Category: Main Dishes (Page 24 of 29)
Meatballs with Carrot-Tomato Sauce
September 4th, 2010 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Russian meatballs (or “tefteli” how they are called in Russia) are prepared from ground beef and rice mix and cooked under some kind of sauce. They usually have big size (1 or 2 meatballs is enough for a serving).
This is a recipe for “tefteli” my mom uses: big meatballs, dipped into flour, then fried over in some oil and cooked with vegetable sauce (carrots, tomatoes, onions and dill) until ready.
I’ve modified recipe a bit to use freshly pureed tomatoes instead of tomato paste. However, if you don’t have fresh tomatoes under your hands, you can use canned tomatoes or tomato paste diluted with water.
Boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes are usually the first choice of side dish for tefteli for me, boiled buckwheat or pasta work good too.
Russian Kefir Pancakes (Oladi)
August 28th, 2010 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Oladi, or thick pancakes prepared from kefir based batter, is traditional russian breakfast food. Batter is easy to assemble and whole dish doesn’t take much time to cook.
Kefir gives a distinguishing taste to oladi, but it probably can be replaced with buttermilk in case you are having troubles finding kefir.
Oladi can be served plain or with some kind of a topping: jam, syrop or honey, as well as fresh fruits. I love oladi with sour cream.
French Toasts with Cheese
July 31st, 2010 in Eggs, Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
French toasts are easy to do and very tasty. They fit perfectly for breakfast or brunch, or as a quick to prepare snack.
It is good to use not so fresh, 2 or 3 days old bread for french toasts. However it you only have fresh bread – just dry slices of it in the toster for a bit, it will make preparation easier.
French toasts can be served plain or with various topping: honey, berry jams or syrups. I prefer them topped with shredded cheese or mix of cheeses.
Lasagna with Beef and Vegetables
July 17th, 2010 in Beef, Main Dishes, Pasta by Julia Volhina
Several weekends ago, when I asked Yuriy what should we prepare for dinner, I got an answer – lasagna, and I was intimidated a bit – I never prepared lasagna before. So I spent some time in internet researching recipes and found several I liked. I’ve combined them, added some touch to my taste and prepared this lasagna.
This was my first attempt to make lasagna. And main challenge for me was to properly prepare noodles: according to the instructions on the pack they required boiling before using. I’ve added 2 tablespoons of oil to the boiling water and was boiling them layer by layer and it totally helped to prevent noodles from sticking while boiling.
This lasagna turned out perfectly: balanced combination of meat and vegetables (just how I like it), noodles were very tender, it was totally worth all the time I’ve spend boiling them, getting out of water and trying arrange them in the pan.
Potato Roast with Vegetables
July 10th, 2010 in Main Dishes, No-meat, Sides by Julia Volhina
Summer is here and summer is a perfect time to enjoy vegetables it brings along.
Bell peppers, eggplants, potatoes roast together with olive oil based dressing with garlic and herbs can be a perfect dish on their own as well as a side dish to meats or poultry.
Once veggies are all sliced and mixed with dressing (can be prepared in advance), it takes about an hour to roast them in the oven.
Roasting doesn’t require much of attention, just stirring from time to time. So I consider this dish easy to prepare.
Macaroni with Ground Boiled Beef
July 3rd, 2010 in Beef, Main Dishes, Pasta by Julia Volhina
Lots of recipes require using clear soup (meat broth, stock), however not all of them also require boiled meat which is often used to prepare meat broth. So the question is, are there any good recipes which actually require boiled meat and no broth?
This is one of them: russian pasta with ground boiled beef and fried onions (btw, it is called “makarony po-flotski” in Russia; I have no idea why, but we always called this dish so).
Any “al dente” kind of pasta will work here: I’ve used penne, just read instructions on the pack and cook them accordingly. You may also vary proportion of meat to pasta to taste.
Baked Egg Omelette
June 12th, 2010 in Eggs, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Egg omelette with ham or canadian bacon and vegetables is a nice breakfast dish. It takes more than an hour to prepare, but it totally worth it.
Unlike most of other omelettes which are usually fried eggs with some other ingredients, this one is prepared by baking them in the oven.
It is a bit hard to tell exact baking time for this dish – it depends a lot on the size of the baking pan you use (both size and material it is made of) and amount of ingredients: my advice would be to test omelette with wooden toothpick (pierce it through from top to bottom and remove it) – if it does come out clean – baked omelette is ready.