Tag: yeast (Page 1 of 1)
Yeast Pancakes (Russian Oladi)
September 22nd, 2012 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
Using yeast in batter is pretty common in Russian cuisine. They not only make batter fluffy but gives it a distinctive taste.
Yeast are very picky about temperature: if it is too cold yeast will not start fermenting and if it is too hot yeast will die. Temperature of mixture should be warm and stable.
That is why I usually set my plastic mixing bowl in a cooking pot filled with hot water and I make sure bowl doesn’t touch water so it isn’t too hot to ensure comfortable conditions for yeast to ferment.
Consistency of the oladi batter should be a bit more stiff than kefir. If you fry pancakes and they don’t rise upon frying that may mean the batter is too liquid, to fix it mix in a bit more flour and let batter rise for 10-15 mins before trying again.
Zucchini Pancakes with Sheep Cheese
April 28th, 2012 in Main Dishes, No-meat by Julia Volhina
These are zucchini based vegetable pancakes with a bit of fresh sheep cheese, which can be optional if you don’t like sheep cheese, but to my opinion it benefits a lot to the taste.
You can use zucchini or other kind of summer squash; remove seeds they already formed before cooking.
Vegetable pancakes are good choice for breakfast, brunch or lunch. Serve them warm with sour cream or sour cream and garlic dip how I did.
Kvass (Russian Fermented Rye Bread Drink)
December 3rd, 2011 in Beverages, Non-alcoholic by Julia Volhina
Kvass (kvas, quass) is probably a bit of unusual drink to this part of the globe.
Indeed, if you read ingredients list: dried rye bread, water, sugar and yeast – it probably will not strike you as something delicious. However this is one of soft drinks which is, according to Wikipedia, popular in Eastern Europe countries, especially Russia, since ancient times.
It is not hard to prepare kvass at home: you just need 2 big cooking pots, a funnel, cheese cloth, rye bread (which can be a bit of challenge to find) and about 3 days. Any type of rye bread will work.
I recently discovered good borodinsky bread in nearby european store, we liked it a lot and now buying pretty often. I dice the bread leftovers and heels and dry them for 10-15 mins in oven; that way I always have dried rye bread for the next patch of kvass ready to go when I need it (and I also don’t need to throw bread out).
Prepared kvass can be stored bottled in fridge; serve it as soft drink or use to prepare okroshka soup.
Russian Fried Pies with Meat and Rice Stuffing
October 29th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dishes by Julia Volhina
Fried pies (piroshki/pyrizhky), resembling individual size fried buns of yeast dough with stuffing, are very popular in all countries of ex-USSR. There are many stuffing variations for these: fruity and sweet or savory.
This is recipe for piroshki with boiled meat and rice stuffing – meat left over after preparing broth or soup is usually used to prepare these. And later fried pies can be served together with that soup or broth.
Piroshki are good choice if you need to take food to-go: they don’t require refrigeration to keep them fresh (for 1-2 days).
How to Make Unsweetened Yeast Dough
October 22nd, 2011 in Tips, Advices & How-to by Julia Volhina
Yeast dough is commonly used for baked pies and fried pies/dumplings (pirozhki/pyrizhky).
Slavic cuisine features pies with various sweet and savory stuffing, and they all are usually prepared with dough as simple as this one.
Dough for small pies doesn’t usually require time for rising, you can start assembling them as soon as dough is kneaded: when you are finished with last one – first is ready to to fry/bake.
For whole piece pies you may need to set dough aside for 20-30 mins before cooking to rise.
Sweet Braided Bread
June 11th, 2011 in Desserts by Julia Volhina
I am used to call this kind of braid sweet bread Hala (Хала in russian), however when I was preparing to write this recipe and did a bit of research to make sure I get name right in english, I discovered that real Challah (Hala) doesn’t contain dairy.
Considering this recipe have butter and milk and eggs in it, I didn’t risk to call in challah. After all it is a sweet braid yeast based sourdough bread.
It tastes good by itself and even better with a cup of yogurt or cultured milk (kefir or buttermilk).