Kisel

I have been sick the past couple of days, so I've taken advantage of this opportunity to eat lots of kasha and drink lots of Kalmyk tea. I've also tried a mix for Russian kisel that I bought a while ago. Kisel is a semi-thick juice that is eaten as a dessert or can be a drink if diluted with milk.

I did not make homemade kisel but instead used a mix from the grocery store that reminded me a little of Kool-Aid. The directions say to mix it with cold water in a small portion and then mix that cold water mix into hot water and boil. This is what I did to create a sort of thickened gel dessert/drink. It is sweet, smooth, and refreshing. When I was in Elista about a month ago, I also tried the more liquid version mixed with milk and enjoyed it. This is more like a berry milkshake almost.

Homemade kisel is made by mixing and heating berries, water, and sugar to create a syrup and then adding potato start to thicken the mixture. The process appears to be relatively simple (see the recipe here), but until I feel a little better, I'm going to be making mine using a packet!

Chak-Chak

A traditional Tatar dessert that is also popular in other parts of Russia and in nearby countries is Chak-Chak. In some ways, I can liken it to a giant rice-krispie treat. The dessert is made with a dough of flour, sugar, milk, and eggs that is cut into small pieces and then fried. Next the pieces are coated with a honey/sugar mixture and formed into a shape. Here in Tatarstan, you can find different shapes of chak-chak sold as gifts and party desserts. Usually they come in the form of large pyramids wrapped in festive paper with bows.

The picture below shows a less festive square-shaped mass of chak-chak. Although it may appear that you could eat the pieces of chak-chak individually, in fact, they are all bound together by the honey/sugar mixture, much as the rice krispies in a rice-krispie treat are bound together with marshmellow. To eat chak-chak, you need to pull off a piece or cut it with a knife. The flavor is pleasantly sugary and doughy without being sickeningly sweet.

For a recipe, see this link.

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.