Frozen Strawberries

Old habits die hard...I'm saying it because I recall my childhood in Russia and I remember that every summer every Russian family was canning like crazy in order to have something to eat over the cold winter season. That's why every summer I get "Canning Rush". Even living in America now and having fresh fruit and vegetable available all year around at store, I get this urge felling in summer that I need to do some canning. So, that was my preface, now see my effort and recipe for....Frozen Strawberries!

I already have strawberry jam, so I decided to do something different. Frozen strawberries sounded like not a bad idea. All you need is 7 C. sugar and 4 C. water and enough strawberries to fill up you containers. I had 4 big cases of strawberries and it gave me about 4 liters of mashed syrup.

First, mix water and sugar together and bring it to boil and then let it cool down completely.

Clean and prepare enough strawberries for containers you have at hand. I sorted my berries and filled up a couple of clean and dry jars just with the whole berries. I froze then without syrup. The rest was washed and sliced in halves.

You can either slice berries or leave them whole. I wanted mine to be crashed so I can easily use them for lemonade or smoothies. Blender or Cuisinart machine will do the job just fine.

I turned my machine for 3-5 minutes to make sure they all processed.

Fill up the prepared container with crashed strawberries about half of their volume.

Add the sugar syrup to make them full. Place the lid and freeze!

I made me a nice cup of lemonade with lemon slice from the leftover I've got.

Creme-brulee video

Hello from London, the land of world-wide cuisines! I tried creme-brulee dessert already twice and I loved it very much. So, I promised myself that after I come back to America, I will try to cook them and see if they will turn out as good as English ones. But since I'm away from my home, I will post the video I had found on Internet and let you enjoy the process. Video is here.

Baked Tiliapia

This recipe wasn't planned at all. I was happy to find previously frozen really cheap whole tilapia at the Fish Department of Wal-Mart and I decided to cook it. My fish was already clean inside and out, so if you are buying your fish somewhere else, make sure you clean it, wash it, take guts out and scale. Wash fish again and set aside.


I cooked my fish stuffed with cabbage. If you don't like fried cabbage, just skip this step and move to the next one. All other preparations will be the same for fish without any stuffing.


But for cabbage-lovers it takes a little bit longer. I bought a bag of pre-cut cabbage. They called it here "Cole Slaw Salad" (Russian: Капустный Салат). I dumped all cabbage into a frying pan with two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Cook it for 5-7 minutes. Add salt, pepper, 1 bay leave and 1 small can of tomato sauce. Fry another 3-5 minutes. Set aside to cool down.

Now baking part. It can turn out into a lot of cleaning afterwords, so I took a piece of aluminum foil and lined up my baking sheet to save me time on cleaning.

Fish loves veggie oil, so be generous on greasing your baking sheet. Also fish likes salt and there is nothing more horrible in my cuisine then unflavored fish or feeble witticism. :) So, season your fish generously with salt and pepper inside and outside as well. Place seasoned fish on baking sheet and stuff as much fried cabbage inside its tummy as you can. Skip this step if you don't like stuffing.

Now a little trick secret that I learned while I was trained as a chef. Prepare fry sauce. It is how Americans called mayonnaise mixed with ketchup. A couple of tablespoons of mayo and a little bit of ketchup mixed together will give you a special nice crust on the top of fish.

Apply the sauce on fish and place it in the oven for 30 minutes. Temperature 375 by Fahrenheit.

Vyalya! The stuffed tilapia is ready! Hot, warm or cold - it is good and appetizing at any temperature to consume!


I left my fish at the kitchen table. The next morning I found....


a pile of bones! Sergey ate it all, even cabbage part! Thanks goodness, I had two of them! :)

Pilaf (Плов)

This is one of Sergey's favorite meals. When he sees pilaf pot standing on the top of the stove, he will grab it and say, "This is mine. I'm going to eat the whole thing." So, the recipe MUST be posted!
You can use any kind of meat you like: beef, pork, lamb, or chicken. All American recipe call for boneless meat, but any Russian recipe will tell you that meat on bones is even better. For this particular recipe I used chicken thighs with bones. I chopped chicken into pieces about 1"-size (2-3 cm).


Many recipes will recommend using a special rice-pot (Russian - КАЗАН). I used thick black-coated pot. Place the pot on the stove, add 1 cup of vegetable oil and let it heat up to the point where oil will start smoking. Add 1 stick of margarine (100 gr) and let it melt. Now dump the pre-cut meat and let it fry from each side. Chop one big onion and two big carrots and add them to boiling meat. (No restrictions on veggies - you can add as much as you want :)).

Let onion and carrots fry for about 5-8 minutes and then add 1 small can of tomato sauce (200 gr). If you like your rice white, do not add tomato sauce. It is a personal preference.

This is my BIG PILAF SECRET: while meat is cooking with tomato sauce, add a couple of bay leaves, 1 teaspoon of sugar, fresh-grind black pepper and a pinch of salt. Let it cook for another 5 minutes.


Now we came to the most important part of cooking pilaf - adding rice. There is a lot of debates about different brands and kinds of rice, soaking it overnight and water proportion. I simplified it to the point of "what is easy for me". I use long white rice. When I start my pilaf preparations, I will rinse rice in cold water and let it stand covered in water while I cook meat and cut my vegetables. So, it is soaked, but no more then 20-30 minutes. Water proportion can be your personal choice as well. If you want you pilaf sticky - add more water. If you want it a little dry - add more oil and fat. I do 1:2 proportion rice to water, but oil in the beginning for frying meat goes to your liquid count. So, for this recipe I used 1 cup of white rice and 1 cups of warm water. I also really like to add a couple bouillon cubes to my pilaf. They give a special touch and taste to rice and meat. Dissolve them into water and add more salt (about 1 teaspoon).


Turn your stove to medium heat and carefully spoon wet rice over cooked meat. Pour water over rice. Now - garlic. The real Asian pilaf recipe has non-pealed head of garlic (as a picture shown above) added to rice together with water. It is authentic and extracts its spice into rice. You can try it - it is good. But for the fast-consuming reason for Sergey, I just use a couple of cloves of garlic, pealed and chopped. Place your garlic on the top of rice when you add water. Throw a hand-full of raisins if you wish - they give sweetness to pilaf. Your pilaf should look like this picture:

Now seat tight and watch it carefully. You don't mix it after the point of adding water. Just make a few pokes with fork or knife in your rice so it will "breathe". Also make sure it is on smallest heat possible - we don't want it burnt. It will take about 20-25 minutes for rice to soak all water and cook thoroughly. Try it and if rice is not ready, add just a little bit of water on the top (1/2 of cup). You will know when it is ready - it will smell like real Asian pilaf spreading a wonderful smell around the house! Enjoy!

Simple Recipe of Crab Salad for Sea-Food Lovers

So, I started a new chapter named "Recipes for Sergey". I really hope that it will help my son Sergey to keep his Russian heritage by reading books in Russian and cooking some Russian meals. And, of course, all me readers are very welcome to join him in trying some of my recipes that look eatable to you! :)

So, very simple recipe for salad. Sergey has a perfect nose for smelling of what kind of food was cooked today. He can recognize immediately if I prepared Russian salad. Do you want to know why? Because almost every Russian salad has boiled eggs as the one of the salad ingredients. For this salad you will use hard-boiled eggs too. Also you will need one package (200gr) of Crab Imitation Sticks that can be found in the Meat Department next to fish and sea-food.

Next picture is all you will need to make your salad.


This recipe is very easy. The only cooking you need to do is to boil the eggs. Again, a little secret of that simple process is to place the eggs into a small saucepan and pour COLD water! Another hint: add salt to boiling water. I met some people that had never heard of such thing as seasoning hard-boiled eggs! But this simple trick just prevents your egg from leaking out if it is broken. Also another theory about adding salt is that it makes it easy to peel the eggs afterward. After boiling eggs for 15-20 minutes, place them under cold running water for a few minutes. That way they will cool down quickly. Peel them off and dice them into middle size cubes.

Peel one big fresh cucumber and dice it into cubes.

Take 2-3 green onions, wash them and cut the stems off and cut them into small pieces.


Dice crabs imitation sticks into cubes of the same size as all other ingredients.


Drain 1 can of sweet corn and mix everything together.


This is how I keep my salad in the fridge until I'm ready to serve it. No salt, no pepper, no mayonnaise. It will last at least a couple of days without mayo. But if you serve it for a party or big family dinner, you better to add all seasonings and mayo right away, decorate it with parsley and eat immediately! Bon appetite!

Chicken Liver Pate

Thank you all for not being indifferent to my blog! I really value your opinion! So, I will proceed!
It is an easy recipe and you don't need too much time for it. Just cook it, blend it and put it into the fridge! You will need 1 lb (about 0.5 kg) of raw Chicken Liver. It can be found at any Meat Section at any Grocery Store. I found mine at Walmart and one jar cost me about $1. Also, you will need 1/2 of lb softened butter (200 gr), two middle-sized regular onions and a couple of gloves of garlic.


Re-heat the frying pan on medium heat. Add two tablespoons of vegetable oil to it. Drain chicken liver from any liquid and place it into the hot frying pan. Cook liver until it's golden-brown color. You don't want to see any read spots.


Peel off the onions and cut then into big pieces. Size really doesn't matter at this stage. It will be blended later anyway!


Add onions to the fried liver and cook them together about 5-8 more minutes. My chef-tutor once told me, "You will know when it is ready...It smells ready!" It will smell good (for those who likes liver :))


At the end, add you minced garlic. For non-LDS recipe it is recommended to add 1 teaspoon of cognac. But I didn't go that far!


Another secret from my culinary teachers: never add salt to the meat meals while it is cooking! It is better to add any condiments at the end, almost when you are ready to take it of the heat. So, I followed that advice and add some salt and pepper just when I took the pan away from heat.


Chicken preparation doesn't like very strong spice, but fresh grained Nutmeg is recommended. Just a pinch of Nutmeg will give your meal a new twist. Try it once and see if you like it.
When you liver is ready and all spices are in place, just set the pan aside to cool down. Now we came to the blending part.


I used Cusinart Food Processor, but the regular blender will do the work just fine. Actually, the meat grinder (мясорубка) will be useful too, just make sure you do it twice. So, blend the liver until it is homogeneous and without any lumps. Only then add softened butter and blend just another a couple of minutes. Correct you spices if needed. Place ready pate info the dish of proper size or form, or plastic container and place it into fridge for a couple of hours.


I like to eat pate when it is cold. This recipe is so rich to the taste that you don't need a layer of butter to your bread. Just enjoy it!

The secret of French crepes has been relieved

Hello, my dear readers! Today I'm going to relive the secret of making French crepes. Honestly, we call them Russian blintz. But, sadly, they are known here in the States as French crepes, so I will call them the same.
I checked with my favorite cookbook by Julia Child and it seems that we have some slight differences in preparation on crepes, but it is just because back in 1950's they didn't have such a wonderful thing as non-stick frying pans aka T-Fal. So, I will give you the recipe assuming that you have a good frying pan with non-stick surface.


For the ingredients part you will need: 1 egg, 1/3 of cup of sugar, pinch of salt, 1 cup of warm water and 1 cup of flour. This will make about 10-12 small pancakes. So, if you desire to make more, increase you dosage respectfully.

Don't forget to prepare a large bowl and whisker. Ready? Let's do it! Here is the FIRST SECRET: place the egg, sugar, flour and salt into mixing bowl and add (attention!) only a half of cup of water!!! Mix them together well. Make sure that you don't have any possible lumps. You will see that your batter is thick - that is good because it means your mixture is blended well. Now gradually add the rest of the water constantly working with your whisker. If you feel that you need more water, add it in very small portion. You don't want it to be very runny.
Quote from Julia Child: "The batter should be a very light cream, just thick enough to coat a wooden spoon."


Here is the SECRET NUMBER TWO: add a tablespoon of vegetable oil into the batter mix! In this case you don't have to grease you pan every time you pour a new portion on batter.

Julia Childs advised that, "Crepe batter should be made at least 2 hours before it is to be used; this allows the flour particles to expand in the liquid ind insures a tender, light thin crepe." But I never followed that advice and it always worked for me. You can fry them as soon as you make the batter. But if you want to try it after two hours, I guess it will work too! :)

SECRET NUMBER THREE: you frying pan should be really hot! Almost smoking. Remove the pan from heat, and pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the middle of the pan. Then, quickly tilt the pan in all directions to run batter all over the bottom of the pan, letting it to cover the whole surface.


Return the pan to the hot surface and watch the edges turning dry! It will take about 50-60 seconds. That is the sign that it is time to turn it over. In all Julia Child's movies she just flip it over with the sharp jerk! Don't try it! Without certain practice it is just a messy experience! Use a spatula or your fingers to turn the crepe over. The other side takes less time to bake. So, it almost looks undercooked - just white color with brownish spots.
SECRET NUMBER FOUR: I butter my each crepe and it makes it easy to pull them apart afterwords.


Repeat the process until all butter is gone. At the end you should have a nice-looking stuck of French crepes or Russian blintz - either name works for me!!

Now, you are are ready to consume them! Crepes can be used as dessert: with jam, chocolate syrup, fresh or canned fruit, sour cream - you name it! Or they can be served with scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, or any filling that you have in mind. In Russia they are served with red or black caviar and smoked salmon - the best!


My personale favorite way to eat them - with Nuttela chocolate paste and fresh berries. Yumm!
But since I didn't have anything like that around, I just used canned mandarins and condensed milk:


It was really good! Paul liked them too!

I hope I didn't overwhelmed you with all the information and you are ready to try this easy and tasty recipe! Good luck! Call me if you have any problems! :)