Book 11 - Chapter 30 - Kurka po Kyivske, Nachyneny Perets, and Pierre the Would-be Assassin

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Culinaria: Russia by Marian Trutter

Nachyneny Perets (Stuffed Bell Peppers)

4 good sized Bell Peppers (I used red, orange, and yellow)
2 carrots, shredded
1 large onion, finely chopped
8 oz white cabbage (leftover from the stuffed cabbage we made earlier), finely chopped
2 tbsp oil
1 cup cooked rice
Dill, salt and pepper to taste
1 cup vegetable stock 

Carefully cut the tops off the peppers and scrape out the insides.  Saute all the vegetables until they are tender.  Mix together with the rice (I suggest cooking your rice in vegetable broth for added flavor, it took a lot of salt to avoid being bland) and fill the peppers, replacing the tops.  Pour the stock into a casserole dish, arrange the peppers so that they are standing up and covered with their tops, cover the dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  

Kurka po Kyivske (Chicken Kiev)

3/4 cup of cold butter
4 thinly sliced chicken breast fillets
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp of flour
1 cup breadcrumbs
2 eggs
Oil for frying


It is most important that you shape your butter into elongated balls and re-chill it before attempting this recipe.  We just put the butter in the freezer and cut it into cubes, I think this made wrapping the chicken around it much harder.  That said, lay out the fillets and pound them into an even thickness, try to ensure that they are as wide as they are long, this will also help to keep the butter in the chicken when you fry it.  Fold the sides of the chicken around the butter, then roll from the long end, tucking in the sides as you go.  Some people use toothpick to keep it in place, we resorted to the ever useful kitchen twine after a few mishaps.  Dip the chicken rolls in flour, then in egg, then in breadcrumbs.  Through some oversight, the ingredients list in the cookbook did not include the breadcrumbs.  We omitted them by accident. I rather think that extra thick batter would have also done a better job of keeping the butter in the fillets.  Chill for 2 hours (another step we skipped, as it was already getting late).

Fry your rolled chicken in superhot oil for about 3 minutes.  This will bubble and pop as all good fried food does, but if, about halfway through, you hear the bubbling and popping increase dramatically, it means that all your butter has leaked out of your chicken.  Don't worry, you will still have tasty fried chicken, it just won't be Chicken Kiev.  We had about a 50% success rate.  

Those chicken rolls which retained their butter were purely delicious.  Cutting into the roll was exciting, because you could sort of hear the butter squishing around and then it turned into a delicious lake on your plate.  All that butter complemented the peppers nicely as well.  Many variations to this recipe add parsley and garlic or other tasty additions to the butter.  I contemplated this, but honestly, the more authentic recipes just call for butter and while it might be nice to experiment, things remain traditions for a reason;  it might not have been healthy, but it was darn good.

Special thanks to kitchen helper Jay for being in charge of the frying after I splashed my finger into the hot oil! Thankfully, my hands were more or less covered in flour and egg, so I wasn't damaged badly, just battered.

About the book:
Our friend Pierre is still roaming around Moscow (which has started to burn!) and he is having grand fantasies about assassinating Napoleon.  I'm not really sure how he thinks he will accomplish this, but he has a knife and a loaded pistol.  We shall see what the future brings to him.

Book 11 - Chapter 22 - Cheese Dumplings, Galushki, Pampushki, and Tosltoy Waxes Melodramatic

Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes: Cooking Around the World: Russian and Polish by Lesley Chamberlain and Catherine Atkinson
Music:  Still Nothing New to Report

Cheese Dumplings

1 cup flour
2 tbsp butter
1/3 cup crumbled feta
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
4 tbsp cold water
Salt and pepper
A pan of salted water (or vegetable broth)


Cut the butter, feta, and dill into the flour using a pastry cutter.  Add water by the tbsp until you have a manageable dough.  Roll the dough into balls and simmer them for 20 minutes.  I used vegetable broth simply because the Galushki had to be boiled in broth and I got confused.  The dumplings tasted really good to me anyway, so I suggest it.   These dumplings can be served in soup but if you are serving them plain, I recommend drizzling with olive oil to keep them from becoming too sticky as they cool.
 

Galushki

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
2 eggs beaten
2 cups vegetable stock
4 oz bacon cooked and crumbled


Cut the butter into the flour, mix in the eggs and knead into a smooth dough.  Wrap in plastic wrap and rest for 30 minutes.  Roll out the dough until it's 1/2 in thick, with your brand new rolling pin (compliments for which were given by no fewer than 2 people in the line at Bed Bath and Beyond - I guess it's a really good one.).  Don't roll it out to 1/4 in thick, realize that's too thin and start over.  Your dough will pick up too much flour, get dried out and, as it turns out, not cook properly.  Once you have it at an optimum 1/2 in on your first try, cut it into 3/4 in squares.  Leave these to dry on a floured towel for 30 minutes then drop them into your stock and simmer for 10 minutes.  Serve with olive oil and crumbled bacon.  If, as mine were, you have overrolled your dough, it will be tasty and bacony on the outside and dry in the middle.  The bacon might entice some of your guests to overlook this.  Others will steal the bacon from the Galushki and put it on their Cheese Dumplings, which is also tasty. 

Pampushki

1/2 lb potatoes peeled and shredded


2 2/3 cup mashed potatoes (don't add anything, just mash the potatoes plain)
1/2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp snipped chives
1/2 cup curd cheese
black pepper
Oil for deep frying


*This recipe uses a lot of cheese cloth*


I have not been able to find curd cheese anywhere.  Maybe if I went to Coney Island, but I haven't yet.  I looked it up online and discovered that it's close to American cottage cheese, only less watery and that you can get something similar by squeezing the liquid through a cheese cloth. I bought the largest tub of cottage cheese at the Pathmark and tried it.  By the end of the experiment, my sink looked like some kind of creamery nightmare scene, but I did have, resting in the cheese cloth, a much reduced but creamier looking cheese.
Mix this with the chives (or scallions if you can't find chives) and set aside.


Again, using your cheesecloth, squeeze out as much liquid as you can from the shredded potatoes.  It will be a lot more potato juice than you expect.  Mix the shredded potato with the mashed potato and salt and pepper. Taking small rounds of this dough flatten out a circle in your palm, fill it with some of the cheese mixture and wrap the potato around it so it forms a ball.  When you are done, don't leave them to await frying, they will eventually turn purple and look less appetizing.  Also, don't put them into the fridge to await frying, because they will be so cold, they will bring the temperature of your oil down and dissolve into mush in the pan (tasty, purplish mush, it must be admitted, but mush all the same).  Use enough oil to cover the dumplings completely (I didn't quite have enough) and heat your oil to well over 340 degrees and drop the balls in so that they do not touch each other (if this happens, it may also cause mush).  Fry them until they are golden brown (or golden purple, as the case may be), remove from the oil, drain them on a paper towel and enjoy.

These were the best snacks of my birthday night.  But nobody really got to try them because I've never cooked in oil before and had a slow learning curve.  The first batch was fried in oil that wasn't hot enough - super mush.  The next single, lonely pampushka was cooked in perfect oil, came out brilliantly and was divided between myself and my 2 kitchen helpers to great applause.  The next batch was too cold and lowered the oil temperature - tasty mush that everyone got to nibble on.  The third and final batch - photo documented here, was made the following night in super hot oil and was delicious, but purple.

And that wraps up the birthday blogs.

About the book:

Remember Natasha Rostova and her brief, splintered love for Anatole Kuragin while she was still engaged to Andrew Bolkonski?  At the battle of Borodino, Andrew was wounded almost to death and brought to the medical tent and who's on the bed next to him having a leg amputated?  Anatole Kuragin.  And how does Andrew react to seeing this man that he wished to duel to the death?  He forgives him in his heart on the eve of what he believes will be his own death.  And to whose house do they bring the wounded Andrew? Natasha Rostova's.  Oh, Tolstoy, couldn't you have resisted the melodrama?

Chapter 9 - Pickled Herring on Toast, Salmon Koulibiac, "Russian Salad," and Apparently Some Russians Drink Rum

Book:  War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Recipes:  Blue Hill Bay Pickled Herring
Trout Koulibiac
Russian Salad

Music:  A Russian Weekend - Various Artists

Pickled Herring on Dark Wheat Toasts

(I did not pickle my own herring)

I bought a jar of Blue Hill Bay Herring Fillets in Wine Marinade and I cut up some Dark Wheat bread and it was delicious.  Interestingly sweet and surprisingly tasty.  After the toast was gone, Samantha was eating it with a fork from the bowl, it was that good.

Salmon Koulibiac

Ingredients:

2 Salmon Fillets

2 Hard Boiled Eggs
1 cup of cooked long grain rice

2 Bunches Green Onion (sliced both white and green portions)

Large bunch of Fresh Dill

1 Lemon (zested and juiced)

Box of Puff Pastry

1 Egg (beaten for glaze)

If you are going out to see some friends at an open mic before dinner and don't want to eat at midnight, I suggest prepping your filling ahead of time.  Add half the dill to the water and steam the salmon for just about 4 minutes.  Don't listen to any web site that says you have to (over)steam your salmon for 10 minutes, it won't ruin it, it just won't be nearly as tasty.  Flake the salmon,  and mix everything together in a big bowl to await your return.  And don't, as I did, forget to boil the eggs, because that will spoil your whole plan for getting that prep work finished ahead of time.  If  you have a faithful kitchen friend named "biscuit Ben," ask him kindly to boil the eggs for you, then crumble them and add them to the mix.  When you are ready to bake, use one sheet of puff pastry for the bottom.  You are supposed to roll it out - I don't have a rolling pin and couldn't use my grandmother's "Vodka bottle as a rolling pin" substitute because my vodka bottle has chocolate drips all over it - so I just oiled a baking dish and threw the sheet in there and that worked fine.  Spread the salmon mixture evenly over the pastry, leaving room at the edges to seal it.  Assemble the top, pressing the edges together and brush with the beaten egg.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown. 

A note about looking for fresh, skinless trout fillets in East Harlem.  Don't bother.  The original recipe called for trout, which I really wanted to try, but there is only one fish market in my neighborhood and no trout to be found and only salmon steaks with the skin on.  I ended up buying frozen fillets in individual sealed packages.  It was fine.

 "Russian Salad"

Ingredients:

2 cartons of grape tomatoes (because they are the only ones that are red right now)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 Vidalia onion

1/2 Cup sour cream

Salt pepper to taste

Slice tomatoes into chunks, press garlic, and chop onion finely. Add sour cream and salt and pepper. Mix well and chill. Let stand long enough for flavors to blend.  If you are not a big onion person, don't add the whole onion, it's really oniony.  But tasty and a nice, creamy accompaniment to our Koulibiac.

Some suggested variations to the Koulibiac:  Sam thought Feta would add nicely to the mix and I think some white sauce or alfredo-style sauce would complement it deliciously.  I think you could use the alfredo sauce especially if you used a regular pie crust, which would give you more of a pot-pie taste to it.  I imagine you could substitute any other sort of shredded meat as well, if you are not a fish lover.  Also, if you have any leftover filling when you are done, I think it would be great mixed up with mayo in pita bread.

About the book:  Apparently, the Russian aristocracy was even more "French" than I realized.  At one point, an awkward son of our social grasper wished to tell a story at a party and insisted on it being spoken in Russian, but he spoke haltingly "as a Frenchman might, who'd lived in Russia for a year."  I also read about the other son, Anatole, who was a "rake" about town and threw drunken card parties every night before visiting the brothels.  He had a friend who made a bet that he could climb out on the roof, drink an entire bottle of rum (not vodka!) without taking the bottle away from his lips and without holding on to anything for support.  He won his bet and he might be a quite charming addition to some of our more raucous, modern fraternity parties.

The set up of the story right now is that all the proper people are anti-Napoleon and have staying in their midst a "true" emigre from France.  Who seems to be staying there only until the Bourbon restoration comes out on top.  These folks have his and her coachmen to assist with capes and jackets, and twiddle their time away at parties praising the Czar and his family and cursing the revolutionaries.  A few "uncivilized" young persons advocate for Napoleon,  but so far they have been quickly muffled up by empty pleasantries and overzealous hostesses who speak too much French.  NB:  It is only to the revolutionaries that Pierre (a half-Italian illegitimate son) is know as Pyotr. 

About the music:  The nutcracker suite is not suggested eating music.  I believe all the comments were to the effect of "I feel as though I have to eat faster!"  We had to skip ahead to the Borodin in order to enjoy a relaxing tune with our meal.