Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing

^1910s KULEBIAKA Fish, Rice, and Mushrooms in Pastry

Our decadent, farewell-to-the-czars fish kulebiaka layered with blinchiki (crepes) was probably the most spectacular thing Mom and I have ever made in our lives. And so time-consuming that I can’t really recommend you try it at home. Instead, I offer here a far less laborious version—minus the complicated layers and blinchiki—that will still leave your guests gasping with awe. The sour cream in the yeast dough (Mom’s special touch) adds a lovely tang to the buttery casing. Inside, the flavors of wild mushrooms, dill, and two types of fish all mingle seductively. Serve the kulebiaka for special occasions with a green salad and lemon-flavored vodka. Lots of it.

1. MAKE THE PASTRY: In a medium bowl stir together the milk, yeast, and sugar and let stand until foamy. Whisk in the raw egg, ½ cup sour cream, and the salt. In a large bowl, combine the 8 tablespoons of cut-up butter with the flour. Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the yeast mixture and stir well with your hands to make a soft dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

2. Bring the dough to room temperature, about 1 hour. Grease a mixing bowl with a little butter or oil. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead, adding more flour as needed, until smooth and no longer sticky, about 5 minutes. Transfer the dough to the greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and leave in a warm place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

3. MAKE THE FILLING: In a large skillet heat the oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat. Add the salmon and cod and cook, turning once, until fish just begins to flake, about 7 minutes. Transfer the fish to a large bowl. Return the skillet to medium-high heat and add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Add the onions and cook until light golden. Add the mushrooms and cook until they are golden and the liquid they throw off has evaporated, about 7 minutes, adding more oil if the skillet looks dry. Transfer the mushrooms and onions to the bowl with the fish. Add the remaining ¼ cup sour cream, the hard-cooked eggs, rice, dill, parsley, vermouth, lemon juice, stock, and nutmeg. Mix everything well with two forks, stirring gently to break up the fish. Season with salt and pepper. Let the filling cool to room temperature.

4. Preheat the oven to 400°F. with the rack set in the center. Halve the dough and form two logs. On two lightly floured sheets of wax paper, roll each dough log into a 10 by 16-inch rectangle. Transfer one dough sheet to a large foil-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, leaving a 1-inch border. Spread the filling over the bread crumbs in a neat compact layer. Drape the remaining dough over the filling and pinch the edges to seal. Trim excess dough from the edges, and reserve scraps. Fold up the edges of dough and crimp decoratively. Let the kulebiaka rise for 15 minutes. Brush the top of the pastry with egg glaze. Roll out the dough scraps, cut into decorative shapes, and press on top of the dough. Brush again with the egg glaze. Poke small holes through the top of dough for steam to escape. Bake until golden and beautiful, about 35 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, cut into slices, and serve.

^1920s GEFILTE FISH Stuffed Whole Fish, Odessa-Style

Mom and I had our first-ever seder upon immigrating to Philadelphia in 1974. There we were, at the posh suburban home of our kind Jewish sponsors, being paraded around as “heroic refugees” in our shabby Salvation Army clothes. Everyone stared and sang “Let My People Go,” while Mom and I wept, from emotion mixed with embarrassment. To make matters worse, stammering out passages from the Haggadah in my still-broken English, I kept saying “ten pleasures” instead of “ten plagues.” Then came the gefilte fish. Flashing back to the red-haired sisters of my Odessa summer, I tucked into the neat American fish ball with great curiosity… and could barely swallow! The taste was so shockingly sweet, Mom and I later concluded that the hostess must have accidentally added sugar instead of salt. At our second seder the following night, the fish balls were even sweeter. Noticing our bewilderment, the host explained that his people come from Southern Poland, where Jews liked their gefilte fish sweet. “You Russians, don’t you make your fish peppery?” he inquired. Mom blushed. She’d never once made gefilte fish.

Now, many seders later, she and I know that Russian and Ukrainian Jewish babushkas usually cut the fish into thick steaks, remove the meat to grind with onions and carrots, then pack this stuffing (unsweetened) into the skin around the bones. The fish simmers forever with vegetables until the bones all but dissolve—delicious, though not very pretty. Perfectionists go a step further. Like those Odessa sisters, they stuff a whole fish. If you can find a submissive fishmonger willing to remove the skin in one piece—like a stocking, with the tail still attached—this is by far the most festive and dramatic gefilte fish presentation. The head is packed with some of the filling and poached alongside. At serving time, you reassemble the beast and get ready for compliments. If you don’t have a whole skin, just make a loaf and lay a long strip of skin on top as a decoration. And of course, you can always prepare delicious fish balls from this mixture, in which case you’ll need about 3 quarts of stock.

Back in 1920s Odessa my great-grandmother Maria prepared her gefilte fish with pike from the Privoz market. In America many émigré matrons use carp. My personal favorite is a combo of delicate whitefish with the darker, oilier carp. And while this recipe does contain a large pinch of sugar, it’s the masses of slowly cooked onions that deliver the sweetness. With plenty of horseradish at table, please.

1. In a large skillet heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the 2 finely chopped onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 12 minutes. Let the onions cool for 15 minutes. While the onions are cooling, soak the matzos in cold water to cover for 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly, squeeze out the liquid, and crumble the matzo into a paste with your hands.

2. In a food processor, pulse the coarsely chopped raw onion and the chopped carrot until finely minced, and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Working in 4 batches, pulse the whitefish and carp fillets, the sautéed onions, and the matzo until finely ground but not pureed, transferring the finished batches to the bowl with the onion and carrots. Stir in the eggs, water, sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, and pepper to taste. Blend until the mixture is homogenous and a little sticky. To taste for seasoning, poach or sauté a small fish ball. If the mixture looks too loose to shape, refrigerate it for about an hour, covered with plastic.

3. Preheat the oven to 425°F. with the rack set in the center. Line an 18 by 12-inch metal or foil roasting pan with a piece of foil. If using a whole fish skin with tail attached, lay it out on the foil and stuff with the fish mixture so it resembles a whole fish. With wet hands, shape any leftover mixture into oblong balls. If using a fish head, stuff it with some of the fish mixture, and add to the pan along with the fish balls. If making a loaf with a strip of skin as a decoration (see headnote), shape the fish mixture into a loaf approximately 16 by 6 inches on the foil and lay the skin along the top. Brush the top of the stuffed fish or loaf with a little oil. Bake until the top just begins to color, about 20 minutes.

4. While the fish bakes, bring the fish stock to a simmer. Add enough hot stock to the pan with the fish to come two thirds of the way up the side of the fish. If there is not enough, add a little water. Add the whole carrots to the pan. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F., cover the top of the pan loosely with foil, and continue braising the fish until set and cooked through, about 45 minutes. Baste it with the poaching liquid once or twice, and turn the fish balls, if using.

5. Allow the fish to cool completely in the liquid, about 3 hours, cover with plastic, and refrigerate overnight. To serve, using two large spatulas, carefully transfer it to a long serving platter, lined with watercress, if desired. Attach the head, if using, to the fish. Cut the carrots into slices, and use to decorate the top of the fish. Serve with horseradish.

^1930s KOTLETI Mom’s Russian “Hamburgers”

Kotleti for lunch, kotleti for dinner, kotleti of beef, of pork, of fish, of chicken—even kotleti of minced carrots or beets. The entire USSR pretty much lived on these cheap, delicious fried patties, and when comrades didn’t make them from scratch, they bought them at stores. Back in Moscow, Mom and I harbored a secret passion for the proletarian, six-kopek variety produced by the meat-processing plant named after Stalin’s food supply commissar, Anastas Mikoyan. Inspired by his 1936 trip to America, Mikoyan wanted to copy Yankee burgers in Russia, but somehow the bun got lost in the shuffle and the country got hooked on mass-produced kotleti instead. Deliciously greasy, petite, and with a heavy industrial breading that fried up to a wicked crunch, Mikoyan factory patties could be scarfed down by the dozen. Wild with nostalgia, Mom and I tried a million times to recreate them at home, but no luck: some manufactured treats just can’t be duplicated. So we always reverted back to Mom’s (far more noble) homemade version.

Every ex-Soviet cook has a special trick for making juicy, savory patties. Some add crushed ice, others tuck in pats of butter or mix in a whipped egg white. My mother likes her kotleti Odessa-style (garlicky!), and adds mayo as binding instead of the usual egg, with delightful results. The same formula works with ground turkey or chicken or fish. Buckwheat kasha makes a nostalgic Russian accompaniment. Ditto thin potato batons slowly pan-fried with onions in lots of butter or oil. I love cold kotleti for lunch the next day, with some dense dark bread, hot mustard, and a good crunchy dill pickle.

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the first eight ingredients and blend well into a homogenous mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2. With wet hands, shape the mixture into oval patties approximately 3½ inches long. Spread bread crumbs on a large plate or a sheet of wax paper. Coat patties in crumbs, flattening them out slightly and pressing down for the crumbs to adhere.

3. In a large skillet heat 2 tablespoons of the oil with a pat of butter until sizzling. Working in batches, fry the kotleti over medium-high heat until golden-brown, about 4 minutes per side. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and fry for another 2 to 3 minutes to cook through. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the patties. Serve at once.

^1940s KARTOCHKI Ration Cards

As we started work on the 1940s chapter, Mother and I batted around various menu ideas for the decade. Maybe we’d bake millet, like my grandmother Liza did at the evacuation warehouse in Lenin’s birth town of Ulyanovsk. Or we could improvise wartime “pastries”—a slice of black bread with a barely there dusting of sugar. We even entertained recreating a banquet from the February 1945 Yalta Conference where the “Big Three” and their entourage feasted on quail pilaf and fish in champagne sauce, while the battered country half starved.

In the end, we changed our minds: cooking just didn’t seem right. Instead of a recipe I offer a photo of a ration card book. Place of issue: Leningrad. Date: December 1941, the third month of the terrible Siege, which lasted nine hundred days and claimed around a million lives. Temperatures that winter plunged to minus thirty. There was no heat, no electricity, no running water in the frozen city; sewage pipes burst from the cold; transport stood motionless. Peter the Great’s imperial capital resembled a snow-covered graveyard where emaciated crowds, so many soon to be ghosts, lined up for their ration of bread. By December 1941 the rations had fallen to 250 grams for industrial workers; for all other citizens, 125 grams—barely four ounces of something sticky and damp, adulterated with sawdust and cattle fodder and cellulose. But those 125 grams, those twenty small daily bites gotten with a puny square of paper, were often the difference between survival and death.

An image like this calls for a moment of silence.

^1950s CHANAKHI Georgian Stew of Lamb, Herbs, and Vegetables

In Soviet times, without access to travel or foreign cuisines, Russians turned to the Union’s exotic fringes for complex, spicy foods. Georgian food was Moscow’s de facto haute cuisine, satisfying our northern cravings for smoke, herbs, garlic, and bright, sunny seasoning. If you can forget that this might have been Stalin’s favorite dish, this soupy one-dish meal is a marvel. The Georgian penchant for masses of aromatic herbs is on captivating display, and the meat essentially braises in its own herbaceous, garlicky juices, along with tender eggplants, tomatoes, and spuds. By tradition the stew is baked in an earthenware pot called chanakhi. But enamel cast iron, such as Le Creuset, or a large, sturdy Dutch oven will do just as well. All this stew needs is good hot flatbread to soak up the juices, and a sprightly salad of peppery greens.

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. with the rack set in the lower third. In a mixing bowl combine the cilantro, basil, parsley, and garlic. Toss the mixture with ½ teaspoon of salt, generous gratings of black pepper, paprika, and pepper flakes.

2. Rub the lamb chops with salt, black pepper, paprika, and pepper flakes. In a mixing bowl toss the lamb with the onions. Add a large handful of the herb mixture and the oil, and toss to coat.

3. Place the lamb and the onions as snugly as possible on the bottom of a very large enamel cast-iron pot with a tight-fitting lid. Set the pot over high heat and cook until steam begins to rise from the bottom, about 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover tightly, and cook until the lamb is opaque and has thrown off a lot of juice, about 12 minutes. Turn the lamb, cover, and cook for 3 to 4 minutes longer. Add the chopped tomatoes, another handful of herbs, 1 cup of the tomato juice, and 1 tablespoon of the vinegar, and bring to a vigorous simmer. Cover and transfer the pot to the oven. Cook until the lamb is tender, 1½ to 1¾ hours, checking periodically and adding a little water if it looks dry.

4. While the meat cooks, place the three eggplants directly on three burners set over medium-high heat. Cook, turning and moving the eggplants until the surface is lightly browned and begins to char in spots but the flesh is still firm, 2 to 3 minutes total. Watch out for drips and flame sparks. Using tongs, transfer the eggplants to a cutting board. When cool enough to handle, cut each eggplant crosswise into 4 sections. With a small sharp knife, make a slit in each section, and stuff some of the herb mixture into each slit. In two separate bowls, season the potatoes and the quartered tomatoes with salt and a little of the herb mixture.

5. Remove the lamb from the oven and stir in the potatoes, using tongs and a large spoon to push them gently under the meat. Add the remaining tomato juice and vinegar, another handful of the herb mixture, and enough boiling water, if needed, to generously cover the potatoes and meat. Scatter the eggplant sections on top, nestling them in the liquid. Cover and bake for 30 minutes longer. Add the tomatoes, scattering them on top without stirring, and sprinkle with the remaining herb mixture. Cover and bake for another 20 minutes.

6. Raise the oven temperature to 400°F. Uncover the pot and bake until the juices are thickened, about 15 minutes. Remove the stew from the oven and let cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Serve straight from the pot, sprinkled with additional herbs.

^1960s CORNBREAD FOR KHRUSHCHEV Moldovan Cornbread with Feta

Say “Khrushchev” and a Russian will laugh and immediately cry kukuruza (corn)! And so, in memory of Nikita “Kukuruznik” (Corn Man) Khrushchev and his loony crusade to hook our Union on corn, Mom and I wanted to prepare a maize tribute. The notion of cornbread, however, struck Mom as odd. To a northern Slav, she insisted, bread made from maize sounded oxymoronic; it verged on sacrilege. Bread was sacred and bread was wheat. The breadlines that sprouted during the 1963 crop failure helped push Khrushchev into early retirement, and after he’d gone, corn was either forgotten or recalled as an agricultural gag in northern parts of the Union. But not so in southwestern USSR, I reminded my mother. There cornmeal had been a staple for centuries. Georgians prepared it into gomi (white grits) or mchadi, griddled cakes to be dipped into stews. Western Ukrainians and Moldovans ate mamalyga, the local polenta, as their daily kasha (gruel).

I myself discovered the bounty of the Union’s corn recipes when researching my book Please to the Table. And I fell in love with this fantastically moist, extra-savory Moldovan cornbread—enriched, local-style, with sour cream and tangy feta cheese. Recently, I made it for Mom. It came out so yummy that we ate it straight from the pan—warm and topped with fire-roasted red peppers. Mom recalled how in breadless 1963 she’d thrown out a bag of cornmeal someone had given her. What am I to do with this yellow sawdust? she’d wondered back then. Well, now she knows. Here’s the recipe.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. with the rack set in the center. In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together the first four ingredients. In another bowl sift together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until smooth. Add the feta and whisk to blend thoroughly. Let the batter stand for 10 minutes.

2. Butter a 9 by 9 by 2-inch baking pan. Pour the batter into the pan and tap to even it out. Bake the cornbread until light golden and firm to the touch, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm, with roasted peppers, if desired.

^1970s SALAT OLIVIER Russian Potato Salad with Pickles

Sine qua non of socialist celebrations, this salady Soviet icon actually has a fancy, bourgeois past. The name? Derived from one Lucien Olivier, a French chef who wowed 1860s Moscow with his swank L’Hermitage restaurant. The Gaul’s original creation, of course, had almost nothing in common with our Soviet classic. His was an extravagant still life of grouse, tongue, and crayfish tails encircling a mound of potatoes and cornichons, all doused with le chef’s secret Provençal sauce. To Olivier’s horror, Russian clients vulgarized his precious arrangement by mixing up all the ingredients on their plates. And so he retooled his dish as a salad. Then came 1917. L’Hermitage was shuttered, its recipes scorned. All Soviet children knew Mayakovsky’s jingle: “Eat your pineapples, gobble your grouse / Your last day is coming, you bourgeois louse!”

The salad gained a second life in the mid-1930s when Olivier’s old apprentice, a chef known as Comrade Ivanov, revived it at the Stalin-era Moskva Hotel. Revived it in Soviet form. Chicken replaced the class-enemy grouse, proletarian carrots stood in for the original pink of the crayfish, and potatoes and canned peas took center stage—the whole drenched in our own tangy, mass-produced Provansal mayo.

Meanwhile, variations of the salad traveled the world with White Russian émigrés. To this day, I’m amazed to encounter it under its generic name, “Russian salad,” at steakhouses in Buenos Aires, railway stations in Istanbul, or as part of Korean or Spanish or Iranian appetizer spreads. Amazed and just a little bit proud.

At our own table, Mom gives this Soviet staple an arty, nonconformist twist by adding fresh cucumbers and apple, and substituting crabmeat for chicken (feel free to stay with the latter). The ultimate key to success, though, she insists: chopping everything into a very fine dice. She also obsessively doctors Hellmann’s mayo with various zesty additions. I think Lucien Olivier would approve.

1. In a large mixing bowl combine all the salad ingredients and season with salt and pepper to taste.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients, season with salt, and taste: it should be tangy and zesty. Toss the salad thoroughly with the dressing, adding a little more mayo if it doesn’t look moist enough. Adjust the seasoning to taste. Serve in a cut-crystal or glass bowl.

^1980s DAD’S UBER-BORSHCH Borscht with Beef, Mushrooms, Apples, and Beans

To my childhood palate, borshch (as Russians spell borscht) was less a soup than a kind of Soviet quotidian destiny: something to be endured along with Moscow tap water and the endless grayness of socialist winter. Our Soviet borshch took on various guises. There was the private borshch, such as Mom’s frugal vegetarian version, endearing in its monotony. There was the vile institutional soup of canteens, afloat with reddish circles of fat. In winter we warmed our bones with limp, hot borshch, the culinary equivalent of tired February snow. In summer we chilled out with svekolnik, the cold, thin borshch popularized here in America by Eastern European Jews.

Parallel to all these but ever out of reach was another soup: the mythical “real” Ukrainian borshch we knew from descriptions in State-approved recipe booklets authored by hack “gastronomic historians.” Apparently that borshch was everything ours wasn’t. Thick enough to stand a spoon in, concocted in myriad regional permutations, and brimming with all manner of meats. Meats! That borshch represented the folkloric propaganda Ukraine, our wholesome Soviet breadbasket and sugarbeet bowl, envisioned as though never clouded by the horrors of famine and collectivization. Not once during my childhood did I taste anything like this chimerical “real” Ukrainian borshch. Neither was I that interested, really.

It was the dinner my dad, Sergei, prepared to impress Mom during our 1987 Moscow reunion that changed my mind. Convinced me that borshch could be something exciting. Never in my life had I tasted anything like Dad’s masterpiece, with its rich meaty broth, the deep garnet color achieved by juicing the beets, the unconventional addition of mushrooms and beans, the final savory flourish of pork cracklings. Even after sampling many authentic regional versions on my subsequent trips to Ukraine, I still hold up Dad’s borshch as the Platonic ideal.

Here’s his recipe. My only tweak is to replace fresh beet juice with baked beets, which deliver the same depth of color. A rich homemade stock makes the soup special, but if the effort seems like too much, omit the first step, use about 11 cups of store-bought chicken stock in Step 3, and instead of boiled beef, add about a pound of diced kielbasa or good smoky ham. Like most peasant soups, borshch improves mightily on standing, so make it a day ahead. A thick slice of pumpernickel or rye is a must. Ditto a dollop of sour cream.

1. Combine beef and water in a large stockpot and bring to a boil over high heat. Skim and reduce heat to low. Add the whole onions and carrots and the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer partially covered, until the meat is tender, about 1½ hours. Strain the stock, removing the meat. You should have 11 to 12 cups of stock. Cut the beef into 1½-inch chunks and reserve.

2. While the stock cooks, preheat the oven to 400°F. Wrap the beets separately in aluminum foil and bake until the tip of a small knife slides in easily, about 45 minutes. Unwrap the beets, plunge them into a bowl of cold water, then slip off the skins. Grate the beets on a four-sided box grater or shred in a food processor. Set aside. Strain the mushroom soaking liquid and save for another use. Chop the mushrooms.

3. In a large, heavy soup pot, cook the bacon over medium-low heat until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and reserve. To the bacon drippings, add the chopped onion, mushrooms, diced carrot, and green pepper, and cook until softened, about 7 minutes, adding a little butter if the pot looks dry. Add the remaining butter and cabbage, and cook, stirring, for another 5 minutes. Add the paprika and stir for a few seconds. Add the stock, potatoes, tomatoes with their liquid, apple, and the reserved beef, and bring to a gentle boil. Skim off any froth, season with salt to taste, cover, and simmer over low heat until potatoes are almost tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in half of the reserved beets and the beans, and add a little water if the soup looks too thick. Continue cooking over medium-low heat until all the vegetables are soft and the flavors have melded, about 25 minutes more. (The borshch can be prepared a day ahead up to this point. Reheat it slowly, thinning it out with a little water if it thickens too much on standing.)

4. Before serving, use a mortar and pestle and pound the garlic and parsley with 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper to a coarse paste. Add to the simmering soup along with the reserved bacon, the remaining beets, vinegar, and sugar. Adjust the seasoning and simmer for another 5 minutes. Let the borshch stand for 10 minutes. To serve, ladle the soup into serving bowls, add a small dollop of sour cream to each portion, and sprinkle with dill and scallions. Invite the guests to mix the sour cream well into their soup.

^1990s PALOV Central Asian Rice, Lamb, and Carrot Pilaf

I never ate more bizarrely than I did during the Soviet Union’s last winter in 1991. The economy was going to hell; food would be nonexistent in one place, then, thanks to some mysterious black-market forces, plentiful just up the road. Rattling around the collapsing empire in our ramshackle Zhiguli cars, my ex-boyfriend and I fasted one minute and feasted the next. Of the feasts, my favorites occurred in the Uzbek/Tajik city of Samarkand (where market forces have always been potent). There you could count on smoky kebabs from rickety stalls, ambrosial melons piled up in wagon beds, and at people’s houses, always an aromatic festive palov mounded high on a blue and white ceramic platter. Outside, the world was coming unstitched; inside Samarkand homes we sat on low cushions sipping tannic green tea, scooped up delicious yellow rice (with the left hand, as tradition demanded), and nodded along politely to nationalist proclamations that Tajik pilaf was infinitely better than Uzbek pilaf—or vice versa. The proclamations didn’t make sense. But eating the rice did.

A feast of cumin-spiced lamb and rice steamed together until every spoonful is as eloquent as an Omar Khayyám quatrain, palov enjoys such ritual status in Central Asia that florid legends of its conception involve Alexander the Great or, in certain versions, Genghis Khan. The dish is prepared according to a strict code, traditionally by men (and often for men) and over an open fire. But it’s also fabulous when made in a home kitchen, and super easy to boot. The soul of the dish is zirvak, a base of lamb and masses of onions and carrots. (To this mix feel free to add some cubed quince, a handful of raisins, and/or a cup of canned chickpeas.) The spices are spare and eloquent: doses of sweet and hot pepper, a whole garlic head, and barberries, the tiny dried berries with a sharp lemony flavor. (Look for them at Middle Eastern markets.) Short- or medium-grained rice is then layered on top, and everything steams to perfection in a Turkic nomadic kettle called kazan, for which you can substitute any heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid.

Palov is best enjoyed with a couple of zesty, salady Central Asian sides. One is a slaw of shredded sweet daikon radish and carrots dressed with white vinegar, a touch of oil, and a pinch of sugar. For the other essential accompaniment, thinly slice 1 large onion, 2 large green peppers, and 3 large ripe tomatoes, and layer them in a shallow bowl, seasoning the layers with salt and pepper and sprinkling them with mild olive oil and red wine vinegar. Let the salad stand while the palov cooks. Tannic green tea, in small cup-bowls, is the classic Central Asian beverage, but we Russians also pour vodka.

1. In a large, heavy casserole, preferably with an oval bottom, heat the oil until smoking. Rub the lamb generously with salt and pepper. In 2 to 3 batches, brown the lamb well on all sides, transferring the browned pieces to a bowl. Once all the lamb is browned, add the onions and a little more oil if necessary and cook, stirring until well-browned, about 7 minutes. Return the lamb to the pot, reduce the heat to low, and stir in the cumin, paprika, cayenne, turmeric, and barberries, if using. Season generously with salt, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, adding a little water if the lamb begins to burn. Thoroughly stir in the carrots and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Adjust the seasoning.

2. Flatten the surface of the lamb mixture with the back of a large spoon. Pour rice over the meat and bury the garlic head in it. Place a small lid or a heatproof plate directly on top of the rice (so as not to disturb the arrangement of rice and meat when adding water). Pour in the boiling water in a steady stream. Being careful not to burn yourself, remove the lid or the plate. Taste the liquid and add salt if necessary. Cook the rice uncovered without stirring over medium-low heat until the liquid is level with the rice and small bubbles appear on the surface, about 15 minutes.

3. With a spatula, gather the rice into a mound and make 6 to 7 holes in it with the back of a long wooden spoon for steam to escape. Reduce the heat to the absolute lowest, place a Flame Tamer if you have one under the pot, cover tightly, and let the rice steam until tender, about 25 minutes. Check 2 or 3 times and add a little bit of water into the holes in the rice if there doesn’t seem to be enough steam. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 15 minutes.

4. To serve, spread the rice on a large festive serving platter, fluffing it slightly. Arrange the meat and vegetables in a mound over it, topping with the garlic head. Serve the tomato and grated radish salads alongside.

^{The Twenty-first Century} BLINI Russian Pancakes with Trimmings

Our book journey ended; the time came for our very last feast. Mom and I decided to hold an ironic wake for the USSR. And what do Russians eat at commemorations and wakes? They eat blini. Coming full circle to our first chapter, we once again read Chekhov while a yeast sponge bubbled and rose in a shiny bowl on Mom’s green faux-granite counter. Yeast for our farewell blini.

Blini has always been the most traditional, ritualistic, and ur-Slavic of foods—the stuff of carnivals and divinations, of sun worship and ancestral rites. In pre-Christian times, the Russian life cycle began and ended with blini—from pancakes fed to women after childbirth to the blini eaten at funerals. “Blin is the symbol of sun, good harvest, harmonious marriages, and healthy children,” wrote the Russian poet Alexander Kuprin (blin being the singular of blini).

To a pagan Slav, the flour and eggs in the blini represented the fertility of Mother Earth; their round shape and the heat of the skillet might have been a tribute to Yerilo, the pre-Christian sun god. Even in Soviet days, when religion was banned, Russians gorged on blini not only at wakes but also for Maslenitsa, the Butterweek preceding the Easter Lent. They still do. Religions come and go, regimes fall, sushi is replacing seliodka (herring) on post-Soviet tables, but blini remain. Some foods are eternal.

Authentic Russian blini start with opara, a sponge of water, flour, and yeast. The batter should rise at least twice, and for that light sourdough tang I chill it for several hours, letting the flavors develop slowly. Russian blini are the diameter of a saucer, never cocktail-size, and these days people prefer wheat to the archaic buckwheat. Most babushkas swear by a cast-iron skillet, but I recommend a heavy nonstick. Frying the blini takes a little practice: “The first blin is always lumpy,” the Russian saying goes. But after three or four, you’ll get the knack.

The accompaniments include—must include!—sour cream and melted butter, herring, smoked salmon and whitefish, and caviar, if you’re feeling lavish. Dessert? More blini with various jams.

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together yeast, water, and 2 teaspoons sugar and let stand until foamy. Whisk in ½ cup of flour until smooth. Place the sponge, covered, in a warm place until bubbly and almost doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

2. Into the sponge beat in the half-and-half, 4 tablespoons melted butter, 2¼ cups flour, egg yolks, the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, and salt. Whisk the batter until completely smooth and set to rise, covered loosely with plastic wrap, until bubbly and doubled in bulk, about 2 hours, stirring once and letting it rise again. Alternatively, refrigerate the batter, covered with plastic, and let it rise for several hours or overnight, stirring once or twice. Bring to room temperature before frying.

3. Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks and fold them into the batter. Let the batter stand for another 10 minutes.

4. Pour some oil into a small shallow bowl and have it ready by the stove. Skewer a potato half on a fork and dip it into the oil. Rub the bottom of a heavy 8-inch nonstick skillet with a long handle liberally with the oil. Heat the pan over medium heat for 1½ minutes. Using a pot-holder, grip the skillet by the handle, lift it slightly off the heat, and tilt it toward you at a 45-degree angle. Using a ladle quickly pour enough batter into the skillet to cover the bottom in one thin layer (about ¼ cup). Let the batter run down the skillet, quickly tilting and rotating it until the batter covers the entire surface. Put the skillet back on the burner and cook until the top of the blin is bubbly and the underside is golden, about 1 minute. Turn the blin and cook for 30 seconds more, brushing the cooked side with melted butter. If the skillet looks dry when you are turning the blin, rub with some more oil. The first blin will probably be a flop.

5. Make another blin in the same fashion, turn off the heat and stop to taste. The texture of the blin should be light, spongy, and a touch chewy; it should be very thin but a little puffy. If a blin tears too easily, the consistency is too thin: whisk in ¼ cup more flour into the batter. If the blin is too doughy and thick, whisk in ¼ to ½ cup water. Adjust the amount of salt or sugar to taste, and continue frying.

6. Repeat with the rest of the batter, greasing the pan with the oiled potato before making each blin. Slide each fried blin into a deep bowl, keeping the stacked cooked blini covered with a lid or foil (see note). Serve the blini hot, with the suggested garnishes. To eat, brush the blin with butter, smear with a little sour cream if you like, top with a piece of fish, roll up, and plop into your mouth.

NOTE

Blini are best eaten fresh. If you must reheat, place them, covered with foil, in a bain marie in the oven or in a steamer. Or cover a stack with a damp paper towel and microwave on high for 1 minute.