Into Poland and the land of the Czars...

Back on the trail...

Sorry for the delay in keeping up with tales of our trip.  When I last wrote about our journey of food we had just finished our Hungarian goulash.  Our next stops on the itinerary would be through Poland, the Ukraine, and then into the dark heart of the Russian Empire itself.

Poland and the Ukraine 

“A soldier lives always for the next battle, because he knows that before it arrives impossible changes can occur in his favor.” 

― James A. Michener, Poland

Poland was a special country for me, due to my maternal heritage of 100 percent Polish blood (as far as we know, though who knows, we could be part Lithuanian or Ukrainian somewhere down the line).  And it's next to impossible to find good Polish food in most cities west of Milwaukee, though Portland used to have a good Polish cafe two night as week at Grandpa's Cafe (now a private club only for Polish Library members) and now has a good new place at Bar Dobre on Hawthorne.  But nonetheless, finding the good stuff is a challenge for the most part--but luckily Polish food is fairly easy to cook.  

Because Laura wanted to cook her favorite Ukrainian borscht recipe and technically from Hungary(our last stop) we'd have to go through the Ukraine to get to Poland (at least the route we were theoretically taking) we decided to combine the two the first night.  I decided to make pierogies for the first time.

Ukrainian borscht on the left, pierogies on the right and Polish vodka in the back.

 Pierogies aren't difficult to make, though I'm not much of a baker--or much of any sort of cook for anything that involves dough or kneading or those sorts of things.  I'm one to cook a long simmering stew or grill a piece of perfectly marinated meat, but I ain't running a bakery over here.  But the pierogi recipe was fairly easy and we had a good mix already of sauerkraut with meat and mushrooms for the filling.  The hard part however was the arduous task of actually rolling up all the pierogies by hand.  I remember speaking to the proprietor of Grandpa's Cafe a few years ago and having him mention how the Portland Polish Festival no longer could make by hand the thousands of pierogies for the weekend long festival with the rise in popularity--and was forced to order frozen pre-made pierogies from Chicago.  But my handmade pierogies -after a quick boil turned out fine--and with a topping of sour cream and dried chives was suitable Polish/Ukrainian meal.  Laura's Ukrainian borscht, which features crumbled sausage and shredded garlic on top of a hearty base of beets was as good as it usually was.  And we finished the rest of my high end Pravda Polish vodka, which would kick off about a week of Polish and Russia vodka drinking.

More Poland (or possibly Lithuania)

Goblacki or cabbage rolls or "pigs in a blanket" or guluptsies or  balandėliai.

Before moving onto Russia, Laura requested I make cabbage rolls.

Goblaki, the traditional Polish dish of cabbage stuffed with meat in a tomato sauce are fairly easy to cook--and common to much of the region including Poland's neighbors in Lithuania where they are called guluptsie or balandėliai.  My mom claims that growing up in Milwaukee in a Polish neighborhood they called them pigs in a blanket.  So the next meal could have been considered  for either of these nations and  fit into the itinerary.  I used a recipe from a book I got at the Polish Festival a few years ago that was produced by a bunch of old Polish grandmas at the Polish church itself--which was fitting since goblaki are reminiscent of something you'd eat a dinner in the basement of a Polish church.  The dish turned out fine--I added a little chili pepper flakes to give it some spice, though Laura commented it could have used more tomato sauce to which I agreed.

Russia

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."

―  New York Knicks fan Woody Allen

 A meal fit for a Czar, Secretary General, or Russian Mafiya boss.

Our first night with Russian cuisine I decided to cook beef Stroganoff and Olivier Salad both of which are from an interesting era of Russian history. Beef Stroganoff is among the most, if not THE most, recognized and cliched Russian dish.  The name comes from some important member of the royal Stroganov family in the mid-1800s.  Olivier salad is a dish developed by the Belgian chef at the Hermitage--on of the top restaurant in Moscow in the 1860s.  It's almost a more French or Western European seeming dish, but both dishes are sort of reminiscent of the time in the 1800s when Russia's imperial dreams of the Czars were slowly rolling towards their inevitable sunset.  It was an era where Russia looked to France and the Western European world instead of their brutal historic past to the east along the steppes.

Yes, that vodka has a hammer and sickle on it.

The real Beef Stroganoff is a simple enough recipe, slightly floured beef strips cooked in a sour cream and mustard and lemon sauce.  The real version uses potatoes or fries as a side dish instead of the noodles that became ubiquitous in the US once the dish was introduced in the 40s by war of American GIs and surprisingly enough Chinese immigrants (the dish was big in Chinese restaurants after the fall of the Czars). It's delicious and in a way it's sort of a refreshing throwback--something along the lines of what would've been considered a night out in the age of Roger Sterling and the heyday of the martini in the early 1960s.  The Olivier Salad was a fairly average tasting mix of a potato and egg salad on a bed of lettuce with a mustard and mayonnaise dressing seemed alright, though it wouldn't feel out of place in any Best Western room service menu.  The original recipe--which I wanted to follow actually called for a grouse or partridge to be served in the salad--but try finding a grouse or partridge at the last minute in Portland these days--Trader Joe's doesn't carry that sort of thing.

Of course, being Russia we continued our vodka tasting experience.  This time trying the Russian "Hammer and Sickle" brand vodka, which I assume is sort of a nostalgic throwback for the Russians or a joke for the western export market.  Nonetheless, it's a good high end vodka, smooth and a with enough of a bite that it's good enough to drink on the rocks like water--as the Russian tend to do.  The other vodka was Bak's Vodka Zubrowka--a flavored vodka  made from the bison-grazed grass of Eastern Poland.  It's got more of a sweeter taste to it, which made it an easy drink as well.

Further into Russia...

A lot of beets died to bring you this meal.

We followed up with another night in Russia, this time focusing on the sort of food that one might eat in the cold recesses of Russia while enjoying more and more glasses of vodka.  I picked a cured salmon recipe which involved marinating the fillet in a mix of beets, dill, and vodka. Apparently it was a recipe prized by one of the royal chefs of the Romanovs.  The downside was that the recipe called for burying the salmon under a literal mountain of chopped beets and dill and vodka for over a day.  Proceeding along this path before Laura got back from work--I started chopping the beets--getting half way through the recipe I looked like the ending of the horror film "Carrie."  My hands and shirt were covered in beets, the kitchen was covered in beets, the cats covered in blood red beets.  Funny enough, we didn't even need that massive amount of beets for the taste and texture to be evident.  It had a nice rich blend that distinguished it from typical smoked or cured salmon dishes.

Это была хорошая еда.

We consumed the a salmon the next night, serving it on buckwheat blini--which are sort of tiny buckwheat pancakes.  Along with the salmon we topped them off with sour cream and caviar.  On the side we served a simple Russian mushroom soup recipe.  It was the sort of meal you could imagine being eaten as sort of an afterthought to bottle after bottle over vodka in a cold Russian bar.  And it was good as leftovers for several more days.

Taking the Pepsi Challenge--but with Vodka!

As we finished up Russia by drinking more and more vodka, we decided to test the argument that all vodka basically tastes alike.  We had a short vodka tasting flight between three of the vodkas we had on hand.  First off, the Dutch Ketel One--a staple of cheaper/mid-range vodkas around here--the high end Hammer and Sickle brand from Russia, and an vodka from California--Tahoe Moonshine--flavored with both honey and made with real Lake Tahoe water.  Ketel One is good, decent for anything you might need it for, but I mean it basically tastes like vodka.  Hammer & Sickle has a very smooth taste to it--so it's almost easier to sip for hours until you realize you've been drinking vodka instead of water.  The Tahoe Moonshine had a harsher taste to it--a little more charcoal flavored in a way, though the honey taste doesn't do as much as just make it seem stronger in terms of a bite to the aftertaste.  I think Laura and I both liked the Hammer and Sickle the best--the Tahoe vodka seemed a little too strong of a taste whether drunk on the rocks or mixed into a drink.

The Next Episode--- Into the Caucasus

I'm going to try to post more regularly to catch up this blog to the countries we tasted so far--so next time I'll explain what we cooked for the surprising region of Central Asia featuring Georgia, Iran, Afghanistan--and why Armenian food is basically just the same as Syrian food which is the same as Turkish food which is pretty close to Greek food...