RUSSIAN RECIPES

How to drink vodka

Tanusha — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 19:02:49 GMT

Russian people not only invented vodka. They also developed a specific culture how to drink vodka. It consists of the following rules.

Rules how to drink Vodka

1. Vodka must be cooled off to 8-10 °C before consumption. You even can put bottle of vodka in a freezer.
2. Drink vodka quickly.
3. In Russia they don't mix vodka with other alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages.
4. Drink vodka with small glass of not more than 50 g.
5. Vodka created for joy, removing fatigue and stress. But personal control of the dose of alcohol is very important.
6. Russian people consume vodka accompanied by a special hot and cold snacks or zakuski.

Snacks or zakuski that goes with Vodka

Zakuski that can go with vodka include:
• meat dishes like beef, bacon, ham;
• fish dishes: herring, caviar, smoked salmon, salted sardines;
• vegetables: pickled and salted cucumbers, sauerkraut, pickled tomatoes, salted and pickled mushrooms, Olivie salad, Herring under fur salad.

Snacks or zakuski are essential to assess the true meaning of vodka as a drink. Being an expensive drink, vodka goes good with an expensive snacks like black and red caviar, smoked salmon, smoked sturgeon. Without salty snacks vodka can not to disclose all of it qualities .

Cheaper snacks can be also very well combined with vodka. Such products like herring, sauerkraut, pickled mushrooms, pickled cucumbers or pickled tomatoes will be the perfect accompaniment to vodka.

Salted cucumber deserves special attention. According to the famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov, scientists tried to find the best accompaniment to vodka for two hundred years, but they couldn't find nothing better then salted cucumber. Although it been told with humor, however, it contains a significant amount of truth: salted cucumber is truly successfully combined with vodka, as well as being cheap and common product.

With proper snack vodka will always remain master of the situation. You will be able to fully control yourself and will receive a stimulating effect but not intoxication. Some people say that vodka is insidious. But itself, vodka can't be insidious. Just need to know how to drink it. For example, it is not recommended to have cheese, boiled fish, lamb dishes when you drink vodka. Vodka doesn't go good with sausages, which are more appropriate for other drinks like beer.

Traditional Russian food

Tanusha — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 13:24:46 GMT

Traditional Russian food was prepared in the oven. Very common was roasting, stewing, frying in a pan in a lot of oil. Very popular on Russian table always were cereals, like buckwheat, and vegetables, like beets and cabbage. In the XVIII century in Russia was Implemented potatoes which soon outpaced all other vegetables.

One of the features of traditional Russian cuisine is that in the old days almost no vegetables were cut in pieces. They were baked and stewed whole, and almost never mixed with each other.

Perhaps no other traditional kitchen in the world has as much variety of soups as Russian food: borsсht, shie or cabbage soup, soljanka, okroshka and so on. Although the word "soup" till the XVIII century in the Russian language did not exist.

Traditionally Russian cuisine uses not only meat of domestic animals and poultry such as beef, pork, lamb, chicken, but also elk meat, quail, grouse. Russians like to cook meat and poultry in jelly (studen', holodez).

Traditional Russian food include a lot of fish dishes. In the old times one of the most popular ways of cooking fish was roasting whole fish in the dough.

Russian culinary tradition is impossible to imagine without a variety of pastries. Gingerbread, cakes, pies, kurniki, sochniki, kulebyaki, donuts, rolls with various fillings with fish, meat, apples, mushrooms, green onion, - the list is endless. Among other pastry dishes - dumplings and pancakes (blini).

Russian popular traditional food includes dairy products. Cheese, yogurt, sour cream, cheesecakes and cheese casseroles are always on Russian table..

Russian traditional drinks tea, kvas, kissel, morse, compote, and, of course, vodka.

History of Russian cuisine

Tanusha — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 13:30:06 GMT

Russian cuisine is warm and colorful, cherishes old traditions. Due to the large number of meatless dishes it is considered one of the healthiest cuisine in the world. Another feature of Russian cuisine is it's diversity. You will not find so many mouth-watering appetizers, entrees and baking in any other cuisine.

Old Russian table was very simple though. Following the adoption of Orthodoxy, more than half of days in the year was banned meat, dairy products. Only some days of the week the fish was allowed. These rules were observed strictly, so the basis of the diet of our Russian great-grandparents were dishes of fish, mushrooms, cereals, flour, vegetables and berries.

In the era of Peter I traditional Russian cuisine was experiencing a great influence of the German, Dutch and French. Recipes and ways of cooking at that time were borrowed from that countries. Also appliances for modern cooking were replaced: stove with oven, pans, casserole, colanders, skimmers, meat grinders, and others.

On Christmas Eve Russians prepared sochivo - soaked wheat with honey. A main course of the Christmas table was meat: roast suckling pig, goose or duck with apples, homemade sausage, ham and sausage. Cakes with various fillings, sweet sbiten, liqueurs were wide presented for desert.

During Lent one of the main dishes on the table were mushrooms. Shrovetide table was prepared with eggs, dairy products and cheese, as in the old days was called curd. And, of course, pancakes that were symbolizing the sun.

The season in September is called "third-hunt" when different kind of wild mushrooms are boiled, fried, dried and salted for the long winter time. Roasted and salted mushrooms with onion and garlic are good in salads and as a fillings for pirogie. Mushrooms are added in soups, main dishes, served as a side dish to meat and fish dishes.

The most important holiday of the Russian calendar is Easter. The stricted days of the Lent, when it was impossible to have meat, butter, eggs are ended. Russian people decorate Easter eggs and cakes.

In the recent years history of Russian cuisine has had Western European and Eastern growing influence. Zakouski that was native Russian and appeared in Russa in the XVIII century is now international. Zakouski can be found on the menu of many foreign restaurants. This is not surprising because Russian snack table is considered to be the most diverse in the world. Only cabbage dishes account for dozens, not to mention other vegetables. Appetizers includes marinated and pickled mushrooms, cold meat and fish under a variety of sauces.