What is cooked in different regions of Russia: Posekunchiki, sea borscht and other traditional dishes worth trying

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

When they say "folk dishes of Russia", they usually imagine pies, a puffing samovar, a wooden plate of porridge and jam. However, Russian cuisine was significantly influenced by the culinary preferences of Koreans, Kazakhs, Tatars and other peoples. Some dishes can hardly be called primordially Russian, but they are cooked and eaten with pleasure in various regions. Read how the inhabitants of Siberia and the Urals, the Volga region and the Far East made their guests happy. You will learn what posekunchiki, volozhi and gruzdyanka are, and you will also be able to familiarize yourself with interesting culinary recipes.

North: raw fish as a delicacy and fish soup with milk

In northern Russia, fish has always been the basic dish. The Pomors enjoyed eating stroganina, that is, frozen fish, thinly sliced and sprinkled with salt. In addition, of course, it was fried, baked in the oven, and salted. There are also original dishes, for example, cod, flavored with cottage cheese. The fish was boiled, placed on a layer of finely chopped onions, covered with grated cottage cheese mixed with sunflower oil, and sent to bake in the oven.

Pomeranian ear was also popular. Freshly caught fish was used for her. For the broth to be especially tasty, a little milk should be added to it, as well as onions and spices, a drop of lemon juice. Dishes from izya or fresh pike in dough are incredibly tasty, as well as festive "red rybniki". So called pies with fish of expensive red varieties - salmon, chum salmon, pink salmon. Yes, there were a lot of pies, but not enough bread. Grain in the north grew poorly, but was expensive. Venison was used from meat. It was cooked in different ways and served fried and baked. Meat dishes were accompanied by berry sauces made from sour lingonberries, cranberries, fragrant cloudberries, and fragrant rose hips. A similar seasoning was called volozhi. It was incredibly tasty and very healthy, since the berries contain a lot of vitamins. The fruits were crushed, and a jelly called kezh was cooked from the juice. For taste, spices and herbs were put in it.

Cabbage soup and porridge are our food: at least 60 types of these dishes in central Russia

Until the 14th century, hot dishes in Russia were cooked in an oven, they were very rarely fried. Meat was eaten infrequently; the main dishes of central Russia were porridge and cabbage soup. Surprisingly, they were cooked in different ways, and the number of species numbered more than 60. For example, cabbage soup was made with porcini mushrooms and called "full", with meat of different varieties - "combined", green ones were cooked with nettles, quinoa and other herbs. The only ingredient was unchanged - fresh or sauerkraut. They ate porridge almost every day. They were made from buckwheat and wheat groats, as well as from peas. Served as a side dish for fish and meat, mixed with mushrooms and vegetables.

Sometimes porridge, seasoned with milk and sweet berries, was used as a dessert. In general, berries picked from the forest, baked apples, seasoned with honey or gingerbread were often used as a sweet. Sometimes they made candied fruits from carrots or cucumbers. To do this, it was necessary to boil them in honey until the fruit acquired transparency. They served such candied fruits for tea or made an herbal infusion. In the summer they drank refreshing cold kvass, and in the winter they warmed up with honey and spices sbitnem.

Siberia: dumplings and flower tea

In Siberia, fish was often used as the main dish. Everything was much more interesting here: they ate sturgeon, salmon, whitefish. And, for example, bream and ide went to feed pigs. The cooking method was also different from the northern one. Some types of fish were fried, for example, omul, whitefish, nelma were awarded this honor, some were intended for baking in sour cream, they were put in porridge, dried in the oven.

Still, Siberian dumplings have always been at the peak of popularity. To make a fragrant filling, different types of meat were used - beef, pork, poultry, elk, venison. The dough was incredibly tasty, as tea was used to knead it, and not just water. In Siberia, bread was very fond of. Until the 17th century, it was not grown there, but was brought from beyond the Urals. Tea was always served at the end of dinner. Rich people were very fond of drinking tea made from the top leaves of the bush, the so-called flower tea. It is an aromatic drink with a delicate taste. The less expensive varieties were called brick, and looked like pressed tiles.

Far East: seaweed borscht and dishes from eastern neighbors (pyan-se, fish he and others)

The cuisine of the Far East impressed with the abundance of seafood. Caviar, squid and crabs, scallops and octopuses - the methods of preparing these products were borrowed from the indigenous people of the Far East (Nivkhs, Evenks, Udege). It was from them that the Russians learned to dry the fish, salt the fern for the winter, and fry the red deer. By the end of the 19th century, immigrants from the Ukrainian provinces came to the Far East. Arriving with their traditional recipes, they quickly adapted them to suit the living conditions.

From here came borscht, the basis of which was seaweed, dumplings stuffed with squid, salmon ear. Neighboring countries (we are talking about China, Korea, Japan) also influenced the cuisine of Russia. In the Far East, Korean he fish, delicious pies from Korea called pian-se stuffed with meat, vegetables or sweets, as well as small Japanese chicken skewers, were popular.

Possekunchiki, echpochmak, gruzdyanka from the Urals

Various baked goods have always been popular in the Urals. Posekunchiks were cooked near Yekaterinburg and Perm. This funny name was borne by small pies, and the word came from "whip", that is, chop into small pieces. This was exactly what the meat filling was - finely chopped. The Urals was and remains a multinational region, there were a variety of folk culinary traditions. Beshbarmak, a dish of the Bashkirs and Kazakhs, was being prepared, only for the Bashkir beshbarmak the filling was made from lamb, and for the Kazakh - from beef and potatoes. The Tatars shared with the Russians the recipe for echpochmak, that is, a delicious pie stuffed with meat, onions and potatoes. And of course the mushrooms. In the Urals, mushroom soup was often made, and although the dish was called that, not only milk mushrooms were used, but also a wide variety of mushrooms that grew in the forest.

Dumplings from the Volga region and barbecue from the south

Representatives of different peoples lived on the Volga: Mari and Tatars, Chuvash, Moksha and Erzya. Each of them had his own culinary preferences, the Russians adopted them and prepared delicious dishes. For example, the Mari loved porridge. But for cabbage soup, they did not use cabbage, but sorrel, nettles, and other herbs. Tatars baked pies with a variety of fillings, made pilaf and beshbarmak. But if the Muslims did not use pork, then the Russians began to make Tatar dishes using pork, chicken or beef.

Caucasian peoples also share their recipes with Russians. In the Caucasus, it is customary to cook fish, meat and vegetable dishes using an open fire. The famous Caucasian shashlik has become a very popular delicacy, which, for example, in the Kuban began to cook not only from lamb, but also to use beef, pork, chicken. In the 18th century, German settlements began to form in the Volga region. From there came such dishes as pork schnitzel and mashed potatoes, chicken noodle soup. A baked goose and juicy homemade sausage is a symbol of a festive dinner among the Volga Germans. In the Volga region, they quickly adopted delicious traditions and began to cook similar dishes.

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