Belarussian champignon croquettes

Polish: pieczarki
Greek: ασπρομανίταρο
Hungarian: csiperkegomba
Lithuanian: pievagrybis
Catalan: xampinyó
Bulgarian: печурка
Russian: шампиньон
Croatian: sirnjača
Manx: shalmane

Champignons, just like every mushroom, are not especially rich in vitamins, proteins or minerals, but because of their taste they are often eaten in Poland and eastern Europe. I know Belorussian champignon croquettes from an old cookbook, which my grandmother gave to my mother. in poland people also make differrent champignon croquettes, but i prefer this Belarussian recipe. Грибные котлеты are very delicious!

500 gr champignons
1 onion
1 egg
few scallions
1 tablespoon dill
1 tablespoon parsley
1 clove garlic
a slice of bread
breadcrumbs (about 1/2 cup)

1. Cook champignons until they are soft (10-15 minutes). Coarsely chop onion and slightly fry it. Soak bread in few lukewarm water. Squeeze it.

2. Using meat grinder, grind cooked champignons, squeezed slice of bread, fried onion, dill, parsley, scallions and garlic. Having it together in a bowl, stir in 1 egg and spoon by spoon add breadcrumbs until the point that you'll be able to form and fry croquettes.

3. Form oval croquettes, roll them in breadcrumbs and fry. Serve with salad.

Belarussian sweet yeast buns

Sweet yeast buns, part 2.: Belarussian sour cream buns, cметанники (smetanniki). Very similar to vatrushki, but this dough is less fluffy, more like a typical bread roll and a bit less like a sweet yeast bun. Great for breakfast.

to make 16 buns
dough:
5 cups flour
30 gr fresh yeast
250 ml milk
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
130 gr butter
1/2 teaspoon salt

filling:
1 cup sour cream
4 tablespoons butter (melted)
4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar
(optionally 1 egg to smear the surface of buns before baking)

1. Melt yeast in warm milk. Add 2/3 cup flour, whisk to eliminate lumps and set in a warm place, waiting for bubbles.

2. Whisk eggs with sugar, add melted butter and the rest of the ingredients. Add flour at the end. Do it slowly and stop when the dough is not sticky anymore (it depends on the humidity of your flour, but it should be about 5 cups). knead and set aside in a warm place. When the dough is twice as big as it was just after kneading, knead it again and form buns. Just like in vatrushki recipe, make holes. leave buns to grow a bit more, spear with whisked egg (this time I didn't do it, but I recommend!), fill with sour cream filling (just combine together all the ingredients of the filling) and bake about 20 minutes in 180C oven.

Belarussian curd rolls (pancakes)

Polish: twaróg
Albanian: gjizë
Russian: творог
Tatar: eremçek
Swedish: kvarg
Spanish: requesón
Romanian: urdă
Hungarian: túró
Latvain: biezpiens
Dutch: wrongel

Curd roll covered in chocolate is one of the Central and East European snacks. Probably it's because Central and East Europe is a true kingdom of milk and its products, from buttermilk and kefir through differrent kind of curd and fresh cheese until curd pancakes, breadrolls, crepes, buns, dumplings and thousands of differrent curd snacks, until innumerable variety of cheesecakes. My grandmum has access to fresh cowmilk and she makes her own curd, of course, and soured milk. Coming back to my Belarussian Recipes book, I tried Belarussian curd rolls, Батончики творожные. They are actually a kind of pancakes, we prepare very similar ones in Poland. Curd rolls available in grocery stores are not fried, and also remember that frying curd pancakes is a bit difficult cause it drinks oil and becomes golden brown very fast. But still, they taste really good!

500 gr curd / fresh cheese
1 cup flour
1 egg
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
powdered sugar to sprinkle

1. Rub curd with cream and sugar. Whisk egg, mix flour with baking soda

2. Add egg to the curd, when homogeneous add flour and mix well

3. Roll the dough and cut into 10 cm slices. Fry and sprinkle iwth powdered sugar

Belarussian baked milk with plums

Polish: suszona śliwka
Welsh: prŵn
Breton: prunevenn
Spanish: ciruela pasa
German: Trockenpflaume
French: pruneau
Turkish: kuru erik
Russian: чернослив
Arabic: برقوق مجفف
Hungarian: aszalt szilva

Besides the digestive value, Moroccans add prunes to tagine, Jews to tzimmes, Norwegians to fruktsuppe, Poles to Christmas compote, Icelanders to the filling of Christams layered cake, Germans fill them with marzipan and fry in beer batter, and so on. There are so many ways of preparing prunes, in both sweet and savoury dishes. In Belarus (and probably Russia too, but I found чернослив в молоке recipe in an old Belarussian cookbook so it is Belarussian to me) prunes are baked in milk. This recipe is exceptional: very simple but astonishing and really tasty.

50 gr prunes (without stones)
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon sugar

1. Wash prunes, put in a bowl and pour boiling milk over them. Cover and set aside for 2 hours

2. Add sugar. You can cut prunes into smaller pieces as I did, or just leave them as they are

3. Pour the mixture into a pyrex tray and bake in the oven (200C) until the surface is golden and crunchy. I can't say exactly how long does it take cause it depends on your oven, but more than 1 hour for sure. When ready, cut into pieces and serve; it is not quiteeasy to cut thisdessert into lovely pieces but that doesn't matter. there will be a lot of sweet prune juice in the tray: pour it on each portion. You can experiment with quantity of prunes, milk and sugar and change a bit the taste and consistency, which reminds me all the milk-and-eggs desserts baked in the tray which is set inside another tray, full of water, like flan and leche asada.

Belarussian helva cake

Polish: chałwa
Maltese: ħelwa
Greek: Χαλβάς
Arabic: حلاوة
Burmese: ဟလဝာ
Urdu: حلوا
Malay: അലുവ
Hindi: हल्वा
Armenian: հալվա
Bosnian: halva
Macedonian: алва

In Russia and former soviet republics (at least the western ones) you can try sunflower and peanuts helva. The sunflower helva is the taste of my childhood. Grandfather was always bringing it when visiting us and the taste was so specific that I loved it and hated it same time. Grandmother gave my mum a Belorussian cookbook. I sometimes browse the old cookbooks of my mum, looking for a new inspiration. Belarussian fake gingerbread (Пернічек) was a successful experiment. Beware, this cake needs no butter or oil, you just add helva! Tastes and looks like a real gingerbread but is mild and not spicy at all!

200 gr helva (I only had classical sesame helva, that is why I added the next and the last ingredient)
1/3 cup peanut butter
170 gr plum conserve (plum jam, plum butter, povidl, Pflaumenmus...)



1 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 egg
1 spoon cinnamon
1 spoon baking soda
1 spoon vanilla sugar
1 handful peanuts

1. Disintegrate helva with your hands or with a fork

2. Blend helva with povidl, add baking soda and cinnamon

3. Whisk egg with sugar and vanilla sugar until sugar melts; add to helva and mix all the ingredients until creamy



4. Add flour and knead

5. Put in buttered tray, sprinkle with peanuts and bakeabout 45 minutes in 180C oven (make a test using a toothpic to be sure your Пернічек is ready)



6. Sprinkle with sugar water: combine 4 spoons sugar and 8 spoons water, cook and sprinkle the cake. After that, sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon