They were made in the communal kitchen, and as soon as the rest of the residents in the apartment found out someone was making pelmeni, they would creep out of their rooms, ingratiating themselves in hope of receiving a little of the final product. Babushka would say, “Help me fill the dough rounds and I’ll let you have some when they’re done.” That’s when the neighbors started to haggle. “But Anna Lvovna, why should we stand at the table for thirty minutes making the pelmeni with you, when all you’re giving us is thirty? We’ve got a family of six!” or “How about I get to take all the pelmeni I make? I make two, I take two. I make a hundred, I take a hundred.” “Yes, yes, we know you supplied the meat, but you’re not being reasonable. Yes, yes, we know you stood in line for one hour to buy it, but meat or no meat, without our help, there would be no pelmeni. Don’t be stingy. You can’t ask for help and then refuse. You can’t offer pelmeni and then not give enough for one lousy dinner. Look how many you have. It’s just not right, it’s not comrade-like, Comrade Metanova.”
So Babushka would make them, all the while saying this was the “absolute last time” she was ever making pelmeni.
In Arizona, thirty years later, there was slightly less hassle. The freezers had plenty of room all year around, the kitchen was large, the island at which to stand and make the dough balls ample, the cookie sheets abundant, there was music playing, the sun shining, and the food processor did much of the prep work. One thing the food processor could not do: corral children who wanted to be swimming, chasing jackrabbits, shooting baskets, working in the shed with their dad, into the kitchen to help their mother cut out the dough rounds, spoon meat filling into them, and seal the edges. When they were younger, the boys’ argument against helping was, “Why do we have to do it? Dad never helps you. If it’s such a great job, why doesn’t Dad help? I don’t see him sealing meat balls. He’d rather clear brush.”
The father, who could not, in this one instance, lead by example, would order his errant sons to help their mother, allowing no arguments. Every once in a while, he tried to help her himself, and he got a little credit for that, but his hands were too big; he couldn’t seal the pelmeni properly, nor could he put a small enough amount of meat into them. His version was to make not 500 small balls, but ten large ones, like pies you then boiled in water. And Tatiana, grumbling and shaking her head, lamenting how many things remained the same despite others changing so dramatically, would make the pelmeni herself, in honor of her cranky and under-appreciated grandmother.
The standard recipe makes ninety pelmeni. An adult can eat twenty, a child ten. So if you have a family of five, all that fuss is for one dinner. Tatiana recommends making more. When she decides to make them, she makes 400–500 to store in her freezer and remembers fondly the few pelmeni-bags laid out on her window-sill in Leningrad, freezing under the December blizzard winds.
Pelmeni:
To make the dough:
6 cups (750g) all-purpose (plain) flour
2 teaspoons salt
6 egg yolks
1 cup (225ml) ice water
Combine flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse for 2 seconds. Change to continuous mode and with the blade running, add eggs yolks and ice water. Process until dough collects in a ball on the blade. Cover with plastic wrap (clingfilm) and let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Filling:
1lb (450g) ground beef sirloin
8oz (225g) ground chicken
8oz (225g) ground veal
1 large onion, very finely chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup (225ml) ice water
While the dough is resting, make the filling in two batches (because one probably won’t fit). Combine half the meats in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until thoroughly ground. Add half the onion, salt and pepper and pulse until fully processed. Add half the water and pulse again until smooth and fluffy. Transfer to a large bowl and repeat with the other half.
To assemble the pelmeni:
On a floured surface, roll out a chunk of dough, about a quarter of the total, into a large circle approximately 18 in (45cm) round. Make the circle no thicker than in (1.5mm). Cut out rounds about 2½ in (6cm) in diameter with a knife or cookie (biscuit) cutter. Gather the remains of the dough, roll out again, and cut more circles.
Spoon about a teaspoon of meat mixture onto one half of the round, brush the edges of the dough with one slightly beaten egg white (so that it sticks together better). Fold over the other half to make a semi-circle, pinch tightly closed with your fingers. Fold the edge over itself to make sure it’s sealed shut.
Arrange the pelmeni on a baking sheet or plate, making sure they’re not touching. Freeze. Repeat with another ball of dough. And another. And another.
Once the pelmeni in the freezer are solid, transfer them into freezer bags, seal tightly and keep frozen.
To cook pelmeni:
Bring to boil 1–2 cups (225–450ml) of liquid for each serving. Add 1 chicken bouillon cube per cup of liquid. When the water boils add the requisite number of pelmeni, 20 for adults, 10 for kids, turn the heat down to simmer. Stir once or twice to prevent sticking. Pelmeni is ready when it floats.
Serve in the broth with a little sour cream and spicy mustard on the side. If you prefer pelmeni without the soup, ladle into a bowl, add a little butter, and serve with sour cream, mustard, or horseradish on the side. The Russians like all three at once.
Papa’s Borscht
Papa, Tatiana’s father, didn’t cook much. He had too many women around him to cook himself—his wife, his mother, his sister, his oldest daughter. But there was one thing he made because as he said, “Women cannot do this right.” He made borscht, a very hearty soup indeed. He said borscht was a man’s soup. He cooked the beets raw, right in the broth, but added three tablespoons of vinegar, without which they lost their red color. He would say to his son, “Pasha, come see how a man makes borscht.” But Pasha wasn’t interested. Papa didn’t ask Tatiana to come; he knew she wouldn’t. Dasha was the only one who would come. “Papa, can I watch you?” Papa would sigh and mutter about his impossible younger children, and knowing that Dasha already knew how to make the soup, he would nevertheless tell her, “Women cannot make borscht. Just ask your mother.”
Tatiana would think to herself that Mama wasn’t a particularly fair culinary example of what women could and could not do.
She thought, when I grow up and have my own family, I will make this soup for them, and it will be as good as Papa’s. And when she lived in New York, she did make it a few times for her little family of two, plus her best friend, but that was the last time Tatiana ever made borscht. Perhaps she would have appreciated it more had she known she would not make the soup again. She was left instead with a sorrowful nod of the head at her relentless memory, as if she were answering her long gone father. “Indeed Papa, indeed. No one makes this soup like you.”
1lb (450g) beef chuck or other stewing steak, cut into 1-in (2.5cm) cubes
1lb (450g) beef marrow bone
1lb (450g) pork spare ribs
2 large onions, 1 peeled and left whole, 1 coarsely chopped
½ cabbage
3 garlic cloves, very finely chopped or grated
3 carrots, coarsely chopped
3 large cooked beets (beetroot), cubed
16oz (450g) canned peeled whole tomatoes
3 potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-in (1cm) cubes
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper, to taste
Garnish:
fresh dill
sour cream
Place beef chuck, marrow bone, spare ribs, whole onion and garlic into a large, preferably cast-iron over enamel, 9-quart (8.1-liter) pot. Add 2 quarts (1.8 liters) water, salt, pepper, bring to boil, then lower heat and cook, partially covered, for an hour or more until meat is tender. Meanwhile in a frying pan in 2 tablespoons butter on medium he
at, sauté chopped onion and cabbage until softened and golden, and add to the stock. Add the can of peeled tomatoes and the tomato paste, stirring gently until the paste dissolves. Add carrots, beets and potatoes to the stock. Continue cooking for another 45 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Serve with chopped fresh dill and sour cream.
Mama’s Mushroom Barley Soup
Tatiana’s mother made her favorite version of this soup, and Tania considered herself lucky that it was Pasha’s favorite too, because Mama made it much more often since he liked it. Pasha was Mama’s favorite child and though Tatiana felt competitive with him over many things, if his favored status got her her beloved mushroom barley soup more often, then she considered that a personal victory over him. Without opening her mouth, she got what she wanted. Of course, Pasha, being the most contrary and obstructive of brothers, after discovering Tatiana’s affection for “his” soup, would deny himself the pleasure of having it as long as he denied her the pleasure of having it, too. That was his victory over her. And so it went.
Tatiana wheedled her mother into preparing this soup for Alexander. There wasn’t another opportunity to make it for him again until much later, in another life. In that life, Alexander liked the soup and ate it, but said it reminded him of impossible things. Not just of Russia, of not having meat, of winter, as if that alone weren’t plenty. No, it also reminded him of sitting wet under the Polish trees in the mountains of Holy Cross with a young captain, when they had no food and couldn’t cook it if they had, for then the Germans would smell fire and food, and sniff out their position. So instead the two men talked about mushroom barley soup, and whether Tania still liked it, and wondered if at that very moment she perhaps was eating it hot out of a big bowl, somewhere else in time, somewhere safe, where there was food enough, and fire.
After Alexander told her this, Tatiana cooked it less often. When she did, though, they both sat and ate in silence. Sometimes she poured it into one large round bowl, gave them each a spoon and they would eat, quietly, their heads leaning together.
Tatiana’s grandmother made this soup with whole peppercorns instead of freshly ground pepper, and Tatiana ate it like that until she came to the United States and started making it herself. She became convinced that her grandmother had been slightly sadistic because the peppercorns permeated every spoonful and once you bit into one, you couldn’t taste anything else. Tatiana heartily recommends skipping the Russian self-inflicted pain-in-the-mouth tradition and grinding the pepper.
2oz (50g) mixed dried mushrooms
1 large onion, minced (very finely chopped)
2 tablespoons butter
1 bay leaf
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
5 cups (1.125 liters) cold water plus the mushroom water
3 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 large carrots, peeled and cubed
½ cup (100g) pearl barley
sour cream, to serve
Rinse the dried mushrooms in a colander to clean off the grit and sand. Then soak for 4 hours in 1 cup (225ml) cold water. When the mushrooms feel soft to the touch, drain, and pat dry. Reserve the soaking water for the soup.
In a large heavy saucepan cook the onion on medium-high heat in 2 tablespoons butter until soft and slightly golden. Add mushrooms, cook for 5 minutes. Add the soaking water, the 5 cups of clean cold water, the bay leaf, salt and freshly ground pepper and bring to boil. Turn down the heat, cover, and simmer for 45 minutes. Add potatoes, carrots, and barley, bring to boil, turn down the heat, and cook another 45 minutes, or until the carrots are tender and the barley soft. Serve with a spoonful of sour cream.
Salad Olivier
Dasha was very good at peeling potatoes, and Tatiana said this was why Salad Olivier was her favorite food—because it was made of the one thing Dasha was really good at preparing.
To this Dasha replied that for someone who did not even know how to peel potatoes, it was an ironic mocking indeed, but this observation increased rather than stopped the derision.
There is no Russian get-together, celebration, feast, party without this salad. This salad and the next are de rigueur in Russian cuisine.
6 large cooked potatoes, cooled, peeled and finely cubed
6 hard-boiled eggs, (see here), cooled, peeled and very finely chopped
1 yellow or red onion, very finely chopped
1lb (450g) bologna or similar cured sausage, finely diced
6 medium pickles or better yet, cucumbers in brine (salty pickles), squeezed dry with a paper towel and finely diced
5–6 tablespoons mayonnaise
salt and pepper, to taste
16oz (450g) canned peas, drained
Place the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl, then add the mayo and mix carefully. Finally, add the peas, mix very carefully, so as not to mash them, and refrigerate for a few hours before eating to let the flavors seep through. Eat for lunch, or as an appetizer before dinner, but be warned, the salad is very filling. Perhaps a bowl of soup with some bread would be a sufficient accompaniment.
Venigret
Like all Russians, Tatiana loved beets. And as venigret is for beet lovers, it is, therefore, for all Russians. And they love this salad because no matter what else there isn’t much of, there are usually plenty of beets. You can always dig up a root vegetable somewhere in the Russian soil. Which is why beets, potatoes and onions are a staple of Russian cooking. This was something Tatiana could have made in Leningrad—it was certainly easy enough—but she didn’t. Despite not making it, though, she knew how to make it, and in New York, prepared it twice a month for a tall black-haired beauty who had never had beets before, all the while mourning a tall black-haired man who had loved them.
6 cold cooked potatoes, peeled and finely cubed
6–7 cold cooked beets (beetroot), peeled and finely cubed
1 small onion, very finely chopped
6 pickles or cucumbers in brine, squeezed dry and finely chopped
3 tablespoons sauerkraut, drained
salt and pepper, to taste
3–5 tablespoons olive oil
1 16-oz (450g) can cooked peas, drained
Add ingredients in order, peas last, being careful not to mash them. Chill for a few hours to allow the flavors to develop.
Blini, or yeast-risen pancakes
Maybe caviar is an acquired taste, but blini, thin, crêpe-like pancakes risen on yeast, are the royalty of pancakes and not an acquired taste. They are the perfect complement to black or red caviar. Both were generally available in Russia.
And during Butterweek, the Communist equivalent of Lent but without the fast, God, Easter or salvation, Russians feasted on blini with caviar, with sour cream or butter.
Blini were not cooked in summer, and the most Tatiana could do during that first summer when she met Alexander was to wish for winter to arrive so he could come in from the cold in his coat and hat to have blini with caviar because they seemed to her to be just the kind of food he would love. She would learn to cook them by the time winter came, and he would eat them and be pleased with her. And while she was right about his feeling for blini, she was wrong about wishing for winter to come.
2 teaspoons dried yeast
4 teaspoons sugar
3 tablespoons warm water
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled to room temperature, plus extra softened butter for frying
2 cups (450ml) milk
2 cups (250g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ teaspoon salt
Prove the yeast. In a cup, stir together yeast, one teaspoon of sugar, and warm water and let stand 5–10 minutes until frothy. In the bowl of a stand mixer beat egg, butter, and the rest of the sugar and the salt. Then, alternating milk and flour, beat on low setting until smooth and thick, the consistency of heavy cream. Add yeast, beat until smooth. Add butter and oil and continue beating. Make sure batter is smooth. Cover and let
stand in a dark, preferably warm place to let the batter rise, 45 minutes to an hour. Stir, let stand another 30 minutes. Stir well. Pancakes are now ready to be cooked.
Preheat an 8-in (20cm) non-stick pan on medium, butter the pan. Pour in half a ladleful of batter, swish around to just cover the bottom and cook about 30 seconds. Pancakes should be thin, like French crêpes. When bubbles form and break on top, flip with a spatula and continue cooking for another 15 seconds or so, then turn out into a buttered ovenproof dish. Don’t cover the dish, otherwise the blini will get soggy, but place into a 250°F (120°C) preheated oven to keep warm. Cook the rest of the blini, which should take no more than 45 seconds each.
CHAPTER TWO
Leningrad
The river sparkled at night when the light filtered in rays of hope with golden sunlight glinting streaming across the midnight waters, and Tatiana touched the rough speckled granite with her hand and it was cool to her touch, and as she bent over the wide ledge she saw in the water the reflection of the golden spire and knew that for an instant, before the next siren, warning of the Luftwaffe bombs, she was at peace.
The Metanovs lived life loudly and to the full, though not always peaceably. They yelled, boisterously recollected, drank, put on their shoes, crowding in the narrow hallway, threw on their coats, grumbling, and rumbled down the corridor, lighting cigarettes, tying up scarves, elbowing the aunt and uncle who came to visit, pinching the cousin, pulling the fraternal hair. So loud, so crowded, so gloriously alive.
And as they lived, they ate. When there was meat, they cooked it, and when there was sugar, they baked with it. They made bread and buttery desserts, and poured cream over layers of flaky dough, piled blueberry jam onto their plates. They drank heavy black tea with lots of sugar, and it was good, and the pancakes and blinchiki were good. They bought black caviar by the kilo from Yelisey gastronome store on Nevsky Prospekt, and fried their thin, crêpe-like pancakes called blini in butter, had sour cream, hard-boiled eggs and onions as condiments on the side. Even in the village of Luga, on the shores of a river where meat was scarce, they happily ate the fish freshly caught that day. They caught the fish early in the morning or late at night and fried or boiled it, simmering the heads for soup on a Primus stove lit by kerosene. They had cucumbers from the gardens, eggs from the chickens and drank warm milk to bursting morning and night. Instead of butter they rubbed sunflower oil and salt on their black bread. They thought they had so much, had it good, all things considered. And they were right, for all too soon came 1941 and Hitler, war and winter.