{"id":2397,"date":"2012-09-16T13:16:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T17:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/?page_id=2397"},"modified":"2012-10-14T11:02:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T15:02:33","slug":"belarus","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/countries\/belarus\/","title":{"rendered":"Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Making Belarus cuisine is like returning back home from a long trip. Overall, it looks familiar, but you discover forgotten details all over again. Anyway, for the Belarus meal, I selected three dishes — Paparats Kvetka (“Fern Flower”, which is actually meat patties stuffed with butter and cheese), Draniki (Potato Pancakes), and Kulaga (a sort of fruit sauce). <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Paparats Kvetka<\/strong>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nThis is the dish I was referring to when I compared Belarusian cuisine to returning home after some absence. The dish itself is very familiar to anyone from the former USSR but some details are surprising. It is basically a meat patty fried in sunflower oil. However, this particular patty is stuffed with a mixture of cheese and butter. Yumm! … but not kosher \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Alex and Matthew loved the result and were even fighting for who gets a bigger size patty (well, Matthew was the winner, of course). Eugene tried a piece but wasn’t impressed (no surprise here). Anyway, here is the recipe I found on one of the Russian language sites and translated myself.<\/p>\n

\nIngredients<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 1 lb of lean ground chicken, or turkey, or beef <\/li>\n
  • 3 tbsp of butter, softened<\/li>\n
  • 3 – 4 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded<\/li>\n
  • 1 small onion, sliced<\/li>\n
  • 1 egg<\/li>\n
  • 1 piece of soft bread, crust removed<\/li>\n
  • 1 cup of panko bread crumbs<\/li>\n
  • salt and black pepper to taste <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    In a small bowl, combine butter and cheese. With wet hands form small sticks half an inch in diameter (they should look kind of like a string cheese). Set in refrigerator to harden.<\/p>\n

    Blend onion and bread in a food processor until smooth. In a large bowl combine ground meat, egg and onion and bread mixture. Add salt and black pepper to taste. Mix well. <\/p>\n

    With wet hands, form a small oval patty and place a butter and cheese stick on it. Cover with another small patty. Now you should have a patty stuffed with butter and cheese mixture so it is time to cover it in breadcrumbs and fry in sunflower oil on medium heat until done.
    \n\"\"\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Draniki — Potato Pancakes <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hello, my old friends — draniki! I didn’t even have to look for the recipe. I know it. It is one of the simplest yet tastiest dishes I know. The whole family loves them including Eugene. Here is my simple recipe.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  • 1 kg (about 2 lbs, or about 4) potatoes, cleaned, peeled, and shredded<\/li>\n
  • 2 tbsp of all-purpose flower<\/li>\n
  • 1 tbsp of sour cream or buttermilk (optional)<\/li>\n
  • salt and black pepper to taste<\/li>\n
  • oil for frying<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Place shredded potato in a colander and get rid of the excess liquid. Mix all ingredients. Heat a nonstick skillet on medium high heat and add oil. Using a tablespoon place potato mix to a hot skillet and press it down to make a nice oval or round shape. Fry pancakes on both sides until crispy and golden brown. Serve hot with sour cream.<\/p>\n

    \"\" <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Kulaga — Fruit Sauce<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
This sauce is so simple that even my 5 year old could make it. And he did! Eugene wanted to help so I let him make it (with some supervision, of course \ud83d\ude42 ). <\/p>\n

It is pretty simple. Take a bag of frozen berries (we had cherries, blueberries, strawberries, sour cherries, raspberries and blackberries). Put the berries in a stainless steel pot and heat on medium high heat. When they start to release juices, add about 2 tbsp of honey or sugar. Mix. Let it come to a gentle boil. In the meantime, combine in a small bowl about 1 tsp of flour with 3 tsp water. Make sure the mixture is smooth. Carefully add the flour mix to berries and stir. Let boil for about 1 minute until it thickens. Done! Enjoy with ice cream or cr\u00e9pes or simply as is.<\/p>\n

\"Fruit\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Making Belarus cuisine is like returning back home from a long trip. Overall, it looks familiar, but you discover forgotten details all over again. Anyway, for the Belarus meal, I selected three dishes — Paparats Kvetka (“Fern Flower”, which is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":33,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2397","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P23NgL-CF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2397"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507,"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2397\/revisions\/2507"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elenamaximova.org\/food\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}