An overview of the Russian diet

A perfect Russian lunch

Anyone who's been following my instagram feed knows that I eat a lot of Russian food, especially in our cafeteria at lunch. And I'm a big fan of institutional food, with fond memories of chicken fried steak in the cafeteria at my elementary school. But Russian cafeterias are something else. First of all, pre-made frozen foods are just about unheard of. Every day, someone is peeling potatoes, grinding cuts of meat, and making soup from scratch. Then, there's the Russian meal structure. You start with a "salad", which can be anything from fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, to a mayonnaise-heavy potato salad, to boiled tongue. Next is the "first course": soup. In the summer, we have cold soups with kvass, but there are also hot soups. My favorite is solyanka, which has cured meats, pickles, and olives. Soup almost always has some sour cream as a garnish. Then, the "second course": the entree. Usually, some sort of meat. At our cafeteria, we have beef goulash, cutlets made from ground meat shaped into patties, or pieces of chicken or pork with cheese and tomato on top. And then you need a "garnish", the carb: potatoes, pasta, rice, or my favorite, buckwheat. Sometimes there are golubtsy, stuffed cabbage rolls, or stuffed peppers. Or an "omelet" which is just baked eggs. Then you need a drink: compote from berries, or tea, and something sweet: a pirozhok or some other baked good. The cafeterias are also very cheap, compared to cafes or restaurants, and really just as healthy and filling. 

Preservatives and artificial coloring are making their way to Russia, but you can go a long way without getting any. This means that what you buy at the store has a much shorter shelf life, though. Sometimes it seems that even the fresh vegetables I buy don't last as long in the fridge as I would expect them to in the States. But, I figure this just means that things have been grown with fewer pesticides (honestly, I could be really off here...), and that nothing has been treated to increase the use-by date.

A full Russian breakfast at our hotel in St. Petersburg

I live on my own, which means I don't have a Russian host mother forcing large breakfasts down my throat every morning. I kind of miss that, since I don't have it in me to buy pounds of tvorog (Russian cottage cheese, which is actually nothing like ours), mix it with jam and pure sugar, make bliny in the morning, and slather bread with butter. I've even stopped buying my favorite breakfast food, kolbasa (Russian "sausage", like lunchmeat meets salami) to avoid extra fat and calories. Sometimes I'll make oatmeal, but from whole oats, or have a boiled egg. Often I'm running late or not that hungry, so I have a yogurt drink. Seriously, why isn't there more drinkable yogurt in the US? But a breakfast staple is still bread with cheese on top. (I actually usually buy Lithuanian cheese...more nostalgia.)

Dinner is a much lighter affair than in the US, especially when you consider what people eat for lunch. I rarely buy meat here, just because I don't know the names of the cuts, and worry about using it fast enough. So, I often make buckwheat with mushrooms, and have that with some fresh vegetables. Or, if I'm feeling particularly lazy, I boil some pel'meni, the dumplings that came from Siberia but are as Russian as cabbage soup. I prefer them with sautéed onion and garlic, with some sour cream and even vinegar. They're sold by the kilo in the freezer section, and are ready in 10 minutes. Plus, they're delicious.

My plov

Last night, I was feeling a little braver in the kitchen, and decided to make plov, a sort of rice pilaf that comes from Central Asia. I started with a spice packet, and followed the recipe on the back. 2 cups of rice, 500g of meat (I went with pork shoulder, but I guess lamb is most traditional in Uzbekistan), 250g of carrots, 2-3 onions, and 3/4 C of oil (I used 1/2 C and it's still plenty greasy). You heat the oil, brown the meat, add the chopped onions and carrots (cut into matchsticks). Then, add 4 C water, and the spice packet. It's a mix of cumin, turmeric, garlic, peppers, coriander, etc. Once that boils, add the rice, but don't mix. Cover and boil until the rice absorbs all the water. Then, you make deep holes in the rice mixture and fill those with water. Cover and cook for another 20 minutes. Man, was that delicious. Some people add dried apricots, or nuts, or roasted garlic. Like any national dish, there's as many versions as there are people.

Part of the inspiration to cook something a little more intense is that my friend invited herself and a Russian friend over to my house for dinner sometime in the future. Since I haven't been cooking all that much, I'm a little skeptical of my skills right now. So, the plov was a success. And then I got the inspiration for what to serve when I host dinner later this week: golubtsy. Stay tuned...