Book 8 Chapter 15 - A Giant Bag of Frozen Pierogies, Stone Imperial Russian Stout, Lamb Plov, and Natasha Rostova is a Fool

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Recipes:  Mrs. T's Pierogies
Stone Imperial Stout
Cooking Around the World: Russian and Polish by Lesley Chamberlain and Catherine Atkinson


Music: Prokofiev - War and Peace

Mrs. T's Frozen Pierogies

We baked them, then fried them in olive oil and served them with the requisite sour cream.  They were a little dry; I think because of the baking.  Next time I will steam them and then fry them in butter.  

For a giant bag (it was the only one they had in the freezer section and it was also on sale) of mass marketed frozen Pierogies, they could have been worse.  I most certainly would have done better to head to a Russian or Polish store and get some fresh ones.  Very soon I will be purchasing a rolling pin and assembling a crack team of Pierogie stuffers and making my own.

Stone Imperial Russian Stout

10.5% Alcohol by volume.  Allegedly brewed in the style of the Czars who liked their beers dark, it's thick, rich, and delicious.  And too much of a good thing will knock you on your ass (just ask Sam).  

Lamb Plov 

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup prunes

1  tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp butter

1 large onion chopped

1 lb cubed lamb fillet

8 oz ground lamb

2 cloves crushed garlic

2 1/2 cups vegetable or lamb stock

1/2 cups long grain rice

Large pinch of saffron

salt and pepper to taste

Put the raisins and prunes in a bowl with just enough water to cover them and add the lemon juice.  Set this aside and start browning the onions and garlic in butter.  Add the meats and brown them for 5 minutes.  If you are like me, and you can't, apparently read, you may have over purchased the ground lamb and gotten a full pound instead of just 8 ounces.  This will not ruin your recipe, but will make it much richer and meatier.  Stir in 2/3 cup of the stock; bring to a boil then cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 1 hour or until lamb is tender.  I used the remaining Vegetable Better than Bouillion that I managed to scrape out of the jar. After the hour has passed, add the remaining broth, saffron, and rice, bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until rice is tender.  If you live near the 125th St.  Pathmark in Harlem, you already know how huge it is, and that it has a ton of odd products you might not find anywhere else in the neighborhood as well as a reputation for 20-30 minute wait times at the register.  You may also know (as I do... now.) that it does not sell vegetable stock in any form that's not the Lipton Onion Soup and Recipe Mix that my grandma always made into French Onion Dip for the Super Bowl.  I had to use this soup in my recipe and cut out the extra salt.  I also used brown basmati rice which takes a lot longer to cook than regular rice and which absorbs liquid a bit differently I think.  Following these adaptations, your Plov will be more saucy and a little darker brown than the picture in the cookbook. When your brown rice is finally cooked, add the raisins and prunes right at the end, and heat through.  Serve with some kind of green vegetable that was not indigenous to Russia, but which will prevent you from being bored with all this brown food.  I used plain steamed broccoli and the combination of flavors (and a little color on the plate) paired very well. 

About the book:  Nataly Rostov is a fool.  A fool in love with love who is about to attempt an elopement with one of the biggest liars and womanizers in Moscow.  I liked her character when she was engaged to Andrew Bolkonski; she was a young girl learning to be a woman and she was interested in being intelligent and cultured for Andrew.  Now that she is about to throw him over for Anatole Kuragin, I almost don't even want to read about her.  She is obsessed with his obvious pleasure in her beauty which means she is really just obsessed with herself.  He has written her two letters and met her about four times. He is already secretly married to some country peasant woman he compromised whose father apparently caught up with him.  He didn't even write her the first love letter; Bergerac-style, he got his friend to write it for him.  

What is most interesting is the way in which Tolstoy captures that hysterical nature of a stubborn woman who is bent on doing something she knows is stupid but who cannot stop herself.  She was screaming at her friend "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" She is clearly afraid to hear the truth about Anatole, which is that he's a bastard.  

About the music:  The opera, of course, cuts out so much of the book.  I've never heard a Russian opera before, but it's not that much different from most of the others.  And of course, I read all the song titles and now I'm curious to know whether Natasha and Andrew get back together before the end, or whether a bunch of Natasha's loves die in the burning of Moscow. 

Book 8 Chapter 8 - Kapusta and This Recipe Was So Vile I Don't Even Want to Talk About the Book

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Recipes: Kaputsa

Kaputsa 

2 lbs. sauerkraut

1 med. onion

1/2 head cabbage, shredded

1 med. Granny Smith apple

10 slices thick bacon

1 can beef broth

1 tbsp. brown sugar

4 tbsp. bacon grease (opt.)

  

Cut bacon into small pieces and fry until crisp. Put sauerkraut and shredded cabbage into electric fry pan. Dice apple and onion and add to sauerkraut and cabbage. Bring to a simmer for 1 hour, adding water as it simmers. At this point, add the fried bacon, grease, brown sugar and broth. Simmer for 1 hour. Always add water right from the start and as you go along. This is important so that the Kapusta won't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. Also, be sure to stir the mixture during cooking.

Or you could just not cook it at all.  I haven't made food that needed be thrown out immediately since Natalie and I tried to make a vegetarian casserole in 2000.  What a waste of a good pork soup stock...

I haven't read any of the book or listened to any new music.  I was too traumatized by my Kapusta to be interested in much else. 

Book 8 Chapter 8 - Roast Loin of Pork with Apple Stuffing, Cucumber Salad, Apricot Treat, and War Is Just Chance and Revisionist History

Book:  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes:  Cooking Around the World: Russian and Polish by Lesley Chamberlain and Catherine Atkinson


Music: Nechjotnyj Voin 2 - A collection of Russian Rock Music (Various Artists)

 Cucumber Salad

2 cucumbers scored with a fork to make them pretty and sliced thinly
1 cup sour cream
White wine vinegar (to taste)
Salt and pepper to taste
Chopped fresh dill to taste
(there really were measurements that came with these ingredients but I couldn't even taste the vinegar when I put in the minimal 2 tbsps - I just kept sprinkling it in until it tasted good to me)



Mix all ingredients in a bowl and chill for at least an hour

Roast Loin of Pork with Apple Stuffing

4 lb boned Pork Loin
1 1/4 cup Dry Cider 
2/3 cup Sour Cream
1 1/2 tsp Sea Salt


For the Stuffing:
2 tbsp Butter
1 onion chopped finely
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 apples cored, peeled, and chopped finely
1/2 cup raisins (I used the Sun Maid mixed bag)
Finely grated rind of one orange
Pinch of ground cloves

The recipe is adapted from a roast suckling pig which is, according to the authors, a big hit at all the best Russian parties.  The recipe very clearly calls for the rind to be still on the pork loin.  Good luck trying to find that combination without a specialty butcher.  I opted for a pork shoulder with the bone still in it.  I first had to hack the bone out of the center of the meat, leaving a nice hole to fill with stuffing.  Of course, if you can find a loin cut with the rind, you should just cut a neat, not ragged, pocket into the center in order to fit the stuffing in.  Saute the onions in the butter, add the other ingredients (it will be a little dry at first but will cook in very nicely).  Stuff the meat, tie it off with kitchen twine, but if, after tearing apart your kitchen and living room, you still can't find your kitchen twine, I'm sure it's acceptable to use embroidery floss instead (I used the white color, just to be on the safe side of any dyes). It says to score the rind with a very sharp knife, but I guess my sharpest knives were not up to the task so it went unscored. Mix the hard cider and the sour cream or you could just use a Yuengling if that's handy and the hard cider is not. I think straight hard cider would have been tastier (Special thanks to Jay for carrying over the hard pear cider before getting my message about no longer needing it! It's yummy all by itself, I promise.).  Put the pork rind-side down into the liquid mix and bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Flip it over and baste with the juices and cook for an hour, basting again at the half hour mark.  Then turn the oven temperature down to 350 and cook another 1 1/2 hours or until the juices run clear and the crackling is crisp and crackly.Wrap the pork in aluminum foil and let it rest for 20 minutes before carving.

Apricot Treat

1 cup dried apricots
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup almonds
1/3 cup chopped candied orange peel and 3 tbsp of water - (OR the juice from the orange that you pulled the rind off earlier when you made your pork stuffing - if you can't find candied orange peel in Harlem)
Whipping cream, to serve
Cinnamon to sprinkle on the whipping cream


Drop it all into a food processor, blend it up till forms a nice sticky paste and then roll it into a log.  Slice it up and lay it out on the plate all pretty with it's whipped cream and decorative cinnamon.  

Dinner was delicious, the pork was very tender, the leftover beer/sour cream mixture cooked down into a tasty gravy, the stuffing was raisin/applicious, and the cucumber was an excellent accompaniment.  Folks were eating seconds and begging for more.  The begging part is an exaggeration, but there were second helpings.

  Dessert was a nice, not too sweet "treat."

We also finished the last of the chocolate vodka so I will be considering revised recipes in the near future.

About the Book:  War is depressing.  We know this.  But I've never read a book that so clearly captured the arbitrary nature of war so well as this one. I think, beyond the marriage mania and lasting romantic figures, it is the descriptions of the war that make this novel so gripping.  There are so many careless mistakes recorded and happy accidents and tragic oversights.  And everyone is so much more concerned with how they will come out looking that they have no care for what is right, what is logical, or what is necessary.

There are miscommunications that happen at every turn and while they are looking for one major, he is getting the word that he should meet the generals elsewhere.  Cowardice prevents people from sounding the retreat and a whole left flank is left to die not knowing that they should have withdrawn hours ago.  A cannon company is left with no covering troops through cowardice and desertion and the French are afraid to attack it because they think no fool would leave their cannon uncovered; Napoleon's general assumes that if they go near it they will be overwhelmed by reserves.  Those cannons give the Russians their first partial victory over the French, but the leader of that crew is blamed and almost taken down in rank for "losing 2 cannons." Only a chance comment from another office saves his rank.
 
Based on this retreat/victory they want to take the offensive to Napoleon.  They decry an old soldier for not wanting to attack Napoleon because he refuses to take Napoleon for granted.  When it becomes clear that they are going to lose, the architect of the plan keeps his own regiment out of the battle.  He doesn't fight.  The opposing General leads his troops in faithfully (regardless of the fact that he and all his aides know it is a death march) and he is wounded almost to death.  He is blamed, along with the Austrians, and the young man who stays out of it is decorated for having the foresight to keep his troops together and alive. This is the battle of Austerlitz.

It is amazing to me that a war can take place at all.  Forget about the fear of the men or the grenades and grapeshot and cannon fire.  It's amazing to me that the armies can even get that many men to the right battlefield in the first place or keep them going on short rations and no shoes.

About the music:  My first encounter with Russian Rock. Some of it's good and alternative sounding.  Some of it's terrible and thrashy.  Some of it's electronica and not too bad.

Book 2 - Chapter 1 - Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake and How to Behave at a Funeral

Book:  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipe:  Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake
Music:  Russian Classical Guitar for 7 and 6 String Guitars - Andrei Krylov

Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake

For The Dough
2 sticks room temperature butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder (we used baking soda - worked just as well)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
3 1/4 – 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For The Apples
10 McIntosh apples (the ones we found were a bit small - I suggest larger apples or more if you want a lot of filling)
Squirt of fresh lemon juice
1 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Mix together all the ingredients for the apples and set aside.  I use less sugar than is called for because I don't like my desserts too sweet.  The recipe claims that you can use just about any type or mixture of apple, but again, for the tartness, I chose the McIntosh.

Cut the sugar into the butter for the dough.  If you do not have a pastry cutter or have left yours at home and are baking at a friend's house, you can get just as good results using a fork.  Add the eggs, baking (soda?) powder and salt, and slowly cut the flour into the mixture.  This was the part of the process where I thought about the standing mixer which was offered to me, and which I declined for lack of counter space.  As the dough thickens with flour, if you do not have any kind of electric mixer, I find it's best to just get messy and mix it with your hands. This is an interesting dough, not as dry as pie crust and not as wet as cake batter.  Use your judgment when adding flour; it is supposed to be able to be formed into a ball, and dry enough that it will not stick to the edges of the bowl.  I think I made mine a little stickier than the recipe called for and had to scrape the edges of my bowl with my fingers.  Chill in the fridge for about half an hour.  

Before you are ready to bake, you are supposed to divide the dough ball in half and roll it out into two uniform rectangles. .  As before, with my fish pie, I still do not have a rolling pin, nor would it have served me, as it would have been back at home with the pastry cutter in any event.  A suggestion was made to use a drumstick to roll it out, but was rejected out of hand; my grandma's old liquor bottle trick would not have worked either, as my friends drink whiskey out of square bottles. We ended up splitting the dough in half, pressing the bottom crust into a well buttered pan with our hands, dumping in the apples, and flattening the rest of the dough with our palms into little pancakes in an attempt at uniform thickness.  These we pressed on top of the apples.  When asked, "do you think it will look like the picture?" It's possible that I scoffed at the entire project.  


Bake in an oven that is preheated to 375 degrees, set a timer for 60 minutes (as the recipe claims) and sit back to drink hot mulled wine, watch the snow fall, and listen to Bloomburg state quite clearly that you have to return to work the following day.  After about 15 or 20 minutes, you may experience that wonderful baking moment when the whole apartment starts to smell delicious and you know your apple pie-cake is almost finished.  This will be followed by a moment of panic as you realize the pie-cake is supposed to bake another 40 minutes at least.  I pulled it out, tested it, and it was cooked through.  Sometimes recipes lie, I guess.  Use your nose and a toothpick.

We served this as dessert after a vodka marinated steak and a repeat artichoke dish (minus the walnuts in the sauce).  The vodka was a bit strong on the steak, the artichokes are a lot of work to eat, and I'm not convinced at all that either recipe was authentically Russian. 

The best part was dessert.  Making this on a snowy day (when you have unexpectedly been granted a day off from teaching) is the best spice I suggest adding to the recipe.  But, trekking out into the snow to buy the ingredients and dealing with your boots, and umbrella, and mittens, and scarf, and parka, and hat might account for why I forgot to pick up baking powder and had to settle on baking soda instead.  It was delicious. In fact, although a little dry for dessert that night, the leftovers apparently had time to absorb more the of apple juices, and for breakfast the next day it was perfect.

 

Special Thanks to Jay and Ben for taking such good food photos!

About the Book:  Class and eligible matches make up so much of the peacetime activities of this book that  social climbing should be made into an Olympic sport.  Mothers and even fathers, will scrupple at nothing to increase their own portion through the crafty placement of their children.  In the matter our nearly villainous Vasili Kuragin, he is actually willing to destroy the will of his dying relative Count Bezhukov in order that the estate should not fall into the hands of Bezhukov's illegitimate son Pierre.  Anna Mikhaylovna wants Pierre to inheret the estate so that he will give money to her son, and also to stop Kuragin from getting it.  Bezhukov's unwed eldest (and legitimate) daughter, is just pissed off that in no way is anything significant going to fall to her.  

How do you behave at a funeral?  While the man is dying, and the priests are performing last rites, and the genuinely and the falsely grieving are gathered together, ready to pounce on the dying man's corpse, the daughter and Kuragin lift his portfolio from under his dying head, intending to destroy his will.  They are intercepted by Anna who actually tries to wrestle the portfolio from the daughter's hands.  A struggle ensues which is only broken up by the anticipated death.  Anna wins.  However, at no point does any one call out or raise their voice.  At no point does anyone throw Anna out, or Kuragin, or wonder why such a struggle is taking place in the doorway of a dying man's room.  Almost entirely, the meeting is carried out with the utmost of manners, except for the daughter, who looses her temper and calls Anna a horrible woman, and that, only when she realizes she has lost her father's will.  

Not to fret though, despite Pierre's inheriting the estate, all is not lost for Vasili Kuragin, he manages to get Pierre engaged to his own daughter, a beautiful vamp girl with no regard for Pierre or anyone but herself, and so, in the end, though it's hinted that Anna and her son profit something from Pierre, it is Kuragin who is best placed after all.  Boris, Anna's son, is left to forge his own path in finding a rich wife, a task which takes him from Petersburg to Moscow.  

Of course, though these children are expected to marry whom their parents choose, (some give the final choice to the child) the children are under no obligation to love, esteem, or remain faithful to their chosen partners.  Helene Kuragin, for example, hates Pierre, and cheats on him with any number of men, including (get ready for the interlacing drama!) Boris, Anna M's strggling-to-get-rich son.  Life continues much as it has for thousands of years, I imagine.  The only  break to the monotony of marriage trials are the wars, which I will take up in a later post. 

About the music:  Still delightful.

Chapter 11 - Stuffed Artichokes and Kotmis Satsivi (Chicken in Walnut Sauce) and Rich Russian Mothers Indulge Their Sons Way Too Much

Book:  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes:  Stuffed Artichokes
Kotmis Satsivi

Music:  Russian Classical Guitar for 7 and 6 String Guitars - Andrei Krylov

Stuffed Artichokes

2 Artichokes
Sour Cream (about 1 cup)
Zest of 1 Lemon
Juice of 1/2 Lemon
Salt to Taste
About a cup of crushed nuts

The recipe is in kilograms and grams and I was too lazy to translate it.  I was also a bit afraid the lemon would curdle the sour cream, but it was delicious.  I have no really funny stories about this cooking experience, it was smooth sailing the whole way.  First, cut the stems from the bottom of the artichokes so that they will stand up straight.  Cut the tops off so that you can rip their little hearts out later.  Steam them for about 20 minutes.  I'm not sure this is an accurate time, mine came out with softened architecture (didn't stand up for the stuffing) but like all lady killers, the hearts were a little tougher than I hoped they would be.  While they are steaming, pulverize some nuts in a food processor.  I used walnuts because that's what I had for the chicken recipe, but I imagine almonds or just about anything else would have worked fine.  Maybe not peanuts.  Mix the sour cream, lemon zest and juice, and pulverized nuts.  When the Artichokes are sufficiently softened up, rip their little hearts out and stuff your nuts inside.  This is the best way to create yet another generation of heartless little bastards with prickly outsides.  I am still talking about cooking.  I guess that's what Julie Powell was getting at with all her sexual imagery.  It's just too easy. Once you are finished being a misogynist, serve the artichokes warm and dip the petals in the sour cream mixture.  

 Kotmis Satsivi

For the Chicken:
5 Chicken Thighs
4 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

For the Sauce:
1/4 Cup Minced Onion
2 Cloves Garlic
1 Tablespoon Flour
1 1/2 Cups of Chicken Bouillion
2 Tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
1/8 Teaspoon of Cloves
Pinch of Saffron
Cinnamon and Cayene Pepper to taste 
Bay Leaf
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3 ounces of shelled walnuts, pulverized

Rinse and dry the chicken (Julia Child Style) melt the butter and heat oil - brown the chicken for 5 minutes on both sides, then cover and simmer for another 15 minutes or until cooked through.  


Meanwhile, back on the Farm (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Style), melt butter and saute onions and garlic in a saucepan.  Add flour until a paste forms.  Add bouillion and bring to a boil until a thick sauce forms.  Add spices - you can make this as spicy as you please - "it's possible" that my kitchen helper "didn't measure the cinnamon and cayenne." I loved it.  Add salt and walnuts.  Keep warm until chicken is done.  

 

The dish was amazing despite the collapsed infrastructure of the artichokes and the tough hearts (pictured here as a pile of greenery).  And my kitchen helper was fantastic and for somebody who claims she can't cook, did a great job of making the sauce entirely unaided.  I think this whole "I can't cook" thing is a fib.

 

About the Book:  During our discussion, Ashley and I spoke about the fact that we both hadn't read very much since the last time we talked about reading.  We also spoke about the fact that it was interesting how the Czarists had a "true" French emigree staying with them and the radicals had an Englishman and a baby bear staying with them.  In the chapter after the rum drinking party I blogged earlier, we find out that our little delinquents have actually taken the bear, strapped it to the back of a local cop, and thrown the two together into the canal.  One of the mothers was listening on silently while everyone was discussing her son's shocking exploits but it's clear that they aren't very shocked and a few seem to think it's a darn funny scene.  

Curiously, if I'm not wrong, the bear is a symbol for Russia.  In this case, a young bear is being made into a clown for the amusement of some young, very drunk radicals who have since been kicked out of St Petersburg and been forced to move on to Moscow.  Interesting symbolism.

About the music:  Soothing guitar.  Lots of quick strumming and plucking.  I'm entranced by it and have no idea which is for 7 or which for 6 string guitars.