fishes are smoked and eaten as a substitute for beer nuts. If you’re not opposed to very rich fish, buy a smoked mackerel below. They are sliced across into thick slices and served with a bland side, like potatoes sprinkled with dill. The fish is tender and very smoky, but delicious. You’ll also see jars of salmon caviar and less often black caviar.

Smoked mackerel

For a single serving snack try a tiny smoked fish – they are literally nibbled on with beer after removing the fins and head (yes with your hands), kind of like peeling a shrimp.

Kinda like beer nuts

A huge draw for me, a person relatively disinterested in dessert, is the sweets section of the store. Call it nostalgia, or simply a call for quality, but I am so bitterly unimpressed with all commercial baked goods and desserts that I typically abstain from them completely. You know the stuff I’m talking about – the gross overly sweet cakes with gobs of fake frosting, the dense heavy pastries that hit your stomach like a brick, the fillings that are thick with gelatin and can pull out tooth fillings. I love quality desserts in small portions, something you can eat one bite at a time and lose yourself in contemplation of life’s goodness. Many Russian desserts fit the bill.

These small ‘walnuts’ are cookies filled with dulce de leche.

A perfect size

This is a honey cake – layers of honey dough and real cream filling in between. The trimmed layer crumbs cover the cake in a fluffy pillow. This version had raisins in it and was not my favorite.

This is my favorite cake of all time – the Napoleon. (I don’t know what’s up with the name….) It’s a layered cake also, with thin crumbly phyllo-like pastry and an amazing cream layered gently in between. It’s texturally a bit similar to baklava which I also adore, if that helps to explain it. It’s usually light, delicious and addictive.

Most homemade cakes in the store are sold by the slice, and some are boxed up and professionally decorated for parties and more formal events.

The pies below need little introduction, they are simply fruit pies with a variety of fillings in tender dough with a sprinkling of icing sugar. These were cherry which are not my favorite flavor and they were still pretty good.

Well folks, this concludes our edition of the Russian store tour, I hope this helps to lift the veil of mystery of the store and entices someone, anyone to venture in and try something new.

Unlike many exotic or unknown cuisines which have gained traction in recent years (Georgian, Turkish or Argentine), Russian cuisine remains in relative obscurity, especially in Canada. Apparently my countrymen despite their increasing numbers are not doing their part in spearheading the effort to introduce the food to our adoptive country. When we first moved to Canada there were very few folk from Russia here, and every time you’d inadvertently overhear someone speak Russian it would be an immediate occasion to introduce oneself and often make a new friend. There was exactly one small store selling Russian food, and people drove from across the city to see and buy familiar ingredients.  

Now it’s heard much more frequently around town, and there are several excellent stores carrying Russian themed items, yet I’ve never seen a native Canadian shop in such a store, even for the sake of curiosity.  The situation is often not helped by the store owner themselves, who sometimes speak poor English and are unable to help a bewildered customer navigate unfamiliar items and wax eloquent about their favorites. Even a local food writer extraordinaire dee Hobsbawn-Smith completely neglected Russian stores in her otherwise excellent book Shop Talk: The Open-All-Hours Insider’s Guide to Finding Great Ingredients in Calgary.  But there are some things which must be shared with the world, so without further ado, here is my tour of a typical Russian store with my highlighted favorites.

As you walk through the door you will see three things common to all Russian stores – tea, jams and canned goods. The teas are mainly imported due to Russian writing on the side of the box, although it comes from London, and can be seen in a few other stores around town, like the small market adjoining Atlas. The jams are rather unique – they are closer to preserves than a traditional jam and are softer and runnier, typically made with just sugar. The labels should help you navigate and some may even contain English labels. The flavors are more common to Russia – cranberry, black currant, red currant, blackberry and cherry are lined up next to the usual flavors of apricot, raspberry and strawberry. In the photo below the first half of the shelves is taken up with sweetened condensed milk and dolce de leche, both ingredients crucial to baking.

Loose tea from London

Next to the tea there are bins and bins of candy – mainly caramel and chocolate. They were rare toward the end of the Soviet era, so many people are quite nostalgic about their flavors. I am not a huge fan of most of them as they consist of a hard caramel shell with a soft fruity filling inside. Meh. The one exception are the candy with a cow on the label – they are fudgy and addictive. There are small bags around if you feel like trying one or a few – it’s candy you can’t go too far wrong.

The canned food section is vast and confusing. If you’re unfamiliar with Russian food, you should stay away from much of it at the beginning. Russian cuisine is not always friendly to untutored exploration and there is too much that will not be a good intro to a western palate. Basically baby steps – try what I’m recommending first before venturing into the murkier depths of traditional soups and spreads. A good place to start though is the vast variety of pickled items. Russia has always had cold and long winters and people had to rely on root cellars and preserving food to make it last through the winter to the harvest ahead. So the food culture evolved around whole grains, root vegetables, fermented foods and meat. On the shelf below you’ll see pickled red peppers, pickled watermelon, pickled cukes, pickled cabbage, pickled tomatoes, pickled zucchini and sauerkraut. You can’t go too far wrong with most of these items, but skip the sauerkraut, it’s made fresh in –house and will be in the fridge. 

Mmmm - pickles

I recommend these tiny crunchy baby cukes: (the label clearly refers to the drinking culture of Russia – it says ‘vodka chaser’ as these items are often consumed while drinking).

And my favorite brand of pickled tomatoes, made in Bulgaria.  Pickled tomatoes are brined without vinegar, just water, sugar, salt and spices. Of course their texture leaves them soft and falling apart, but if you can get past that – the flavor is great. Slightly sweet, rather salty they are an addictive taste and are a popular snack and hangover cure.

Ugly but good

 The sausage counter is just a mix of salted pork belly, lard, salami and ham, sliced to order. Everything is available to sample, and sampling is encouraged. There is no real guide here – the sausage culture is adapted heavily from Germany and Poland and probably other places I don’t know about, but sausage is sausage.

Somewhere near the front counter you’ll see a bread basket. Typically there will be three types of bread inside – a long sliced loaf, similar to the mild German rye that is sold at Superstore at the moment, a square dark rye, almost black, and the loaf you see below.  The square dark rye is perhaps Russia’s most iconic bread – Borodinsky bread. Legend has it that it was developed by nuns who baked loaves studded with coriander around the village of Borodino, famous as a battle site against Napoleon. Sweetened with malt and studded with caraway it is a dark dense loaf, full of flavor that can stand up to the toughest toppings. It’s a noble bread, but my personal favorite happens to be a smaller, even denser loaf with a sweet chewy texture. Even my boyfriend who is rather cautious in his enthusiasm for Russian food happily snacks on it, along with chunks of dry salami and aged cheddar, or dipped in borscht. All the breads can be frozen, so you are under no obligation to eat through a whole loaf, although they keep well on the counter. Very healthy and low calorie they are a filling guilt free snack at our house.

Russian rye - nothing like it

If you were to only purchase one single item as an introduction to Russian food, these would have to be it. Each bags below holds one kilogram of Siberian dumplings – Russia’s answer to wontons in Asia, tortellini in Italy and empanadas in Latin America. They are one of the holy grails of Russian cuisine. When I was a child it was common for the family to get together for a several hour long marathon of pelmeni making. Pork and beef were mixed together in equal quantities, a schwack of onions would be grated in, a good quantity of black pepper and salt would be added and the whole mix would be wrapped up in fresh dough circles, placed on floured trays and frozen. Several thousand would be made at a time and since we lived in Siberia we simply stored them outside.

Try them now!

To prepare pelmeni simply drop them frozen into boiling water seasoned with a bit of seasoning salt and a bay leaf. They will be done about five minutes after they begin floating, or about 10 minutes total. You can serve them in the resulting broth or on their own. Traditionally they are served with melted butter,  mustard, sour cream or vinegar spiked with pepper, but people also love them with ketchup and horseradish. Really you should set out at least three of the above and have a taste test – a clear winner will soon emerge. James loves his mustard (or sometimes Sriracha sauce), and I am a ketchup girl. Although in the winter I’ve been known to dip them into apple cider vinegar and pepper. The world is your oyster. These are amazing and fast treats and THE perfect supper on a chilly weeknight. Ten minute dinner that everyone adores, even if you factor in a salad.

Whew, part 2 coming up on Monday.

The store I took photos in is aptly named Russian Store, and is located at:

523 Woodpark Blvd SW

403-238-4607

But there are several in town, including:

Matryoshka on the corner of 16 Ave and 14 St SW

Slavic Store

17107 James McKevitt Road SW

403-201-0057

Kalinka at 11440 Braeside Dr SW

403-281-6688

Teremok

Avenida Place Shopping Centre

403-873-0962

And the only reason it was ugly is because *I* baked it.

The original pie baked by baker extraordinaire Deb of Smitten Kitchen is very attractive with peach slices arranged artfully in a tender crust rolled out in a smooth circle.   Like this.

But I was not blessed with the ability to craft precise food. All of my cooking and baking looks a bit sloppy, very homemade and well, let’s just call it rustic. Yeah, rustic. Some people have geometric precision built into their ways in the kitchen. They can turn out picture perfect cakes:

How gorgeous is this?

Photo by Stacey Snacks

While my baking more resembles:

Now this is not to say that what I turn out doesn’t taste good, it does. I have a pretty good palate and know my way around the kitchen, but I lack the precision and patience required to turn out works of art.

There is a cultural component too. I was raised on Russian food, and while hearty and filling, it cannot be called delicate, refined or pretty, even if you tried.  Some Russian staples include buckwheat groats, a loaded potato salad, homemade dumplings, a soup made with barley and pickles, pigs feet in aspic (no joke), and many recipes borrowed from surrounding areas like borscht, cabbage rolls and kebabs. S ay what you will but those foods do not lend themselves to a delicate presentation or precision in their making.  If anything a part of their charm is their adaptability to local conditions, tastes and availability of ingredients. But there is a reason you don’t see many Russian recipes in cookbooks.

So needless to say when faced with recipes that look like they came out of a magazine, I sigh and think to myself ‘wait till you see what it looks like in my kitchen.’ (In fact that should be a rite of passage – have your recipe tested by me, because then you’ll know what it really looks like in a  home kichen).  I’m sure they’d see it and cry. But if they turn out delicious, then I feel the need to shake off any hesitation of posting such contrasting works of art and share them with the world. And if your recipes never come out looking as perfect as they do in magazines, stand proud – you’re in good company.

Up until the weekend I had the remnants of the last fresh peaches from BC which tasted heavenly but which were not going to last much longer. They were developing the telltale little brown spots that clearly said ‘eat me now’, and we were stuffed full of ‘em. My friend Google suggested a lovely sounding pie which I promptly proceeded to make.

Other than the time to chill the dough, it came together very quickly.

Pre-bake the crust for a few minutes, smear some crème fraiche, throw in peaches tossed with sugar, add a bit more crème fraiche and a streusel topping which took two minutes to make, seriously.

MMMMM

And the result? While not fit for a photo shoot, this was a seriously delicious pie. Somewhere I went a bit wrong with the dough and it was a bit too buttery, with butter oozing out of the pre-baked crust, and there was likely too much streusel – next time I’d add less and see what happens. And I didn’t have a proper pie plate to bake it in, my last one falling victim to a moving accident. But the flavors were stellar. Juicy tender peaches with just enough sugar to flavor the crème fraiche and bursts of flavor from the streusel made for a very grown up delight. I’d make this again in a heartbeat, tweaking the recipe for any stone fruit around and perhaps trying this dough thing one more time.
 

In a small bit of gardening news, I planted some beautiful fragrant daffodils in my beds for next year, replacing a very ugly evergreen bush that was simply not thriving. Since the sun sets abysmally early these days I had to plant in the dark. Wielding the shovel I felt kind of criminal, like I was burying a body or something, but that’s gardening in the north for ya.

Our October weather went to pot, and I got bit by a cooking bug. It’s something I take advantage of when it strikes, since it does not strike that often. But something about the first chill in the air, the first snowflakes on the ground and yard chore avoidance collided in a perfect symphony of cooking up a storm. Some recipes I made were old favorites, like the aromatic and garlicky adobo from the Philippines, and others required no recipe, like a basic steak. But variety is the spice of life, so every so often I take down one of the many cookbooks littering my shelves and browse for inspiration. Like many cooks I keep a running list in my head of recipes I’d like to actually make, not just read about.  A good third of them are Jeffrey Steingarten’s. I browse through both of his books regularly and even though many recipes involve heroic shopping efforts and epic cooking sessions, something about his writing style implies success before you even begin.

Much of his recipe seduction comes from meticulous instructions. The details of each step are so well explained that one feels like he’s hovering over your shoulder, pre-empting any shortcuts you may attempt and explaining how he’d really like things done.  There is no ambiguity in the explanations of each step, which is very nice given that many recipes he provides are so time consuming that you would cry if they met with failure. But not every recipe he published has been a culinary Everest (like the home made Turducken, or boudin noir), and there are a few that are not only feasible to try at home, but actually look simple. One of them was potatoes au gratin.

After a wonderful discourse on the merits of potatoes au gratin and the plebeian tendencies of many recipes to smother the potatoes with cheese, he goes on to provide his own recipe which he accidentally stumbled upon all by himself. The recipe requires few ingredients, namely butter, milk, potatoes and cream, and does not take much more than a mandoline and an oven, so I bravely ventured forth to try it out. What appealed to me in the recipe is the lack of cheese. I live with a guy ready to smother breakfast cereal with cheese, while I like to use a smaller amount of sharp cheese, and find a large melting blanket of cheese oily and gross.

I heated the milk with garlic, salt, pepper and nutmeg:

I sliced the potatoes without killing myself:

I poured cream on the potatoes, dotted with butter (forgive me treadmill), and baked the gratin:

And the result – utterly delicious. The cream cooks down into a rich clotty sauce, faintly scented with garlic  and nutmeg, (next time I’m tripling the garlic), and they were universally proclaimed by the cheese eater and his father an excellent recipe. So if you’re willing to take the caloric hit, but have a stellar side dish, then embrace the fall and make these potatoes. And contrary to Jeffrey’s instructions, they taste fantastic lukewarm out of the pan an hour after dinner. Not that I would know anything about that.

Recipe here.

I’ve been too lazy to haunt the farmers markets for the last two weekends, which is rather inexcusable since fall is coming oh so soon, but I have not been too lazy to eat. Since my lazyness perfectly dovetailed with another Serious Eats Weekend Cook And Tell: Too Hot edition, I gleefully participated.

Many people suggested all sorts of delicious sounding recipes that don’t require a stove, like salads and gazpacho, but when true laziness strikes one cannot be bothered with chopping, washing, plating and all that other mundane stuff called cooking. Instead I went with my ultimate fall-back technique – shopping. I’m a champion shopper, and did not disappoint myself, by traveling to the wonders of Blush and indulging myself.

Blush Lane is a wonderful addition to the Calgary food scene, taking care to source local and organic foods that are reasonably priced as well as delicious. I’ve shopped at their farmer’s market stand before and was overjoyed when their store opened. To date I’ve seen small baskets of Hotchkiss tomatoes that were pure heaven and a source of local pride, organic apples that tasted like honey, summer and freshness all in one bite, and rainbow carrots that were so delicious we ate half before we had a chance to cook them.

But serious efforts require serious sustenance, so this foray included:

The best, sweetest, most tomatoey tomatoes I’ve ever had:

A wedge of perfectly ripe Brie:

Incredible dried beef Salami:

And people, I totally popped over to A Ladybug Café next door, for a loaf of rye bread:

And the single greatest lemon tart in the whole world:

When I got home, all I had to do was slice up a tomato, and artfully arrange a beautiful still life that makes for one of my favorite things to eat – a composed plate. Washed down with some red wine it was a wonderful repast – dried, spicy salami with an intense beefy flavor, perfectly smooth brie, incredible tomatoes and a dark, earthy rye.  Nothing could be easier or more satisfying.