Russian cranberry kvas

Polish: żurawina
Mari: турнявӧчыж
Hungarian: tőzegáfonya
Inupiaq: qunmun asriaq
Lithuanian: Spanguolė
Ukrainian: журавлина
Karelian: karpalo
Vepsian: garbol
Estonian: jõhvikas
Frisian: feanbei

My today's hero is cranberry. This red small round fruit is actually even called a superfruit due to its nutrient content and antioxidant qualities. Three huge northern countries use this fruit in an interesting way. Canada and USA have their cranberry sauce, muffins, compotes, jellies, cakes and wine, while Russians... well I think I discovered only a low percent of Russian cranberry recipes, besides cranberry kissel all of them are exotic and worth trying, just imagine: cranberry-vegetables-fish cold soup, differrent vegetable salads with cranberries, fish or chicken baked with cranberies, cranberry-wheat drink, patties with cranberry filling, cranberry pancakes, cranberry meringue, cranberry infusion and so on... I will surely try some of them, especially because I adore cranberries but I usually only eat dried cranberries as a snack or buy cranberry ice cream, and because my first meeting with Russian cranberry recipes was successful. I made cranberry kvas (квас клюквенный).

1 kg (fresh, not dried!) cranberries
500 gr sugar
40 gr yeast
5 l water

Wash berries carefully, set in a saucepan and pour boiling water over them. Boil until berries break up. Separate friots from the water. Take 1 cup of cranberry water and mix with yeast to dissolve it. Add sugar and a cup with dissolved yeast to the rest of cranberry water. Set aside for several days until bubbles appear.



After that, pour kvas into bottles and store in a cool place few days before drinking.

German sweet woodruff syrup

Polish: przytulia wonna / marzanka wonna
Upper Sorbian: wonjaty sydrik
Platt: Möösch
Estonian: lõhnav madar
Icelandic: ilmmaðra
Japanese: クルマバソウ
Manx: lus vollagh
Italian: caglio odoroso / stellina odorosa
Slovak: marinka voňavá
Danish: skovmærke


(pic taken from the net)

Sweet woodruff is a smell and taste of German spring and summer season. At the beginning I thought that Waldmeister mean nothing but forester (yeah, artificially flavoured and coloured green "forester" ice cream, cheesecakes and puddings :P) But yes, now I finally know the incredible sweet woodruff. I found it in a forest next to the Baltic coast. If you have a chance, collect some and prepare this sweet woodruff syrup (Waldmeistersirup), so popular in Germany. You can drink it with water, pour over pancakes or ice cream or, just like some Germans do, add to beer or mix with other alcohol (but I am not a specialist in this area so I can't give you many tipps, sorry...)

I will share now two recieps with you. First using sugar and second: honey and apple juice.


1st recipe
1 bunch sweet woodruff (only the one that is not blooming yet!)
4 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/2 cup lemon juice (+ 1 teaspoon citric acid)

1. Cook a syrup from water, sugar, lemon juice and citric acid.

2. When the syrup is cool, pour into a bottle and deep sweet woodruff in it. Let stand for about 5 days in the fridge or any other cool place


(sweet woodruff macerating in sugar syrup)

3. After 5 days, divide the plant from the syrup. Close the syrup in the bottle. In Germany people would add few drops of green food colouring, since there everything related with sweet woodruff should be green. You can do it as well :)

2nd recipe
1/2 l apple juice (without sugar!)
250 g honey
1 bunch sweet woodruff

1. Deep woodruff in apple juice for 20 minutes. After this time, divide juice from the plant

2. In a saucepan, cook (very short!) apple-woodfuff juice with honey. Still hot, fill the bottle. To prepare a delicious drink, dissolve 1 part of apple-sweet woodruff syrup in 4 parts mineral water.

Quince preserves

Polish: pigwa
Arabic: سفرجل
Bosnian: dunja
Rapanui: tuava
Ukrainian: Айва́
Romani: गुदुईन
Sardinian: tidongia
Welsh: cwins
Flemish: kweepeer
Upper sorbian: prawy kwětlowc
Spanish: membrillo

Quince. A fuit with so much meaning. May have preceded apple culture. It was a ritual offering at ancient Greek weddings and an important ingredient in Roman cookbooks. In Portuguese quince is called marmelo and marmelada was just cooked quince ith sugar, which was the beloved sweet of Christoph Columbus. In Spain this dessert is called dulce de membrillo and it is eaten as an appetizer with salty cheese. In Poland and Germany preparing above mentioned "quince bread" is always related with preparing quince jelly. Both at once. I even made ice cream and sorbet. I am gonna show you how. But I had no big quinces so I used baby quinces.



quinces (1 pan full of quince chunks)
sugar
2:1 preserve sugar (with pectin)

1. Cut quinces into chunks, don't peel, don't throw the seeds. Put into a saucepan.

2. Add so much water just to cover fruits. Cook until they are soft (check with fork)

3. Drain fruits (don't throw the resting juice!) and rub through a sieve

4. Cook quince puree with sugar (give as much sugar as much quince puree you obtained). The longer you cook, the darker will be your quince bread.

5. Pour the mass into a plain tray. Some people dry it in opened oven, but I think it is better to let it cool in a tray without baking. When cooled, cut in pieces and eat with slices of salty (especially sheep and goat) cheese or sprinkle with sugar and just eat sweet





6. Cover the sieve with a linen towel. Drain the juice, it has to be clear. Now you can prepare sorbet, ice cream or jelly.

To make a jelly, cook the juice with 2:1 pectin sugar (two portions of juice with one portion of sugar). Scald your jars and close jelly inside.



To make a sorbet, sweeten the juice to taste and freeze



To make ice cream, take 1/2 cup quince bread, 1 cup yoghurt and 1 cup milk. Combine and freeze.



To make a quick refreshing drink, combine 1 tablespoon quince jelly with a cup of water.

Polish Christmas dried fruits drink

Polish: rodzynek
Tajik: мавиз
Portuguese: passa
Malay: kismis
Greek: σταφίδα
Bavarian: Weinberl
Ukrainian: капелюх
Catalan: pansa
Sicilian: zibibba
Norwegian: rosin
Persian: كشمش
Furlan: passide

Dried fruits spicy hot beverage is a must on a Christmas Eve dinner in Poland, but in my family we drink it the whole winter. It is called kompot z suszu. Susz means all the dried fruits possible: usually apples, prunes and raisins but often also figs, apricots, pears, cranberries and dates, plus cinnamon stick and cloves, or also cardammon, nutmeg or ginger or everything toghether. You can add sugar but much better would be sweetening it with honey. A spoon of lemon juice is a good idea when you choose only sweet fruits, like for example a mix of raisins and figs (which is a very tasty composition and I strongly recommend it)



2 glasses of dried fruits all kinds
the biggest pot you have, full of water
1-2 spoons of honey
1 spoon of lemon juice
1 stick of cinnamon
1 spoon of gloves, cardammon or other spices from above



Cook the water. When boiling, add dried fruits and spices. Cook for half hour. Let it cool a bit and add honey and lemon juice to taste. Never add honey to a boiling beverage or water, otherwise you kill all the vitamins or minerals from your honey!