The abundance of vegetarian dishes in Russian cuisine is linked to Christian Orthodox fasting, which requires people to abstain from animal products.
During the 40-day Lenten season preceding Easter, it’s strongly forbidden to consume products of animal origin (meat, milk, eggs), and there are also restrictions on eating fish and vegetable oil. Faced with such culinary severity, Russians have to be very creative in the kitchen.
From among the ample quantity of dishes prepared during Lent, Russia Beyond has chosen six that both vegetarians and meat-eaters will enjoy.
Carrot, apple and nut salad
Legion Media
Ingredients:
- Carrots - 75g
- Walnuts - 25g
- Apples - 25g
- Honey - 25g
- Greens - 10g
Cooking:
Grate the carrots with a large grater and shred the apples. Mix everything with the honey, place in a salad bowl, decorate with parsley and sprinkle fried chopped walnuts on top. Instead of honey you can use vegetable oil and lemon juice. Salt to taste.
Meatless schi
Legion Media
Ingredients:
- Sauerkraut - 500-700g
- Porcini mushrooms - 5-6
- Buckwheat grouts - 1 tbsp
- Onions -2
- Potato - 1
- Carrot - 1
- Turnip or rutabaga - 1
- Parsley flower - 1
- Dill - 1 tbsp
- Laurel leaves 2
- Garlic cloves - 4
- Black peppercorns - 8
- Poppy - 1-2 tbsp
- Sunflower or olive oil
Cooking:
Place the sauerkraut in a clay pot and pour in a liter of boiling water. Put the pot in an oven for 20-30 minutes. Then pour the broth into a separate enamel or earthenware plate. Salt the sauerkraut, mix with the finely chopped onion, moisten with the aromatized vegetable oil and knead in an enamel bowl with a wooden spoon so that the oil is fully absorbed. Then mix with broth and continue cooking on the stove.
Prepare 1 liter of mushroom broth, mix with the sauerkraut, add the buckwheat grout and continue cooking until the cabbage is ready.
Turnip soup
Legion Media
Ingredients:
- Small turnips - 5
- Parsnip root - 1
- Parsley root - 1
- Onion - 1
- Fragrant peppercorns - 3
- Clove bud
- Laurel leaf - 1
- Garlic clove - 1
- A bunch of spicy greens
Cooking:
Place the shredded onion into a pot of boiling water, followed by the finely chopped turnip and parsnip leaves. Add the laurel leaf, pepper and clove bud three minutes before the soup is ready. Finely chop or grate the small garlic clove and add to the soup with the finely chopped greens at the very end. When the soup cools, pour it into plates.
Meatless mushroom pies
Legion Media
Ingredients for the dough:
- Flour - 600g
- Water - 1-1.25 cups
- Vegetable oil - 100g
- Yeast - 25g
- Salt - 2 tsp
- Sugar - 1 tsp
Ingredients for the filling:
- Mushrooms - 700g
- Onions - 2
- Vegetable oil - 4 tbsp
Cooking:
Mix the yeast, sugar and 1-2 teaspoons of flour in one-fourth glass of water and let stand for 15 minutes. Mix the diluted yeast, water and oil with the flour, knead the dough and allow to warm. When the dough rises to twice its size, divide into small pie balls and wrap in plastic for 10 minutes.
Finely chop the salted mushrooms, add the freshly cut onion and oil, and mix.
Take a rolling pin to roll out the balls and make flat cakes. Place the filling on each cake and close the edges to form pies. Place them on a greased baking tray and leave under plastic for another 10 minutes. Then bake in an oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 35 minutes.
Smolensk porridge with cranberry juice
Legion Media
Ingredients:
- Cranberries - 1 cup
- Rice - 1/2 cup
- Sugar - 1⁄2 cup
Cooking:
Make 6 cups of juice from the 1 cup of cranberries; boil it, pour in the rice and sugar, cool and serve with sugar.
Raspberry cakes (with honey)
Legion Media
Ingredients:
- Dry raspberries - 4 cups
- Honey - 3 cups
- Powdered rye crackers - 1-1.5 cups
- Icing sugar - 2-3 tbsp
- Vanilla sugar - 1 tsp
Cooking:
Place the 3 cups of dry raspberries into 4 cups of boiling water and simmer until the substance is fully soft. Then squeeze out 3 cups of dense juice. Mix with honey and boil. Powder the dried crackers and mix with dry raspberry powder prepared from the remaining 1 cup of dry raspberries. Then combine this with the honey-raspberry mixture into thick dough.
Put the mass into an enamel dish and place into boiling water so that the dry raspberries cook and the cracker mass completely swells. Divide the dough into cakes and dry on a baking pan in an oven that’s heated but turned off. Roll the dried cakes in the icing sugar mixed with vanilla sugar or vanilla.
If you liked these recipes, try to cook kundyumi with potatoes and basil.