Home Cooking of the USSR

Delicate, airy, melts in your mouth, incredibly delicious! Belevskaya pastila is a homemade dessert made without sugar from just two ingredients — apple puree and gelatin. Unlike traditional pastila, this one is made much faster and easier, and they taste very similar!

Belevskaya pastila without sugar homemade

Churchkhela (Georgian: ჩურჩხელა) - traditional Georgian cuisine - candle-shaped candy. The main ingredients are grape must, nuts and flour. Almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, chocolate and sometimes raisins are strung on a string, dipped in condensed grape juice or fruit juices and dried into sausage shapes. In traditional technology, churchkhela in Kakheti was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Georgia in 2015. Pelamushi (Georgian: ფელამუში) or tatara is a dish of Georgian cuisine, a thick, hard chilled jelly made from grape juice and flour. Pelamushi is usually served with peeled nuts or kozinaki.

Georgian Snickers - churchkhela and pelamushi at home

The homemade fermented baked milk recipe will be useful to all lovers of this fermented milk product, especially since its preparation is incredibly simple. True, it cannot be called fast, but the result is definitely worth the time spent. Moreover, your active participation in the preparation of fermented baked milk is completely insignificant: you boiled the milk, simmered it in the oven and added sour cream. The last stage, during which the product itself is formed, generally occurs on its own, under the influence of stable heat. So, even a novice cook can take on putting our recipe into practice.

Homemade fermented baked milk

Pasu Tolma, or pasuc tolma in cabbage leaves, is an iconic Armenian dish. The variations in the name are due to pronunciation. Some people hear "pasus," others "pasuc," and the same goes for "tolma" and "dolma." What matters is that these words denote a meatless dolma. Typically, in its classic version, it is made from fermented cabbage leaves. Cabbage is specially salted in large barrels in the autumn to traditionally prepare festive pasuc dolma for the New Year. However, not everyone living in Russian cities can obtain whole fermented cabbage. Therefore, it's permissible to make a pot of dolma using fresh cabbage leaves. This is what we use in our recipe, and fresh cabbage is cooked in the same way as fermented. For a bit of tang, we add a little lemon juice to the filling and sauce. Armenian cooks also add dried plums to the pot of dolma for this purpose. Specifically, they use tart plums, not prunes. But if you can't find these, sweet prunes can be used as well—they will still be delicious. By the way, pieces of dried fruit can even be added to the filling if desired. Pasuc dolma is typically served as a cold appetizer. But be sure to try it warm—it might become your favorite way to enjoy it.

Pasus tolma in cabbage leaves

These French-Canadian dumplings with maple syrup (grands-peres au sirop d'erable) are a classic and dessert variation of traditional dumplings.

Dumplings with Canadian maple syrup

Sauerkraut with apples has been prepared for the winter in Russian villages since time immemorial. Back then, of course, they didn’t really follow the recipes, but they followed the general principles. The cabbage was chopped with a special tool - chopping in wooden troughs, then combined with thin sliced ​​carrots and placed in barrels, lined with sour apples (Antonovka). They also placed a slice of rye bread at the bottom of each container and covered it with whole cabbage leaves. Why did they do this? So that the fermentation process goes more actively and faster, of course! The result was not only delicious crispy cabbage, but also very tasty apples, which were often served separately as a snack.

Sauerkraut with apples for the winter

It is very similar to sour cream, but it is softer and has a bit more flavor. Use it as a side dish for anything from pies to soup. Try whipping it with a little sugar for tangy whipped cream!

Sour cream

Ukrainian

This dish is an absolute delight that you should treat yourself to not only on holidays but also whenever you feel inspired to bake something.

Homemade sausage in the oven

Syracuse salt potatoes are a classic New York State specialty that originated from the salt mines of the 1800s. They are not only easy to make but also delicious.