Vegetarian Food in Russia

Vegetarianism is not widely understood or popular in Russia, but I have discovered that it is not too difficult to be a vegetarian in Russia, in you are not too strict about your diet and if you use a little creativity.

Of course, it's easy to cook a vegetarian diet for yourself because the country's grocery stores offer a wide range of vegetables, fruits, and starches. Although traditional Russian cabbage and potatoes may not round out a vegetarian diet, other offerings will. Green, red, and yellow peppers are easy to find in Russia; tomatoes are popular; and mushrooms come in a surprising number of varieties.

When eating out, there are decent options for the vegetarian diner. Although sometimes finding vegetarian dishes can be difficult, for the most part, it is not too large of a challenge. Russians like their meat, but they also like dairy products quite a lot. (If you are a vegan, living in Russia would be QUITE difficult!) Pirozhki and sloyki (types of Russian pastries) and bliny (thin Russian pancakes similar to crepes) can easily be found filled will cabbage, various types of cheese, potatoes, and mushrooms. Khachapuri is a Georgian pastry filled with rich, mouth-watering cheese. Fried eggs and omlettes are relatively easy to come by, and the old stand-by of "rice with vegetables" often yields a delicious meal (after explaining for several times that you do not want meat to go with this!).

Japanese food has become remarkably popular throughout Russia, and in some cases, it seems like every fourth restaurant serves some form of it. Miso soup, cucumber and avocado rolls, vegetable fried rice, or vegetable soba or udon make for a great vegetarian meal.

If you are willing to eat a little meat broth in a pinch, soups can sometimes be a reasonable compromises. In many restaurants, soups like borsht (beet soup) can easily be served without the beef chunks they oftentimes add in later, and sometimes soups made with chicken broth are intentionally served without any meat. (If you eat fish, you are even more in luck, since Russians love fish. You will be able to find numerous fish-broth soups such as ukha and will enjoy baked fish, smoked salmon, and caviar.)

However, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it is increasingly possible to find dedicated vegetarian restaurants! The one pictured above (Jaggarnath) is located near the center of Moscow, not far from Red Square, and features a cafe and a grocery store. Although the general theme is Indian-influenced, you can find vegetarian foods and spices from Asia and other parts of the world. Tofu, vegetarian sausages and caviar, and soy products can all be found in the store. The buffet-style cafe features delicious and relatively inexpensive vegetarian dishes that will be such a feast to your eyes you will likely have difficulty choosing what to eat! Below is a sample of a meal I recently had: bean sprout salad with tofu chunks, Asian-flavored stir-fry and an all-natural ginger drink. All for 190 rubles, about $6!

Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Pie)

As a vegetarian, one of my mainstays in Russia has been khachapuri. Although khachapuri is a Georgian dish, it is extremely popular throughout Russia and can be found at both roadside food stands and in fancy restaurants.

Authentic Georgian khachapuri is a little like a pizza or the Turkish pide. Even within Georgia there is some variation, but khachapuri is typically a round of leavened bread filled like a pizza (or in some cases like a calzone, with bread on top) with a mound of mouth-watering cheese. Some Georgian versions also include melted butter and/or a raw egg. All are served hot so that the cheese is stringy and soft.

In Russia, there are even more versions of this delicacy. It seems that Russians and other ethnic groups have adopted the idea of khachapuri but modified it to fit their desires. For example, although traditional khachapuri is about the size of a plate, most khachapuri sold at roadside food stands is smaller: about the size of the somsa or pirozhki sold along side it. Oftentimes it is filled with a variety of cheeses, sometimes the slightly sweet tvorog.

At Central Asian food stands that specialize in somsa (meat-filled Central Asian pastries), khachapuri is sometimes made with unleavened, flaky dough so that it is similar to a somsa. While on a trip to Yaroslavl, I even had khachapuri with cheese and mayonnaise!

Tvorozhniki: Another Tvorog Creation

Since I bought 400 grams of tvorog the other day and am leaving for a trip this weekend, I have been eating a lot of tvorog this week. One of my favorite ways to eat it with simply with honey or cranberry jam and smetana drizzled over the top, but today I decided to try a new recipe: Tvorozhniki Po-Suzdalski (or Suzdal-Style Tvorozhniki). Suzdal is a historic city located about 20 miles north-east of Moscow.

The photo of tvorozhniki in my Russian cookbook shows a bowl of white amorphous balls of tvorog that look sticky and are sitting in a small amount of water. It didn't look the most appealing, but the recipe sounded easy, so I thought I would give it a try. The end result was a little different than the picture in the book and different than I expected, but I enjoyed it.

Tvorozhniki Po-Suzdalski (Suzdal-Style Tvorozhniki)
Makes 1-2 servings

100 grams tvorog
1 egg
Flour (up to 5 teaspoons)
Pinch of salt
Honey and sour cream for drizzling on before serving

Thoroughly mix tvorog, a pinch of salt, and one egg. It will form a very wet dough. Add flour by the teaspoon to thicken . I mixed in 4 heaping teaspoons, until the dough reached the consistency of oatmeal (see pictures below).













Bring a pot of water to a boil and add a small amount of vegetable oil. Drop large spoonfuls of the tvorog dough into boiling water. When they rise to the top, remove them with a slotted spoon and put them on a plate. There will likely be small chunks of tvorog that escape, and you can add those to the plate as well. (They taste just as good as the larger chunks!) When all have been cooked, drizzle with honey and sour cream and enjoy.













The picture on the left is my final product. It is somewhat difficult to see, but there are several masses of tvorozhniki on the plate. Unlike the picture in my cookbook, I had many small chunks rather than large round masses. To get larger masses that stick together, you probably need to add a little more flour to the dough.

Nonetheless, my tvorozhniki tasted quite good. They were the consistency of very soft scrambled eggs and even tasted a little like them, but with a sweet tvorog flavor. Paired with honey and sour cream, they made for a warm, soft and slightly sweet brunch!

Tvorog & Syrniki

Tvorog is one of the most interesting and, in my opinion, delicious Russian dairy products. It is literally "curd cheese," and is often translated as "cottage cheese," but it is very different from American cottage cheese. As you can see in the picture on the left, it looks like curds of cheese but can also be pressed together in a more solid block that slightly resembles cream cheese. It is slightly chewy but generally soft and a little sweet. It comes in several different versions. The one in the front of this picture is "skim," while the one in the back is "rich" (whole-milk). You can also buy it with raisins, apricots, and other dried fruits mixed in.

You can do any number of things with tvorog, from eating it straight or with sugar to putting it inside bliny (crepe-style pancakes) to baking it into cakes. You can also make "syrniki," which are patties of tvorog that are fried and usually topped with sour cream and jam or honey. I have tried these several times, having purchased them in premade from from the grocery store and reheated them, but today I decided to try to make my own.

I have two Russian cuisince cookbooks -- one in English that is aimed at foreigners and one in Russian aimed at Russians. I tried the recipe in the Russian version and have listed it below with recommendations. The syrniki turned out well, and I highly recommend the recipe.

Syrniki

Makes 6 medium-sized patties

200 grams (about a cup) tvorog

1 cup flour

1 to 1.5 TBSP sugar

1 egg

Salt to taste (about 1/2 tsp)

Oil for frying

Mix tvorog, flour, sugar, egg (beaten), and salt in a bowl. Form small balls with the dough by rolling it in your hands. Then smash these balls so that they form flat patties. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Put two patties into the skillet at a time and fry on each side. When golden, remove and keep warm until all are prepared. Top with sour cream and honey or jam.

When I made mine, I added a little too much flour, and they tasted slightly too doughy, so I recommend starting with 3/4 cup of flour and working your way up to a full cup, possibly adding more if necessary. I also recommend not skimping on the salt. For me, this addition really makes or breaks the overall flavor.

There are some reicpes that call mixing in grated carrots, apples, and raisins, which would also be delicious.

If you are in the States, you can often find tvorog for sale at Russian and European grocery stores, and I hear you can make it yourself, but I don't have an exact recipe. I'll work on finding one and try it when I get back to the U.S. The biggest challenge in the U.S. is that most milk is pasteurized, which makes it hard to make your own curd cheese.

Syrok -- Russian "Mini-Cheesecake"

For weeks, I stared in fascination and fear at the small packages labeled "syrok" at the local grocery store. They were in the section with yogurt and appeared to be targeted at children and women. "Syr" means cheese, and so I knew they were little cheese snacks, but I could not figure out why the packages advertised flavors like cherry, caramel, vanilla, apricot, and even chocolate. I imagined these syrok to be like string cheese, and I could not imagine how string cheese would taste with such sweet flavors.

On my first business trip, I found myself standing in a grocery store in Tatarstan with my Russian partner, trying to figure out what to eat for a fast lunch. Suddenly, I noticed the syrok packages. "What ARE these?" I asked her in horror. She laughed and told me to try one, assuring me that I would like it. I picked out one with apricot and bought it.

Outside the store, I opened the package and instead of the string cheese I had imagined, I found a chocolate-covered nugget of tvorog! Tvorog is often translated into English as "cottage cheese," but I think this gives an entirely incorrect impression of tvorog. In fact, it's more like a cross between American-style cottage cheese and cream cheese. It's a slightly sweet curd cheese that reminds me vaguely of the cheese in American cheesecake -- sweet, rich, and smooth. Russians eat it with sugar and cream for breakfast, baked into squares for breakfast or a dessert, or inside bliny (crepe-like pancakes) and pirozhki (pastries). I will write more about tvorog in future blog entries because it's a fascinating dairy product and one of my very favorites.

The syrok is a perfect use of tvorog and reminds me very much of American cheesecake. There are numerous versions of the syrok sold in grocery stores here, as you can see from the picture above. Almost all are coated with a thin layer of chocolate. Inside, some have tvorog that has been flavored with chocolate, vanilla, or some fruit, while others have unflavored tvorog with a fruit jam or chocolate filling in the center. My personal favorites are the the ones with jam inside and a graham-cracker-like cookie on the bottom of the "mini-cake." I think that caramel filling, chocolate filling, and apricot are the best I have tasted.

Below is a picture of the inside of a syrok. This one was flavored with apricot but did not have a jam filling. As far as I know, these syrok are a new, mass-marketed creation, but the idea likely goes back historically. People often make baked bars out of tvorog, and there are patties called "syrniki" that are made of fried tvorog. I will write more about these and other uses for tvorog in the future.