the quest for russian vegetable pie

Way back in the late 20th century, I was at a dinner party where a dish called Russian Vegetable Pie was served.  It was zero degrees out so it felt like Siberia, and we had the pie with beet salad and iced glasses of vodka. Great meal!  I loved the pie and got the recipe, but then I lost it.  So I tried to recreate the pie myself, with varying degrees of success.  The recipes I found online were close, but seemed to be either overladen with potatoes or missing something integral (it was the cream cheese).  Then I was looking at a cookbook called The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas at a thrift store, and I opened it right up to a recipe for Russian Vegetable Pie.  And it was suddenly like I heard balalaika music...because there was the elusive combo of ingredients to make the elusive Russian Vegetable Pie.

The Vegetarian Epicure also offers a really nice collection of other recipes, like Gazpacho Salad, Potatoes Gruyere en Casserole, Minestrone Alla Milanese, Iced Cucumber Soup (with cream and chervil), and Ginger Cheesecake.  As well as a range of homemade breads and recipes for sauces and vinaigrettes.  The publication date on my copy is 1972 (though the book has been reprinted), with this paragraph from the original introduction:  

In these strange 1970's, ominous and dramatic new reasons are compelling people to reexamine their eating habits.  More and more foods are being "processed," becoming the products of factories rather than farms.  Chemical nonfood "additives" alter the look of foods and prevent visible spoilage, but the nutritive value of treated foods is hugely diminished...[c]attle and poultry are treated with silbesterol (a sex hormone) to promote growth--and profit--resulting in unknown danger to human consumers, including the possibility of various types of cancer.

Much has changed since then, but much has stayed the same.  Above all, Anna advocates that good food "is a celebration of life, and it seems absurd...that in celebrating life we should take life."  If you'd like to see Anna's more recent work, click here for The Vegetarian Epicure II, published in 2014.  All that said, this is her simple but delicious Russian Vegetable Pie:

Pastry

1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
4 oz softened cream cheese
3 tbs butter

Filling

1 small head cabbage (about 3 cups shredded)
1/2 lb mushrooms
1 yellow onion
to taste:  basil, marjoram, tarragon, salt and fresh ground pepper
3 tbs butter
4 oz softened cream cheese
4 to 5 hard cooked eggs
dill

Make a pastry by sifting together the dry ingredients, cutting in the butter, and working it together with the cream cheese.  Roll out 2/3 of the pasty and line a 9 inch pie dish.  Roll out the remaining pastry and make a circle large enough to cover the dish.  Put it away to chill.

Shred a small head of cabbage coarsely.  Wash the mushrooms and slice them.  Peel and chop the onion.

In a large skillet, melt about 2 tablespoons butter.  Add the onion and cabbage, and saute for several minutes, stirring constantly.  Add at least 1/8 teaspoon each of marjoram, tarragon, and basil (all crushed), and some salt and fresh-ground pepper.  Stirring often, allow the mixture to cook until the cabbage is wilted and the onions soft. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of butter to the pan and saute the mushrooms lightly for about 5 to 6 minutes, stirring constantly.

Spread the softened cream cheese on the bottom of the pie shell. Slice the eggs and arrange the slices in a layer over the cheese. Sprinkle them with a little chopped dill, then cover them with the cabbage. Make a final layer of the sauteed mushrooms and cover with the circle of pastry.  

Press the pastry together tightly at the edges, and flute them. With a sharp knife, cut a few short slashes through the top crust.

Bake in a 400-degree oven for 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 350 degrees and continue baking for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until the crust is light brown.

Serves 4 to 6.

national olive month

One more day until National Olive Month officially ends, but if you love olives, it's quite obvious that every month should celebrate their awesomeness.  Click here for Lindsay Olives' delicious Olive and Brie Pizza, or for many other great recipes featuring superstar olives and/or equally super wonderful olive oil.

step-by-step asian

Step-by-Step Asian (2011) is part of Parragon Books' LOVE FOOD series, giving you easy-to-follow written and visual guides for a nice assortment of Asian recipes (appetizers and soups, noodles and rice, main meals and desserts).  In the intro, basic equipment is detailed, with strong suggestions to use a bamboo steamer rather than a traditional stainless steel version, along with a carbon steel wok vs. stainless steel or non-stick.  Of course if you don't have a carbon steel wok, you can always use a large sauté pan for stir frying -- and if you're just purchasing a new wok and need to season it, here's a good guide on how to start the whole process.  

Beyond all that, Step-by-Step Asian has the usual appealing photography that Parragon is known for, and the recipes include Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian offerings.  Standards include Spring Rolls, Hot and Sour Soup, Teriyaki Chicken, Green Chicken Curry and Vegetable Tempura, while standouts feature a Chicken Noodle Soup (the broth spiced with garlic, ginger, peppercorns, cloves and star anise), Vietnamese-Style Vegetable Wraps, Sesame Noodles with Shrimp, Sliced Beef in Black Bean Sauce, Gado Gado and Honey-Glazed Roast Pork.

Difficulty ranges from the quick and easy Fried Tofu with Lemongrass and Egg-Fried Rice, to the more complicated but surely worthwhile Tea-Smoked Duck with Jasmine Rice or the Thai Fish Cakes with cucumber chili sauce.  And there are excellent desserts, like Green Tea Ice Cream, Coconut Pancakes with Pineapple, Sweet Wontons (filled with bananas, dates, almonds and cinnamon), Fried Banana Dumplings, the classic Almond Cookies and a Fruit Salad made with lime, lemongrass, watermelon, dragon fruit, star fruit and mint.  Also a Burmese Semolina Cake which I haven't tried but find kind of intriguing -- Burmese food isn't as well-known as Chinese or Indian cuisine but is influenced by both in its own unique way.

beet it

French chef Jacques Pépin is a living legend, with decades of cooking excellence to his credit, a long-running PBS series and numerous acclaimed cookbooks.  And now he has an exclusive collection at Sur La Table, including this colorful, whimsical, hand-crafted and hand-painted Beet Bowl and accompanying serving plate.  Very much love them both, and speaking of beets, I also love Chef Pépin's recipe for chilled Vegetarian Borscht (click for link) which might be served up nicely at this time of year.

Photo from Sur La Table

I

cooking japanese style

Cooking Japanese Style is another little booklet from The International Recipe Series published in 1979 (Cooking French Style already had a recipe featured on here), with this excerpt from the intro:

Amid the misty mountains of Japan the plexiglass and steel of futuristic architecture complete with bamboo and paper of a more gentle and mysterious past...[r]ice is the basis for almost every meal.  Vegetables are cooked very little.  This way they retain their food value and flavor.  Seasonings play an important part in all dishes.  Soy sauce is used constantly.  Food is served in small delicate portions arranged to please the eye as much as the taste.

I love that first sentence but I'm wondering if they meant compete with instead of complete.  This is the booklet's sweetly tangy Mustard Pickled Eggplant -- the original recipe calls for half a teaspoon of MSG, but I just use half to a full teaspoon of ginger instead.  

Mustard Pickled Eggplant (from Cooking Japanese Style, The International Recipe Series)

1 medium eggplant

3 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon dry mustard (you can also use 1 generous tablespoon of actual wet mustard if you prefer)

3 tablespoons sweet sake

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger or 1 teaspoon finely minced ginger 

Wash unpeeled eggplant and slice in 1/8 inch slices.  Soak in salted water for 1 hour.  Drain and arrange in a glass or china bowl.  Combine mustard with enough water to make a paste (if using dry powder).  Add to remaining ingredients and blend thoroughly.  Pour over eggplant.  Chill for 2 hours and serve.

fast, fresh & green

Susie Middleton's Fast, Fresh & Green (Chronicle Books, 2010) features 90-plus fairly easy to prepare recipes for those who love vegetables, and for those who'd probably love vegetables more if they knew how versatile and delicious they can be.  But Fast, Fresh & Green is not, as Middleton explains, a wholly vegetarian cookbook, so there will be occasional ingredients that involve meat or poultry or fish. She notes that her palate tends toward the Mediterranean from her years working at Al Forno Restaurant in Providence, and while a number of the dishes do have a Mediterranean flair, there are also other flavors to balance things out.

Fast, Fresh & Green has an enjoyably holistic yet relaxed approach towards preparing food, with advice as to how to get into the cooking "zone" and a general sense of openness where recipes are concerned, working with what vegetables (preferably local and fresh) happen to be available or in season, and personal preferences for spices and combinations.  And what kind of mood you're in when you start to put together a meal, such as being more inclined toward no-cook recipes, regular or "walk-away" sautéing, grilling, braising, or the more in-depth "Slower But Worth It" gratins category.

Explanations of basic techniques and how to stock a good-and-ready pantry make Fast, Fresh & Green a nice option for novice cooks, but the recipes themselves are creative enough to intrigue those who already know their way around the kitchen.  Such as Caramelized Plum Tomatoes in an Olive Oil Bath (so simple but so good), Smoky Spanish Carrots and Fennel with Toasted Hazelnuts, Double Lemon Ginger Carrot Salad, Heirloom Tomato, Summer Peach and Fresh Herb Gazpacho Salad, Colorful Chinese Kick-Slaw, Southwestern Butternut Squash Sauté, and Golden Mushroom and Potato Gratin. And plenty more, including an awesome citrusy Japanese Dipping Sauce for broccoli and/or shrimp, and the savory Thyme-Dijon Butter (for grilled green beans).  All in all making vegetables definite standouts at the table -- and maybe even  able to totally steal the show.

cooking with myrtle

Chicago writer Myrtle Reed (1874-1911) crafted more than a dozen novels in her day, along with several cookbooks under the tasty-sounding pseudonym of Olive Green.  Though she seemed to have a happy marriage and successful career, her suicide note and overdose on sleeping powders claimed otherwise.

Before her unfortunate death, Myrtle/Olive and husband Jack McCullough hosted many a memorable dinner party at their home, and surely quite a few of Myrtle's time-tested recipes were served.   The Myrtle Reed Cookbook was published posthumously in 1916 and seems to combine all the Olive Green books into one volume.  It's an old school cookbook, so many of the recipes may look familiar, but there is a passion for food and humor to the narrative that makes the thought of Myrtle's suicide even sadder. The cookbook is available for free on Kindle and Project Gutenberg, or you can buy a print copy for about $10, depending on the edition.  Here's Myrtle's excellent and classic Fruit Cobbler, as we start getting into summer peaches, plums, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, rhubarb, etc., season:

Fill a deep buttered baking-dish with fresh or stewed fruit— apples, peaches, apricots, rhubarb, plums, or gooseberries being commonly used— and cover with a crust made as follows: Sift together two cupfuls of flour and two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Rub into it half a cupful of butter and add one egg beaten with a cupful of milk. Spread over the fruit which has been previously sweetened to taste and bake until the crust is done. Serve either hot or cold with cream or any preferred sauce.

Cheap tea contains sawdust, dried and powdered hay, grass-seed, and departed but unlamented insects. 

Moral—buy good tea, or go without.

*******

The breakfast selected as a type consists of fruit, a cereal, salt fish, or salt meat, or eggs, or omelets, hot bread of some kind, and pancakes or waffles, or coffee cake, one dish from each group, and coffee. Six dishes in all, which may be less if desired, but never more. All six form a breakfast sufficiently hearty for a stone mason or a piano mover; one or two give a breakfast light enough to tempt those who eat no breakfast at all.

Myrtle Reed