RUSSIAN CUISINE

Russian cuisine is rich & varied. In Russia there is a large variety of milk products: a sort of dry, granulated cream cheese called “tvorog”, thick sour cream called “smetana”, several types of sour milk products of the youghourt type. Kefir is pleasant, useful beverage made from cow’s milk, yeast & lactic acid bacteria. It’s dietary product. Ryazhenka is a sour milk product made from baked milk, very pleasant to taste.
There is a big chose of appetizers, soups, hot dessert dishes. You can recommend your guests salmon, hot & cold smoked sturgeon, pikeperch in aspic or stuffed, herring, red herring. Baltic salt-sprats; fried, smoked, marinated smelt & the like.
As for cold meat dishes our guests can taste ham, lean cold boiled pork with spices (buzhenina), jellied tongue, meat jelly & horse-radish sauce & various salads beginning with salad “Stolychnii” up to Russian salad. For a change, you can taste frozen apples. They are delicious. Russian blini are popular hot appetizers.
How about soups? There are plenty of them. Shchee, borshch, rassolnic, salyanka, ookha (special fichermen’s soup), mushroom soup & soups in season – okroshka & cold beetroot soup are very popular with our guests.
For the hot dish guests can order fried burbot or carp, or meat dishes to their taste: beef-Stroganoff & mashed potatoes, roast veal, golubtsy, pelmeni & so on.
There is a large variety of poultry & game dishes: roast chicken, roast duck & goose stuffed with apples, roast partridge, hazel-grouse, wood grouse, blackbird, pheasant & quail. They are juicy & tender dishes.
How about desert? For desert you can have baked apples, fruit & berry kisel, compot, dessert fruit: aromatic melons from Middle Asia, water-melons from the Volga, juicy grapes, apricots, peaches, oranges.
Russian cuisine is famous for its Russian pies which were baked in Russia in good old times & remain popular nowadays. They are: kulebiaka, rastegay, vatrushki, krendeli, boubliki, baranki, sooshki, Russian Easter cakes & various fancy-cakes.
As for drinks I should recommend fruit & berry beverages: morse, kvas.
As for me I know not so much about Russian cuisine & about any other cuisine because I cannot cook so I eat what I am given & I am given not various dishes. I usually eat shchi, chicken with potato or macaroni, pelmeni. As for drinks, I usually have tea, juice or yeast. Yeast is very useful for health.

VOCABULARY

Granulated – раздробленый
Sour cream – кисломолочный
Beverage – напиток
Yeast – закваска, дрожжи
Lactic acid – молочная кислота
Baked – топленый, сгущеный
Appetizer – закуска
Salmon – лосось, семга
Sturgeon – осетрина
Stuffed – фаршированный
Sprat – шпрота, килька
Smoked – копченый
Smelt – корюшка
& The like – и тому подобное
Pike – щука
Perch – окунь
Aspic – заливное
Herring – селедка
Fried – жареный
Ham – ветчина, окорок
Lean – постная часть, тонкий
Boiled – вареный, кипяченый
Pork – свинина
Jellied – застывший
Horse-radish – хрен
Frozen apples – моченые яблоки
Beetroot – свекла
Burbot – налим
Beef – говядина
Veal – телятина
Poultry – домашняя птица
Roast – жаркое
Partridge – куропатка
Hazel-grouse – рябчик
Wood-grouse – тетерев-глухарь
Blackbird – глухарь
Pheasant – фазан
Quail – перепел
Tender – нежный
Baked apples – печеные яблоки