The Soviet Diet Cookbook: exploring life, culture and history – one recipe at a time. Anna Kharzeeva
tbsp tomato paste or 100 g tomatoes
1 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
Boil the meat to make some broth.
Cut the beets, carrots, and onion into strips and add them to a soup pot along with some parsley.
Add tomatoes, vinegar, sugar and a little broth and a little fat (1—2 tbsp oil).
Close the lid and let the vegetables cook.
After 15—20 minutes, add the cabbage. Stir and let simmer another 15—20 minutes.
Add the broth to the vegetables along with some pepper, salt and vinegar to taste.
Serve with sour cream.
It’s possible to add potatoes, fresh tomatoes or sausage to the borscht. Cut these additions into cubes and add to the soup 5—10 minutes before serving.
Beet infusion can also be added. To make this, slice one beet; add the slices to a pot with a cup of broth; add a teaspoon of vinegar and cook on low for 10—15 minutes. Strain, then add to the borsch.
Granny’s borscht recipe:
(serves 6)
2 liters water (or meat broth)
4 medium potatoes (soak for 15—20mins prior to boiling) cut up into small cubes
1 stick celery – cut into 2 pieces and then cut in small bits or grate
Small onion (or half a medium onion), finely chopped
2 fist-sized beets – pre-boil in unsalted water for 40—50 minutes. After boiling, immerse in cold water for 3—4 mins. Grate into a dedicated bowl
4 leaves of cabbage. It is important to use whole leaves, then slice them very thinly.
3 hard-boiled eggs (reserve and add half an egg to the bowl before serving)
1 large carrot (soak for 15—20 mins prior to boiling) use largest holes to grate
Sugar – 1 tsp or a little more
½ or 1 can of green peas or 1 can red beans in their own juice
1—2 small tomatoes (better skinless) – cut up into small pieces
Salt – 1.5 or 2 tsp
Dill and parsley – 1 sprig of each to boil, to taste to serve
1 tsp apple vinegar
Sour cream to serve
1. Bring unsalted water to boil, add unpeeled beets and boil for 40—50min until soft.
2. Peel, cut up and grate all the vegetables. Boil 2 liters of water (or meat broth) in a pot, while the water is boiling, cut the potatoes in half and let them sit in cold water, then dice one and leave the other in halves.
3. When the water is boiling, put in the potatoes first and then the carrots and boil for 10—15min. Add a tablespoon of oil and a pinch of salt. Add the dill and parsley while potatoes are boiling and remove after 10—15min.
4. In 10—15 min add onion, celery stalk (grated or chopped) and tomatoes, add 1 or 2 full teaspoons of salt – boil for 5 min. Then add cabbage (it’s important to salt the water before adding the cabbage as it has to be put into salted water. Boil cabbage for 3—4 minutes.
5. Add green peas. After 3 min, add the beets and sugar. Turn off the heat and add a teaspoon of cider vinegar. Let sit for 15—20 min.
6. Serve with part of a boiled egg in each bowl and add sour cream to taste. If you are making meat borscht, distribute the meat evenly into the bowls as you serve.
7. Worshipping at the altar of the Uzbek food gods. Plov
Trying to make plov is like trying to copy Van Gogh – you know you’ll never get there and feel cheeky to be even trying, but the temptation is strong.
Plov is an Uzbek dish that traveled all around the Soviet Union and became popular everywhere. The difference between the plov in Uzbekistan and almost anywhere else is stark, though. In Uzbekistan, the locals treat food with all the seriousness and almost religious admiration it deserves.
There are rules to follow, and, if need be, sacrifices to be made. I once cooked plov and samsa (a type of filled pastry) with an Uzbek friend: we made our own phyllo dough, which needed a room with warm temperatures and no breezes.
When after four hours I begged my friend to open the window, for a second she stared me down as if I were a non-believer. I got the same look when I wondered if a slightly different type of rice to the one she used would work for plov. I learned to obey the rules and not ask questions, out of respect for the Uzbek food cult.
In the rest of the Soviet Union however, plov was treated like any other dish – if necessary, substitutions were made. And sometimes they were made even if they were not necessary. As a result, cafeterias served what my grandmother described as “rice porridge with fried meat, onions and carrots.”
The one place that served real plov was the Uzbekistan Restaurant – one of the oldest restaurants in Moscow. My grandmother says she and my grandfather used to go there a lot, as they did to many other Moscow eateries: “Restaurants were not that much more expensive than cafeterias, especially for lunch, so we used to go out all the time. After trying all the restaurants we decided Uzbekistan was the best. We couldn’t get enough of the Uzbek food.”
This was a rare occasion when I was envious of something in the Soviet era.
I felt jealous again when, some 50 years later, my husband taught the restaurant’s manager English and got free meals as well as being paid for the lessons. Although the Uzbekistan Restaurant still exists, its prices have very much adjusted to the capitalistic way of things. What was once everyone’s favorite is now a place only the better-off part of the population can enjoy. Vladimir Putin, Jack Nicholson and Mike Tyson all have dined there.
As for making plov at home, I thought what my grandmother made was real plov, until I made it myself and a friend told me it was “very nice….risotto.” She was right. The most important parts of plov are the spices and the meat, mostly lamb. There were no spices in the Soviet Union except for dill and parsley, and lamb, although available at markets, was too pricey. So plov was made with chicken instead of lamb and dill and parsley instead of cumin.
This time, when I made my “plov” from the Book (also with chicken, as decent lamb is still hard to come by), it turned out as nice risotto again, but I knew what I was up against. The Book’s recipe is similar to the one my grandmother uses, and it’s most certainly not plov. Real plov requires a special tall, thick pot called a kazan and a lot of dedication. You can check out my friend Nargiz Mukhitdinova’s recipe for real plov below.
Recipe:
400g lamb; 2—3 cups rice;
200g-300g carrots;
150g-200g onion;
200g fat or butter.
Cut the onion and carrots into thin strips. Cut the lamb into small cubes and fry in a large skillet or pot (preferably cast-iron) in fat. When it is cooked, add the onion, then the carrots and fry together with the meat. Then add to this mixture 4 cups water and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil.
Rinse the rice three or four times, then add to the pot with the meat and smooth over the top.
Close the lid tightly and cook for 25—30 minutes on very low heat.
Serve the plov in a dish with sides, with the lamb cubes on top. Sprinkle with sliced raw onions.
Nargiz’s