EnjoyYourCooking

My Homemade Food Recipes & Tips

Tag: flour (Page 6 of 8)

Russian Kefir Pancakes (Oladi)

August 28th, 2010 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Russian Kefir Pancakes (Oladi)

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.

Fried Cauliflower Florets

August 21st, 2010 in Sides by Julia Volhina
Fried Cauliflower Florets

According to Wikipedia, cauliflower is low in fat, high in dietary fiber, folate and vitamin C. And I think that positions cauliflower as a nutritional vegetable and important part of the daily diet.

My mom boils florets first and then fries with flour and eggs. I like taste of cauliflower fried this way more than just boiled, it is less watery, also eggs and flour bring up a nice addition to taste.

By the way, flour can be replaced with finely ground breadcrumbs, tastes good this way as well. I prefer using bread breading I prepare myself, rather than breading mixtures.

Simple Cake with Sour Cream Frosting

June 5th, 2010 in Desserts by Julia Volhina
Simple Cake with Sour Cream Frosting

Yuriy had his birthday 2 weeks ago, so I decided to cook him a cake. Somehow we ended up eating whole cake just by ourselves; so we will need to work out more now 🙂

I’ve used this simple recipe of homemade cake which is very popular in Russia and other countries of ex-USSR. Because of the sour cream frosting it is often called “smetannik”, which basically mean “made of sour cream” in russian.

If you decide to make this cake – make sure you have enough time to let sour cream to soak to into each layer of the cake after it is assembled; 6-8 hours are usually enough. If you prepare cake a night before you are going to serve it and then put to fridge – it is even better.

Fresh Cheese Dumplings (Varenyky with Cheese)

April 17th, 2010 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Fresh Cheese Dumplings (Varenyky with Cheese)

Varenyky with fresh cheese (perogies or vareniki or vareniky with fresh cheese) is one of the traditional Ukrainian dishes for dumplings. You will need fresh white cow milk cheese (quark) to prepare those, which can be a bit hard to find (try some east european store, if that is the case).

To your taste, you can make these dumplings sweet (by adding sugar to cheese) or savory (skip sugar in the filling all together); either kind will taste great with sour cream.

Prepared not boiled fresh cheese dumplings can be frozen up and boiled when you need them; which makes them perfect food for lunch. Boiled dumplings maybe be stored in a fridge and warmed up by frying with a bit of butter over moderate heat.

How to Prepare Dough for Dumplings

April 10th, 2010 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
How to Prepare Dough for Dumplings

Usually to prepare dumplings you need just 3 things: dough, stuffing and inspiration.

Below you will find simplest recipe for dumplings dough: only water, salt, all purpose flour and some time for kneading are needed to prepare it. And because there is no egg included this dough tastes soft and tender.

As for stuffing it is all up to you, you may cook dumplings filled with one or multiple kinds of minced meat or fish (such as “pelmeni” or “manty”) or “varenyky” / “vareniki” or “pierogi” which are filled with sweet (various berries or fresh cheese with sugar) or savory (sautĂ©ed cabbage/ sauerkraut, potatoes, potatoes and mushrooms, potatoes and fresh cheese) stuffing.

And as for inspiration – I can’t really advice you anything here, but since you are reading this post and decided to cook dumplings, I believe you’ve already found yours.

Deruny (Potato Pancakes)

February 6th, 2010 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Deruny (Potato Pancakes)

Potato pancakes, prepared from fresh chopped or grated potatoes, onions, eggs and flour, are commonly associated with various cuisines of Europe. In Ukraine they are called “deruny”, in Russia and Belarus “draniki”; similar recipes can be found in Polish, German, Austrian, Czech cuisines.

Potato pancakes are usually a main no meat dish for lunch or breakfast; it tastes good topped with sour cream or mushroom sauce.

Even though potato pancakes are good enough as a separate dish, they can be also served as a side dish for vegetable or meat main dish course.

Madeleines (Petite Butter Cakes)

December 26th, 2009 in Desserts by Julia Volhina
Madeleines (Petite Butter Cakes)

It is easy to fell in love with those little butter cakes the first time you try them: it is exactly what happened to me :), I had to find the recipe. And then I’ve got hooked: every time I have extra 30 mins and a mood for baking – I am preparing madeleines.

Apart of eggs, butter, flour and a few other ingredients you will also need madeleine baking pan (madeleine molds) to prepare those french sponge cakes. Internet says they exist in two sizes: bigger and smaller.

I’ve spend quite some time before I finally found bigger ones in Williams-Sonoma, I was also lucky they appeared to be nonstick ones. By the way if you cook in small size molds – reduce cooking time to about 6 mins.

With ingredients described in this recipe will get you about 24 madeleines, enough for 2 baking forms with molds of bigger size. If you want more just double or triple the amounts.