Pork Loin with mushrooms (Буженина)

This recipe probably won't be really popular among my American readers. :) Somehow, I rare meet Americans who love pork. But this fact won't stop me from posting the recipe. It is mostly Sunday Dinner recipe for big family, also suitable for banquet and big party. I cooked my pork loin for Harsha's party and use some tips from Bear-foot Contessa recipe book. But the original idea was mine and I cooked this meat for years.
If you are not big mushroom-lover, skip this part. But if you don't mind mushrooms in your menu, you need to prepare them first. Just fry them with onions and oil in frying pan and set aside to cool down.


Now meat. Choose pork loin of desired size and cut off fats. Wash in cool water. Wrap it in paper towel to dry of a little bit.


Next, prepare your spices: salt, pepper and mustard. Get them ready but don't use them yet.

If you want to use mushroom stuffing, you need to make a pocket inside of the pork loin. If you are not using mushrooms, skip this step too. Instructions for pocket: insert a sharp knife into middle part of pork loin and make a clear cut, however, you don't want to cut through completely. Work left and right cutting a pocket of desired size. Something like that.


Use salt, pepper and mustard and generously season your meat inside and out. Stuff with fried mushrooms.


Now we need to prepare the place to cook our pork loin. I use a baking sheet with 2"-high borders. Place a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom (easy to clean off). Spray with oil. This is my personal touch to the recipe: I use any vegetable I have at hands for the bottom of the pan just for moisture and nice taste. If you short on carrots and potatoes, you can cook your meat just on the piece of oiled foil, but if you can afford to waist a couple of potatoes - use them. You even don't need to peal them, just wash them and cut into slices and place on the bottom of pan.


This part is a little bit tricky - you need to tight up the loin. It also helps to keep it whole and moisture. Peal a couple of cloves of garlic and insert into meat sides by making a sharp short cuts.


Season and cover with mustard one more time. We are ready to bake!

I set my oven to 400-420 degrees by Fahrenheit. Cooking time depends on the size of your meat and well-done you want it. Meat Temperature Chart is here. I cooked mine for an hour and it was a little bit pink in the thickest part, the rest was nice and brown. My inside temperature was 145. Take it out and let seat for while. NEVER CUT MEAT RIGHT AWAY - LET IT SEAT!


Either way, hot or cold, it is juicy and moisture, also good with garnish or without, with piece of bread or veggie salad. I served it with horse-radish sauce mixed half-and-half with sour-cream! Delicious!

Rolling Fondant

Look here.

I didn't try to make rolling fondant in America yet. I did some in Russia thought. But you know how different recipe can be depending on many reasons. So, for now - only pretty pictures and To Do List for future projects: try rolling fondant someday!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 8 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch, for rolling out the dough

Directions

1. Place gelatin and water in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until gelatin is melted. Remove from heat.
2. Combine the corn syrup, vegetable oil, shortening, and confectioners' sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Turn the mixer on low, and add the gelatin mixture. Beat on low speed until a paste is formed. Refrigerate for 15 minutes to let harden slightly.
3. To use, roll the fondant to 1/4 inch thickness, using cornstarch to coat the work surface and the rolling pin. Transfer fondant by rolling it around the rolling pin. Place fondant over cake and unroll it, stretching it into place as necessary. Use a paring knife to cut away the excess. Store unused fondant in an airtight container.

Barefoot Contessa: Fruit Tarts

I catered a party! Not for my son's B-Day, not for Grandma teachers club! The real party for my friend and her house-warming party. I was excited about it and took serious preparations. I checked 5 cook-books from the library and discussed the menu with my friend. The choice was "Barefoot Contessa Parties!" by Ina Garten.

I have to admit I really liked her recipes, her approach and her attitude to cooking and parties. She said, It should be fun! That's what we tried to do - have a good food and have fun!
I think my favorite recipe was Fruit Tarts and I will share it with you. I cooked them with some little adjustments and innovations, but all credits for its easiness and great taste definitely go to the author!

After living in the US for seven years and trying many different foods now I understand why Americans are all about home-made and fresh-cooked. Processed food and "dinner out of box" really took over not only in almost each household, but also in many restaurants and fast food places. But nothing tastes better then real food or as it is called here in the US - prepared from scratch. Yes, it takes longer. It is more costly. And definitely time-consuming. But it is worth it a thousand times.

This recipe makes 16 tarts of 3" diameter. For crust: you will need 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 6 tablespoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of salt., 1/2 of pound of very cold unsalted butter and 6-8 tablespoons of ice water. Combine flour, sugar and salt in medium bowl and freeze them for 30 minutes before starting.

Take cold butter and shred it into flour.

Place the mixture into mixer and set on slow speed. Mix in enough water by tablespoonfuls to form dough that just comes together. Do not overdo it. Just enough time for dough to come together.

Gather dough into ball. Flatten into 2 disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes. Prepare your aluminum foil forms. No greasing needed.


Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough out on lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thick round.

Cut circles large enough to fit the tart pans.


It is important not to stretch the dough when placing it in the pans; be sure the circles are larger that the pans. Cut off the excess dough with sharp knife. Repeat the remaining dough.

Line each tart with a piece of aluminum foil. Fill crust with dried beans or rice.

Bake 10 minutes. Remove foil and beans(rice) and prick the bottom of each shell with a fork in order to allow the steam to escape.

Bake for another 10 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer to rack and cool completely.

For filling: place 1 tablespoon raspberry jelly in each tart shell and arrange the fruit on top. Use small soft fruits such as grapes, berries, sliced kiwis, etc. Combine the apricot preserves with a few tablespoons of water in a small saucepan and heat until smooth and runny. Brush the top of the fruit with the glaze.

Serve as soon as possible after filling so the pastry doesn't get soggy. I also made one big pie crust from the remaining dough and decorated it for our Sunday dinner.

It was very sweet dessert. So, my advice - go easy on jam and glazing! :)

Stuffed Bell Pepper: New Approach

My home-town Taganrog is very international town: Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Asians, Caucasians, a lot of Greek people, and some Italians live there. We have streets named Garibaldi, Greek Street and Italian Lane. That's why many local meals have roots from Greek and Italian cuisine. Those recipes are widely used and every family will claim them as their own family recipes! This is why I cannot imagine my summer without a few "summer meals" that I will introduce to you here on my blog. Stuffed Bell Pepper will be number one!


All vegetables are in season now and quite cheap. Bell pepper that usually costs about $1.50 each is three for dollar now. So, I decided it is time to cook them!

Cut the tops off from the pepper and wash thorough.


In meantime, cook rice, rinse and set aside.

Now is my new approach. Usually for the meet part you add raw ground meet. I decided to add cooked meet with onions and mushrooms. I fried 1 onion with 1 cup of fresh minced mushrooms and 1 cup of raw ground pork (use beef if you like it better). You can make your recipe vegetarian: add fried onions and carrots instead of ground meet. It is great to the taste and low on calories.

For one bell pepper I measured about 1/2 of cup of cooked rice. So I measured 1 1/2 cup of rice for my three peppers and mixed rice with fried ground pork.


Now, tomato sauce. I think I posted recipe how to make it here about 3 times already. But here we go again: 1 onion and a couple of middle size carrots cut into small pieces.


Add 1 can of tomato sauce. Bring to boil tomato sauce and add 1 teaspoon of sugar, one bay leave and fresh ground pepper. Set apart.


Now, fill up the bell pepper with rice mixture. Press the stuffing down and make sure it is sitting tight.


A little trick: take the dish where you are going to cook your peppers (soup pot, middle size saucepan or deep frying pan) and just add one splash of tomato sauce to the bottom. This will prevent your peppers from burning and sticking to the bottom. Place bell peppers inside of the pot. They need to be standing, not laying down. In that case all stuffing will spill over. Then pour the rest of your tomato sauce to the top of standing bell peppers.

Minced garlic and fresh herbs like cilantro and parsley will give nice smell and taste.

Cover up the pot with lid and let simmer on middle heat for about 25-30 minutes. Rice and meet are already cooked. All we need is just make sure that bell pepper is soft and cooked. This meal is great warm or cool, with sour cream or without, as a side dish or main course. It is not very time-consuming, but delicious and new to the summer menu!

Russian Borscht (Борщ)

This recipe of borscht combines healthy efforts, secrets from my culinary school teachers, personal preferences along with some adjustments I had to make regarding the availability of American produce and taste. It might look somewhat time-consuming, but it is definitely worth cooking!

First, meat part. For borscht any kind of meat will work: beef, pork, chicken. I used chicken thighs for mine. Take off the skin and fatty parts. It will save you about 2000 calories for the whole pot! Leave bones in. All normal Russian borscht recipe calls for some bones for the stock. Pork and beef bones are the best, by I simplify it and just use chicken. If you vegetarian (like Harsha) just use vegetable stock and skip this part.

Trick #1: place the meat of your choice into pot half filled with COLD WATER! Never use warm water to start with. Bring water to boil and dump it out!!! Yes, first stock is the most fattening and unhealthy part of the whole process. You don't want fat floating in your borscht. It will be tasty even without it!

Pour cold water again (half of pot) and bring to boil. This time, with my permission, you can keep the stock! Bring it to a boiling point and skim foam from the top. Simmer for at least 30-40 minutes and pull the meet out of the stock to cool down. Yes, this is my trick #2. Meet needs to be taken out of the soup, cooled down, separated from the bones and cut into small pieces.


In meantime, take three medium potatoes, pealed them off, cut into cubes and cook them in a separate saucepan.

This is trick #3: it takes longer to cook potatoes in stock. It will take about 10-15 minutes to cook them in just simple water. In stock it will take longer - 30 minutes at least, because of fat part of the stock. Cook it for about 15 minutes and set apart.

Beet is an essential part of borscht. It gives color and special taste. If you don't like it much - you can cook it without beets. Tomato paste will give the desired red color, but taste will be a little bit different. I use canned beets. It is easy.

Open the can, drain the liquid into a separate bowl and save it, cut or shred the beets and set them apart too.

Now the cabbage. One small head of cabbage is enough for the 5 liters-size pot. I simplify it too by using a bag of coal-slaw salad from the store. (I got so lazy that even don't want to cut the cabbage!) But it s about the same price and already pre-cut into small pieces, so why not?
Here goes my trick #4: cabbage never goes into borscht by itself. It is supposed to be added with bell pepper. That little trick will give you better taste. Sometimes borscht will smell like boiled cabbage, but if you listen to my advice and use belle pepper, it will eliminate unpleasant smell and your soup will smell like Bulgarian dinner! So, cut 1 or 1/2 of bell pepper and place in on the top of cabbage and set apart. You see, all ingredients are just sitting on your counter getting ready to be added into the soup. Be patient. Cooking doesn't take that long. Preparation does.

I adore garlic. It drives my husband crazy because I smell like garlic for a week! But there is no borscht recipe without garlic. So, embrace yourself and peal a couple of cloves of garlic and mince them.


Herbs and green onions are good additions too. Use any herbs that are in season - parsley, dill, cilantro. Anything you like. Cut them into small pieces and mix with garlic and green onions. And, yes, you guess it correct - Set apart too.

When tomatoes are in season, I like to add some fresh tomatoes into my borscht.

I crash them in the food processor, but simple grater or blender will do the work just fine. It is not a necessary ingredient, just a summer touch when you have plenty of tomatoes at hands.

But this one essential! Onion and carrots cut into small pieces....

and fried them with oil. Add 1 can of tomato sauce at the end. Trick #5: bring to boil tomato sauce and add 1 teaspoon of sugar, one bay leave and fresh ground pepper. Set apart.


Now when you have a hundreds bowls on your counter, you are ready to complete your borscht! The order is really important. Bring stock to boil, add potatoes with water in which it was cooked. Now, cabbage with bell pepper together. Let it boil for about 3-5 minutes (depends if you like overcooked or crunchy cabbage taste). If you like it crunchy, after a couple of minutes of boiling, add the tomato sauce. If you like it very soft, let it boil for another 5 minutes, then add tomato sauce. Add shredded beets with juice, fresh tomato and pre-cut meets. Add your herbs. Bring to boil.

The main rule of cooking soup is bring it to boil after you add anything new to it. So, even when you add you spices and herbs, you have to make sure that it was boiling after that. I like to add fresh ground pepper, salt, and a couple of bullion cubes. Also make sure you have enough liquid and add just tap water if it's needed. But don't forget to bring to boil after that!

The best way to finish is to correct your spices, bring to boil the last time, turn your burner off and let it stand for about 20 minutes at the same burner, so it will gain its taste.


My borscht turned out really good. I enjoyed it very much. I wish you would too!