Works best with shiitake, you can combine it some other mushrooms – oysters, baby bella, but shiitake is a must.
Small shallot or 1 leak
Heavy cream – 1/2 cup
White wine 1/4 cup
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
2 tbsp of light olive oil + 2 tbsp butter
Directions
Heat your pan with 2 tbsp of light olive oil. Start with frying some mild onions (shallot or leaks) till golden brown
Add your dry clean mushrooms to the pan and let them get golden brown, only after they get that nice crust keep stirring them till they are almost fully cooked.
Add butter, stir and fry mushrooms for another minute
Season with salt and pepper
Deglaze the pan with white wine, reduce the heat and cook for about 5-7 minutes
Add the cream, bring to a boil, cook for about 2 minutes
Check for seasoning, add some nutmeg
Serve hot or warm
Walnut Rugelach
These tender cookies are not just a delicious dessert, but can be a great breakfast as they are packed with protein and not loaded with sugar.
Ingredients:
For the filling:
Walnuts 250 gr
Sugar 90 gr 1/3 cup
1 Egg white
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Optional: lemon zest, pinch of cardamon.
For the pastry:
All purpose flour 220 gr (1 +3/4 of a cup)
Butter 100 gr (cold)
Sour cream 100 gr (1/2 cup)
1 Egg yolk
Baking powder 5 gr (1 tsp)
Pinch of salt
Directions
Finely chop (grind) walnuts in the food processor. You can do it with roller pin, place walnuts in plastic bag, but to small crumbles.
Add sugar, egg white, vanilla extract and mix till everything is well incorporated.
You can also add lemon zest, cardamon, even pinch of chipotle to make it very fragrant
For the dough in a big bowl put your flour, pinch of salt, and pieces of cold butter
Using pastry cutter or a knife cut the butter mixing it evenly with flour till butter is a pea size
Add baking powder, egg yolk, sour cream
Mix dough with your hands, make a roll and put it in the fridge for about an hour
Divide the pastry roll into 3 even parts, do the same with the filling
Take 1 small roll, dust working surface with some flour and roll it to about 12 inch circle sheet
Cut the circle into 8 sectors, with your hands split your 1/3 of filling into 8 parts
Place the filling to the wide end of each sector and make small rolls
Place rolls onto baking sheet covered with parchment paper
Repeat with 2 other parts of dough and filling (you will have 24 crescents)
Put into preheated to 375 °F oven for 35-40 minutes
My favorite snack while cooking – kale chips. Just tear some kale leaves, sprinkle with olive oil, several drops of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper. Add
The most common, popular and loved Russian soup. There is no classical recipe, almost every family has one of its own. Just three mandatory ingredients
I never really knew how my mom cooked borsch. I remember it was a very long process, she boiled whole beet roots with the broth, then shredded cooked beets for which they had to be cooled and then she put them back to the pot. By the time I needed to cook borsch my mother was sick in a hospital, so I asked neighbors and my mom’s friends. I collected and compiled all the advices they gave me, and after several trials developed the recipe of my own. What makes it different – I split the cooking process into two parts: broth (chicken, turkey, beef bone or just vegetable) to which cabbage and potatoes are added and beets/herbs/tomatoes mixture – the essence of borsch flavor, which joins the broth pot in the end. For this mixture I shred raw beets, put it into a separate pan, add a little amount of water, sprinkle it with lemon juice to preserve the color, and cook it with the lid on on medium high heat, so it takes no more than 10 minutes for the beets to be fully cooked. It simplifies the cooking process by a lot, and can be done ahead of time or in parallel and is very fast. There is a minus though – an extra pot to wash.
For 3.5 liters pot (8 servings)
Ingredients:
Medium size beet root, if stems and leaves look good – use them too. In that case the root can be smaller
Onion (for the broth)
Parsnip
Celery
carrots 2 medium size (for the broth)
Sweet pepper
Potatoes – 2 medium
Chili pepper – 1 small (optional)
Big ripe tomato, or a cup of diced tomatoes
Tomato paste – 1tbsp
Cabbage – it should be about a cup when shredded
Garlic – 3-4 cloves
Bay leaf
Parsley
Prepare your vegetablesShred the beetAdd chopped beet stems and leavesBeets cooked through, almost all water evaporatedAdding diced tomatoesAdd parsnip, parsley, sweet and chili pepper
Directions:
Start cooking you broth with usual aromatics (onion carrots, celery), season with salt, pepper, add bay leaf. Cook on medium heat. Make sure you have enough room in the pot for the vegetables.
When broth is ready and meat is cooked add shredded cabbage and diced potatoes. It will take about 10 minutes for the vegetables to cook.
Season with salt, pepper, add bay leaf.
In a separate pan place shredded beat with chopped stems and leaves, add 1/2 cup of water, sprinkle some lemon juice (about 2 tbsp) to preserve the color, cover with the lid and put on medium heat.
It should take about 7-10 minutes for the shredded beets to cook through, but check in 5 minutes and add some water if needed.
Add your other chopped aromatics: sweet pepper, chopped parsnip, chili pepper, parsley.
Cook everything together for 2-3 minutes
Add fresh and/or diced tomatoes, tomato paste or maybe even ketchup, bring the mixture to a boil and take off the heat.
Add the mixture to the pot with broth when potato and cabbage are almost cooked, bring everything to a boil. Check that potatoes are cooked, check for seasoning, add salt/pepper if needed. It should be very fragrant, rich and slightly sour from tomatoes and cabbage.
Turn off the heat, add pureed or smashed garlic, cover the lid, let your borsch rest and the all flavors mix.
Diced potatoes and shredded white and red cabbageUsed turkey leg for the broth
It is one of Russian specialties, a unique combination of tasty and healthy food, loaded with vitamins C and K, iron and fiber and contains probiotics. It is called sour cabbage, and with all due respect to all things German is much better than pale mushy sausage condiment. It makes a great side for anything – chicken, fish, steak or ribs. It can even be a salad of its own, or mixed with some sliced shallots and topped with olive oil. One of my favorite meals when I was a child was mashed potatoes mixed with sour cabbage.
The cabbage should be fermented in its own juice, therefore it has to be green cabbage usually harvested late in fall. Another traditional ingredient is carrots, it contributes more to the color, not so much to flavor. The only important proportion to remember – 30 grams of salt per kilogram of cabbage. The rest is optional
Ingredients:
Cabbage 1 kg (2 lbs)
2 medium carrots
Kosher salt 30 gr
2 garlic gloves (optional)
Caraway seeds 1 tsp (optional)
Directions:
Cut the cabbage into 4 big parts, remove the core
Make sure you weight what will be chopped, the ratio of cabbage to salt is important
Shred the carrots
Chop the cabbage into thin strings, the way you do for the coleslaw
Add salt, caraway seeds, thinly sliced garlic and several red pepper flakes
Place everything into a big bowl
Mix everything with your clean hands, don’t squeeze, just mix to evenly distribute salt, carrots and spices. It is actually tasty right away, somewhat like oversalted coleslaw
You will see that the cabbage starts extracting the juice when salt touches it.
Transfer the mix into a glass jar pressing it tight with a spoon, potato masher or just your fist.
Cover the lid
Let it sit on the counter top for 3 days, check daily, open the lid and let some extra gas to evaporate, but still pressing it is submerged into the juice.
It should be ready in 3-4 days, just taste it – it won’t taste like a coleslaw anymore. It will taste like sour cabbage.
