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Siberian Hot Stuff  By Sharon Hudgins
Location Photos by
Tom and Sharon Hudgins
Food Photo by Norman Johnson |
Recipes
Garlic Cheese Apple-Horseradish Sauce
Korean Carrot Salad (Russian Far East)
Adzhiga |
In the past, the traditional hunter-gatherer-herder cuisine of native Siberian nomads was based primarily on wild game and fish, domesticated reindeer, and plants such as berries, wild garlic, and the roots of wild lilies. But today 95 percent of Siberia's population is of European Slavic descent, and three-fourths of all Siberians live in urban areas.
Residents of Siberian cities get their food from three main sources: grocery stores (still not as modern as those in the West); city markets, farmers' markets, and street vendors; and their own dacha gardens where they grow fruits and vegetables on little plots of land surrounding the cities. Grocery stores stock domestic and imported products. Farmers' markets sell fresh meat and produce, as well as some processed foods, local and foreign. But most Russians still believe, rightly so, that the best foods are home-grown and home-preserved.
The Siberian side of the Russian Federation covers all of Asian Russia from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. (The easternmost part of this vast geographical area is known as the Russian Far East.) Extending over eight time zones from west to east, and 3,000 miles from north to south, Greater Siberia (including the Russian Far East) encompasses 5.3 million square miles of territory, most of it located above 50 degrees latitude North, more northerly on the globe than all the United States except Alaska.
Where would you expect to find spicy foods in such a place? For a start, in the southern part of Siberia, where I lived for sixteen months--in the Far Eastern port city of Vladivostok, near the converging borders of Russia, China, and North Korea, and in the city of Irkutsk, situated in Siberia's heartland, about 100 miles north of Mongolia. That might not seem "south" to most Americans. But it sure does to Siberians. After all, Vladivostok is one of Russia's southernmost major cities, on approximately the same latitude as Monaco, Madrid, and Milwaukee. And you can certainly get spicy foods in all those places.
Since the nineteenth century, Korean and Chinese immigrants and traders have brought their tastes for spicy foods to the city of Vladivostok. And farther into Siberia, Chinese and Central Asian merchants have come north to the markets of Irkutsk to sell the sweet and hot peppers that grow more easily in less frigid climes.
In the markets, when I asked vendors the names of all these fresh peppers, they just looked blank, shrugged their shoulders, and said, "peppers." Some distinguished between sladkii ("sweet," mild peppers) and gor'kii, which actually means "bitter," but which many people also used as the word for "hot-spicy." Product labels on cans or bottles of commercially preserved peppers sometimes identified them as zhguchii (burning or stinging) or ostryi (sharp). Russian cooks whom I knew in the Far East just called all mild-tasting, fleshy peppers, "Bulgarian peppers," and all hot ones, "Korean peppers."
In the open-air markets, small kiosks, and newly privatized food stores, it was also possible to find a wide variety of preserved peppers, most of them imported from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Moldova. Preserved peppers included whole, very hot, red and green peppers (much like hot New Mexican); long strips of fleshy, bright red Macedonian peppers, mild to medium-hot in taste; long, thin, hot green, red, and orange pickled peppers; and Bulgarian letcho (sort of like a Slavic version of ratatouille) made from red and green sweet peppers, onions, tomatoes, and tomato paste.
Russians home-preserve much of the produce they grown in their own gardens. Especially popular for canning are cucumbers, ripe red tomatoes, and green tomatoes (unripe ones picked before the first frost). These are packed into 3-liter jars and preserved in a salt brine or vinegar marinade. Several whole cloves of garlic, sprigs of fresh dill, whole coriander seeds or mustard seeds, and one or two long, thin, hot red peppers are often added to the jars for seasoning. And after the tomatoes or cucumbers have been consumed, the pungent brine is drunk as a hangover cure.
I was surprised to discover that Asian Russians make a kind of salsa from sweet and hot red peppers, tomatoes, garlic, salt, and sometimes other ingredients such as carrots, onions, sunflower-seed oil, and coriander seeds. I bought some mean homemade salsas – hot, garlicky, and definitely not for the faint-hearted--from the granny-ladies selling them in the markets of Vladivostok and Irkutsk, where this spicy condiment was called adzhiga. Later I learned that adzhiga (also spelled adzhika, ajika) is a hot-pepper paste originally from the country of Georgia in the Caucasus. Although the Georgians use it as both a cooking ingredient and a garnish for grilled meats, the Russians I knew used adzhiga mainly as a flavoring agent to enhance the taste of soups and stews.
In October and November, freshly prepared horseradish makes its way into the farmers' markets. Most is standard ivory-white in color, made from peeled and shredded horseradish root combined with water, salt, vinegar, and a bit of sugar. Pink horseradish gets its hue from beet juice added to the mixture; pale-orange horseradish is tinted with carrot juice. Contrary to their aversion to most hot-spicy foods, the Russians love horseradish, using it both as a table condiment and a cooking ingredient. Once when I was shopping for horseradish in an open-air market, a vendor described his product's pungency by quickly pulling his fur hat straight up off the top of his head--the perfect pantomime of "it's so strong it'll blow your hat off!"
Another Russian product that has a similar effect is pertsovka, pepper-flavored vodka. One version is made by steeping whole black peppercorns in vodka. But a stronger type is made by infusing very hot small red peppers in the clear liquor, producing a drink that tastes much like alcoholic jalapeno juice.
Both black pepper and capsicum peppers were probably introduced to Asian Russia via the trade routes from China. During the 300 years that Mongols and Tatars ruled much of what is now Russia, from the mid-thirteenth century to the mid-sixteenth century, trade between China and the West greatly increased. Across the Asian land mass came such exotic spices as ginger, saffron, cardamom, cinnamon, and black pepper. Both capsicum peppers and tea arrived later, also from the warmer climates south of Siberia.
But in those areas conquered by the descendants of Genghis Khan, the local Russians and other non-Asian ethnic groups adopted few of the dishes and cooking techniques of their Asian overlords. An exception was pickled, fermented cabbage, known in the West as sauerkraut. The technique of preserving cabbage with salt had been developed by the Chinese and later carried westward into Europe by the Tatars. In turn, it was carried back into Asian Russia by the Europeans (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, and others) who eventually settled in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Today in the markets of Vladivostok you can purchase homemade European-style sauerkraut (mild-tasting, slightly soured white cabbage known as kislaia kapusta, and stronger, more fermented white cabbage called kvashenaia kapusta), as well as sauerkraut's ancient (and much more pungent) close cousin, Korean kimchi.
After the Russians regained power over their lost territories and began pushing their borders southward toward the Caucasus and eastward into Siberia, they also began to adopt some of the foods and cooking techniques of the Asians they had conquered. In the mid-sixteenth century, during this early period of Muscovite expansion, the Russians learned how to make pasta from their Tatar subjects. Since that time, noodles and filled dumplings have been a popular part of Russian cuisine. Today macaroni, spaghetti, and vermicelli are common foods on both the European and the Asian sides of Russia.
Pel'meni--
filled dumplings made of egg-noodle dough--are considered to be the quintessential Siberian pasta dish. These bite-size, meat-filled pockets of dough, shaped somewhat like Italian tortelloni, are consumed in great quantities by Russians throughout the country. An old tradition in Siberian villages was for the entire community to gather in the late autumn for a massive pel'meni-making fest, where the labor of mixing, rolling, and stuffing the pasta was divided among many hands. Often the work culminated in pel'meni-eating contests, much like hot-dog- or jalapeño-eating contests in America. The remaining pel'meni were packed into bags or barrels, left outdoors to freeze, and then eaten during the long harsh winter. Some food historians even claim that Siberian pel'meni were the world's first "frozen convenience food."Traditionally pel'meni are filled with a mixture of minced beef and pork, or beef alone, seasoned with onion, salt, and pepper. Some cooks also add a little garlic or a pinch of hot paprika. Reindeer, elk, and bear meat--and occasionally fish--are also used as fillings. The pel'meni are boiled in seasoned water or beef broth, then drained and tossed with butter before serving. Sometimes the pel'meni are served swimming in the broth--in shallow soup bowls or in deep-sided ceramic or porcelain pots.
Pel'meni
served "straight" (without broth) are often garnished with additional butter and globs of rich Russian sour cream. But they're just as likely to be eaten with a smearing of super-hot Russian mustard, or a sprinkling of vinegar, or a mixture of the two--once again reflecting the Oriental influence on Asian Russian cuisine. And now that imported products have become more available in Siberia, I've seen Russians douse their pel'meni with spicy American "Chili Ketchup" and much hotter Vietnamese "Chilli Sauce"--giving lie to the stereotype that Russians eat only bland foods.Editor's Note: Sharon Hudgins is an award-winning cookbook author and culinary journalist who has written extensively about Russian foods. Her latest book isThe Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East (Texas A & M University Press, 2003).
Toss the shredded cheeses by hand in a large bowl. Mix together the sour cream, mayonnaise, pressed garlic, hot pepper (optional), and salt in a small bowl, then add to the cheese, stirring to mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours (and preferably overnight) to let the flavors meld. Let the cheese mixture come to room temperature before serving. Use as a stuffing for small firm ripe tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, as a topping for baked potatoes, or as a spread for dark bread.
Apple-Horseradish Sauce
This sauce is an excellent accompaniment to grilled meats, including sausages, as well as cold meats (beef, tongue, pork, ham) and smoked fish (salmon, sprats). Don't even consider making this sauce "lighter" by using American "lite" sour cream and mayonnaise. Rich, creamy, pure sour cream (with no additives) and full-fat mayonnaise are essential for the best flavor and texture in this recipe.
Put the horseradish into a sieve and press as much liquid as possible out of it before measuring it. Combine all ingredients in a small glass bowl and whisk them together until well mixed. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.
Korean Carrot Salad (Russian Far East)
This is a popular appetizer in Primorskii Krai (Russia's Maritime Territory), reflecting the Korean influence on the cuisine of that region. Korean vendors in the markets of Vladivostok and Ussuriisk sell this spicy salad, ready made, in clear plastic tubes – and Russians who live in proximity to Koreans have incorporated this recipe into their own culinary repertoire. There are several variations of this recipe – some more hot-spicy than others--using ingredients such as black pepper, ground coriander seeds, bay leaves, parsley, vinegar, and sugar, as well as foraged foods such as wild onions and wild garlic.
This fresh red pepper paste is popular among those Russians who like spicy foods.
Put all the ingredients into a food processor and use the pulse control to process them into a coarse, thick paste. The mixture should not be puréed or liquified. Transfer the adzhiga to a clean class jar, cover tightly, and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days to let the flavors ripen. Taste and add more salt if desired. (I usually add up to 1/2 teaspoon more of salt, to make this condiment taste like the ones I ate in Siberia.)
Use as a condiment to accompany grilled meats, or stir a tablespoon or two into soups and stews, as a flavor enhancer. Adzhiga can be kept in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator up to 1 week.