Caviar and Champagne

I still remember the first time I tried caviar -- it felt like a dozen little bubbles bursting against the roof of my mouth, each one squirting the creamy, gooey liquid. The rich saltiness rolled in like a big sea wave. Mmmm – caviar. I was 7 and lived in Moscow, and it was the first time I was allowed to stay up until midnight and celebrate the New Year with the grown-ups. The table was teeming with zakuski – sturgeon, ham, pickled mushrooms, liver pâté, and herring in fur coat of shredded beets and potatoes. But the most tempting and anticipated dish was the caviar. Its little jar sat on the table like a jewelry box with bright orange beads. It was passed around along with bread and butter for everyone to make a little open-faced sandwich before toasting the passing year and wishing it farewell.

“Eeew, fish eggs” was my American friend’s reaction to my favorite food. “It’s slimy and salty. That’s disgusting.” I didn’t understand how fish eggs were any more disgusting than chicken eggs. Until I came to America at 13, I haven’t met anyone who didn’t like caviar before. Just imagine how an American child would feel if they offered a kid from another country their favorite chocolate bar, and were told that chocolate is disgusting because it is the color of poop. Although my friend’s rejection of caviar was disappointing to me at the time, it made me realize that we taste food with our memories and heritage, not just our pallets. To me caviar tastes not only salty and creamy; it tastes of New Year, of school break, of trying very hard not to fall asleep until midnight, and of proving to the world that I am a grown-up.

Red (salmon) caviar is much more affordable than black. Most people are surprised to find out that $5-7 can buy them enough caviar to serve as an appetizer for 6 people. No need for mother of pearl spoons, or other such fanciness. Good bread and butter is all you need -- that's how most Russians eat it. I usually top red caviar with sweet pickled onions to balance the salty creaminess of the roe.

This recipe is all about ingredients, so here are some tips on choosing the right ones. The plastic tasting Romanoff caviar sold in supermarkets won't do. Go to a Russian store and buy some real salmon caviar. Don't buy the cheaper ones -- they tend to be over-salted and gooey due to broken eggs. Whole Foods carries salmon roe too, but it's twice as expensive as in the Russian stores.

Red Caviar Canapés with Pickled Onions

Serves 6

For Pickled Onions
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup cold water
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 red onion

In a non-reactive container, combine vinegar, water, sugar, and salt. Peel the onion and slice it very thin (1/16") using an adjustable blade slicer like Benriner or a knife. Mix the onion with vinegar mixture, cover, and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, and up to 2 days.

For Caviar Canapés
Vienna bread, baguette, or brioche sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
4 oz red caviar

Spread bread slices with butter. Top with a layer of caviar, and a few slices of pickled onions. Serve with champagne or sparkling white wine.

Happy New Year everyone! I wish you many joyous feasts with the people you love.

Herring in Fur Coat

We are in Baltimore visiting my family and it's crazy New Years preparations here. My Mom and I have been cooking all day! While Hanukkah and Christmas are traditions we have acquired after coming to the US, New Year is a beloved holiday of any Russian family. It was festive, had nothing to do with Communism, and was all about food and merriment -- what's there not to like?

Russian food finally made it on the radar of the foodie magazine editors, and this year both Gourmet and Saveur did a special on Russian New Year. Saveur even offered a couple of recipes for zakuski (Russian appetizers), one of which was Herring in Fur Coat. This dish is so popular in Russia that I don't know a single family that doesn't have their own version. Here is ours.

Herring in "Fur Coat" (Herring dressed with beets)

Note: You have to get a Russian style herring for this dish. The pickled type sold in most American stores has a very different flavor. Go to a Russian store and buy "Vici" brand herring packed in vegetable oil (avoid ones with smoke flavor). If you are comfortable filleting and deboning your own fish, you can buy a whole herring in the deli section of a Russian store, but I am warning you, deboning a herring is a very messy project.

2 red skinned potatoes (2-3 inches in diameter)
2 large beets (3-4 inches in diameter)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup mayo (plus more as needed)
3/4 lb herring fillet (from 2 packages, 7 oz each or from 2 whole herrings)
1 Tbsp white vinegar
1/4 cup finely diced red onion (about 1/4 of an onion)
2 inch deep dish that is just big enough to hold half of the herring in one layer

1. In a large stock pot, cover potatoes and beets with lightly salted cold water. Cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until vegetables are tender when pierced with a knife or a wooden skewer. Potatoes will take 35-45 minutes (remove them as soon as they are done). Beets will take 1.5-2.5 hours depending on their size. Remove vegetables from water. Cool and peel (the skin should just rub off without a need for a peeler).
2. In a small saucepan, cover eggs in cold water. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat immediately and simmer for 1 minute. Take off heat and let stand 18 minutes. Cover eggs with cold water to cool for about a minute. Peel under cold running water.
3. Put mayo into a ziplock bag and cut a tiny whole in one corner to make a kind of pastry bag for drizzling mayo.
4. If using packaged herring fillets, remove them from oil and dry on paper towels. Cut herring fillets into 1/2 inch pieces crosswise and sprinkle with vinegar.
5. Arrange half of the herring in a single layer in the serving dish. Sprinkle with 2 Tbsp onion.
6. Holding a box grater over the dish, cover the herring with an even layer of grated potato (about a half of 1 potato). Drizzle with 2 Tbsp mayo from the ziplock bag.
7. Grate an even layer of egg (about half of 1 egg). Grate an even layer of beets (about half of 1 beet). Drizzle with 2 Tbsp mayo and spread it gently with a spoon. If you are having a hard time spreading it, add a bit more mayo.
8. Repeat the layering of herring, onion, potato, mayo, eggs, beets, and the remaining mayo. Spread the mayo gently with a spoon on top of the beet layer.
9. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least for 2 hours or up to 1 day. You should have extra vegetables and eggs left over for decoration.
10. Right before serving, sprinkle herring with grated egg yolk from the remaining egg. If you are in an artistic mood, make beet ribbons using a vegetable peeler, roll them into roses and place on top of the dish. Garnish with parsley leaves and serve.

Bouillabaisse (or whatever you want to call it)

When looking for a Bouillabaisse recipe in US, you’ll quickly learn that there is a Bouillabaisse police. If they could give out violation tickets for using the name of this holy soup in vain, they would. You used mussels in your broth – $50! You didn’t fly in the appropriate varieties of fish from the Mediterranean -- $100! Hellmann’s mayo for rouille – what travesty – $200!

Don’t even get me started on what makes authentic Bouillabaisse – I don’t care. If you want, call this soup “Bourride” – another term for Provencal fish soup that is not as common in US and thus less controversial. There are probably as many versions of these soups as there are cooks in Marseille. Three things all Provencal versions have in common are fin fish, star anise, and saffron. I also use leeks, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, and a touch of cream. I love this soup in any season. Its amber broth has rejuvenating powers that make a sunny day even brighter and a rainy day more cheerful.

Mediterranean sea bass (a.k.a. branzino) and Sea Bream (a.k.a. orata, dorade, dorado) are my favorite fish to use for this soup. They are small, delicate, and flavorful, and their frames fit easily into a stock pot for the broth. Making fish stock is not nearly as hard as it sounds. If you ask your fishmonger for help, you don’t even have to know how to clean the fish. Tell him that you want the gills and fins removed, the fish scaled, gutted, filleted, and the fillets skinned.  But ask him to give you the fish frames with heads, so that you can make the stock.

For a lazy man’s bouillabaisse – a fantastic and easy dinner – use store bought fish stock and 1 Lb of any white fleshed fish: cod, haddock, halibut, turbot, sole, or flounder.

I serve this soup with toasted baguette slices rubbed with garlic, and topped with rouille – garlicky, red pepper mayo.

Serves 4 as main course

For Rouille (optional):1 red pepper (only half is used for rouille, the rest for soup)
2 garlic cloves, mashed
1/2 cup mayo – Hellmann’s is fine as long as it’s “real”, not low-fat
Salt to taste

For Toasts:
1 baguette
Olive oil for brushing
2-3 whole peeled garlic cloves
pinch of salt

For Fish Stock:2 whole white fleshed fish, 1 Lb each (see above for fish types and preparation instructions)
1/2 cup dry white wine
8 cups water
1 carrot, peeled, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 onion, peeled, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 celery stock, cut into 2 inch chunks
green parts from 1 leek, cut into 2 inch chunks
stocks from 1 fennel bulb without fronds, cut into 2 inch chunks
6 parsley stems without leaves
6 thyme sprigs or 3 rosemary sprigs
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

For the Soup:1 leek (white and pale green parts only)
1 fennel bulb
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 orange (or red or yellow) pepper plus the half left over from rouille, cut into ½ inch dice
14.5 oz can chopped tomatoes, drained
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 star anise
1/4 tsp saffron threads, crumbled
2 Tbsp cream (optional)
2 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

Rouille:

1. Cut the sides of the pepper off.  Lay out half of them in a single layer on a metal dish lined with foil with their skin up and put under the broiler until black (4-8 minutes depending on the broiler and the distance).  Reserve the remaining pepper for the soup.
2. Wrap the burnt peppers in foil and let them steam for 10 minutes (this makes them easier to peel).  Uncover and cool until comfortable to handle.  Rub the skin off with your fingers. Chop the pepper coarsely and puree in a food processor or blender with mayo and garlic. Season to taste with salt and cayenne.

Toasts:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  
2. Slice baguette into 1/3 inch thick diagonal slices.  Brush with oil and lay out on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Place in the middle of the oven until the bottom is slightly brown, 12-15 minutes.
3. Dunk a garlic clove in salt and rub all over toasted baguette.

Fish stock:

1. In a large stock pot, combine all ingredients. Cover and bring to a boil.
2. Turn down the heat to medium-low, uncover, and simmer very gently for 45 minutes.  No need to skim the scum.  It will subside and eventually will be removed by straining. 
3. Take off heat. Strain through a fine mesh strainer. You should end up with about 6 cups of stock.  Let it sit for 10 minutes to give impurities a chance to settle.  

Soup:

1. Cut the leeks in half lengthwise, then slice 1/4 inch thick crosswise.  Wash chopped leeks in a large bowl of cold water. Let the sand settle for a couple of minutes and then scoop leeks out with a slotted spoon being careful not to disturb the sand on the bottom. If leeks still feel sandy, repeat this process until they are clean.
2. Cut the fennel bulb in half through the core.  Remove the core and discard.  Slice the bulb pole to pole 1/6 inch thick.
3. Heat the oil in a large heavy stock pot over medium-low heat. Add leeks, fennel, and a pinch of salt and cook until tender stirring occasionally, 12-15 minutes. Remove to a bowl and set aside.
4. Return the pot to medium-high. Add the peppers and a pinch of salt and cook until tender stirring occasionally, 5-7 minutes.
5. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute.
6. Add tomatoes, and bring the mixture to a boil.
7. Return leeks to the pot. Add the fish stock (pouring slowly not to disturb impurities on the bottom of the bowl so that they don't get into the soup), star anise, and saffron. Cover and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat so that the soup stays at a bare simmer. Add the cream and simmer for 1 minutes.  Season to taste with salt. The soup can be done up to this stage a day in advance, cooled and stored in the fridge.  Cool the soup off to 170F (or warm it up to 170F if you made it ahead).  If you don't have a thermometer, just bring it to a simmer, take off heat and let it sit uncovered for 5 minutes.  
8. Season the reserved fish fillets with salt and pepper on both sides and add to the soup. Cover the pot.  As soon as the fish starts to flake (about 10 minutes per inch of thickness), serve the soup garnished with parsley accompanied with toasted baguette and rouille.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Aren't they beautiful! This is one of the Christmas presents I got from my husband.

His obsession with making the best baguette started 4 years ago. Baguettes 0-10 were "interesting", 10-20 were quite good, 20-30 were great, and 30+ were amazing. For the past year, I've been trying to sing praises to his baguettes and encourage him to try other breads. "Only when I bake a perfect baguette..." is all he said. Realizing that the quest for the perfect baguette might never end, I accepted my fate of never seeing a ciabatta or focaccia come out of our oven. But hey, I wasn't complaining. Who can complain about getting freshly baked baguettes on most weekends?

Imagine my surprise when I got kicked out of the kitchen on Christmas eve during the shaping stage of yet another baguette. But what really gave it away, was the "Where is our balsamic vinegar?" question. What could it be? My mind was racing through Reinhart’s book trying to remember what breads used balsamic vinegar (probably in caramelized onions).

Once the breads were in the oven, I was allowed back in the kitchen, as long as I didn't peek. I occupied myself with making bouillabaisse in my other Christmas present -- a new Sitram pot (yes, that's the one on the stove -- I'll post about it soon). But not even that 7-quart knight in shining armor could distract me from the yeasty, sweet aroma. Finally, the oven door opened and two beautiful loaves dotted with caramelized onions and dusted with snowy flour emerged. Caramelized onion ciabatta -- just for me! Waiting to taste them was just torture. I mean who can resist digging right into the freshly baked bread! If you haven't noticed yet, I am married to a very patient man. He didn't mind waiting 4 years to make his first ciabatta, so do you think he wouldn't wait another hour to let it cool to the optimal temperature? More waiting...

Finally, the moment of truth has arrived and we got to cut the bread. It was crusty and bubbly with a swirl of sweet onions that were so jammy and tasty, I got weak in the knees. How many presents can a girl get that take 4 years and 50 tries to perfect!

Wild Mushroom Barley Soup

In Russia, where I grew up, soup is such an integral part of the culture that people eat it at least once a day. I am not kidding or exaggerating. I must have had soup at least 350 times a year during the first 13 years of my life. Assuming that I didn’t eat grown-up food until I was 2, that adds up to 3,850 soups in a row. Try eating anything 3,850 times and see how you like it. Until we moved to US and broke the must-eat-soup tradition, my attitude to anything that came in a bowl was lukewarm to put it mildly. But even in those days of overzealous soup eating, one soup stood out as special.

When my Mom opened a package of dried mushrooms, the whole house filled with pungent perfume and I knew that we are in for a treat – the mushroom barley soup. I looked forward to that woodsy aroma so much that I didn’t even think of this dish as soup. I ate the other soups the way American children eat broccoli – it makes your parents proud and it’s supposed to be good for you. But the mushroom soup was different and I ate it because I loved it.

Now that I don’t have to eat soups every day, I love them all -- borsch (beet soup), uha (fish soup), shi (sauerkraut soup) – but there is always going to be a special place in my heart for the mushroom barley soup.

Note: Make sure to use dried porcini (or cepe) mushrooms that are wild since they have a much stronger aroma. Do not buy fresh porcini for this soup. They won’t give you a strong mushroom stock and will cost a fortune. Although wild dried porcini are around $50-70 per pound, 4 oz that you need for a huge pot of soup will only cost you $12-17.

It’s best to start this soup the night before you are planning to serve it, since the mushrooms takes several hours to soak.

Serves 10 as first course, 6 as main course

For mushroom stock:
4 oz wild dried porcini mushrooms
1 carrot, peeled
1 parsnip, peeled
1 whole yellow onion, peeled
4 Tbsp kosher salt (or 2 Tbsp table salt)
1 bay leaf
¼ tsp whole black peppercorns

For the soup:
1 carrot, peeled
3 medium boiling potatoes, peeled and diced
½ cup barley

Carrot onion flavoring:
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 onions, finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
Salt

For mushroom stock:

1. Put mushrooms in a 2 quart bowl, cover with 6 cups boiling water and soak for at least 1 hour or overnight.
2. Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large heavy soup pot. Season it with salt, like for pasta. Add barley and boil gently over medium heat until almost tender, 25-30 minutes. Drain in a colander and reserve for later.
3. While barley is cooking prepare the mushrooms. Carefully remove them with a slotted spoon out of reconstituting liquid into another bowl. Strain the dark aromatic mushroom liquid through a sieve lined with a paper towel to get rid of sand. Reserve it for the stock.
4. Cover the mushrooms with water and rub gently to remove dirt and sand. Let stand 5 minutes to let the sand to settle. Remove them with a slotted spoon and discard the water. Repeat until there is no more sand on the bottom of the bowl when you pore out the water. Don’t skip this step, or you’ll have a gritty soup.
5. Chop the mushrooms into rough pieces about ¼ inches big.
6. Place chopped mushrooms into the pot you used for barley. Add the reserved mushroom liquid, 3 quarts cold water, a whole carrot, a whole parsnip, a whole onion, and salt. Cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn down the heat to medium-low and simmer partially covered for 30 minutes. Occasionally, skim the foam that rises to the top being careful not to remove any mushrooms.
7. Add peppercorns and bay leaf and remove the whole carrot, parsnip and onion.

For the soup:

1. Cut the carrot into quarters lengthwise, and then thinly slice crosswise. Add sliced carrot and potatoes to the soup pot with mushroom stock and simmer partially covered until tender, about 30 minutes.  
2. Add barley and simmer partially covered until soup thickens slightly, 30 minutes.

For carrot onion flavoring:
While the soup is simmering prepare the carrot onion flavoring.

1. Set a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add 1 Tbsp oil and 2 Tbsp butter and wait for them to melt. Add the onions and 1/2 tsp kosher salt (1/4 tsp table salt) and cook stirring occasionally until onions are tender and starting to brown, 10 minutes.
2. Add the carrots and another 1/2 tsp kosher salt (1/4 tsp table), and cook on medium heat stirring occasionally until tender, 10 minutes. Add the remaining 1 Tbsp oil and cook until the mixture is nicely browned, 10 minutes.
3. Stir the carrot-onion mixture into the soup. Taste and correct seasoning. Take off heat and let stand 15 minutes for flavors to blend. Serve with sour cream.

Cool leftovers completely and store in the fridge for up to 4 days. This soup tastes even better reheated. If it looks too thick, add a little water and a pinch of salt when reheating.