Sophia's jam pie

It is a recipe I got from my mother, and in her turn, she got it from her colleague, Sophia. Original recipe did not use almonds to top it; I added it once after forgetting to leave some pastry to do top crumbles and really liked how it turned out. Also original recipe did not require a plum jam specifically, but I like it best with a jam from Victoria plums.
As you can see, the recipe requires 8 egg yolks, which always got me wondering what the hell to do with them egg whites... One option is to make something else that requires only egg whites, like cake biscuit, or macaroons, or meringue, etc. Alternatively you can use 4 whole eggs instead, but the taste of the crumble will be slightly different then (still tasty though). If you use 4 whole large eggs, it is better to use 600g of flour.

Need:
500g of flour
250 g of butter
8 egg yolks
1 tea spoon of baking powder
200 g of sugar
300 ml of plum jam
a handful of almond flakes

Beat egg yolks with sugar. Mix baking powder with flour, add room temperature butter, add egg yolks, knead it well. Let it cool of in a fridge for 30 min. Put baking paper into your oven dish and crumble the pastry (or rasp it on a vegetable rasp). Bake it on 180C for 20 minutes, take it out, smear the jam on top, add almonds on top of the jam and bake for another 20 minutes. Cool it off, cut into a cookie sized squares and enjoy.

Corn, tomato and tuna salad, with thousand isles dressing

Long time ago, when I still was in the university, we went to lunch at the Arthouse cafe sometimes, because they had a wide choice of interesting and tasty salads. I did not think about noting down the ingredients at the time, then they closed it suddenly and I had to think hard what was in some of my favorites. This one was one of those, I remembered it had corn, tomato and thousand isle dressing, but I had no idea anymore what else was in it. I added tuna, liked how it tasted, so it turned into 1000 isle tuna from then on.

Need:
100g of canned corn
2 average size tomatoes
100 g of canned tuna (in oil or water)
2 spoons of thousand isles dressing

Dry the corn and tuna from the water it was swimming in. Cut tomato into bite size pieces, mix with corn, tuna and dressing. Simple and tasty.

(Non)sour bread with appel stroop

Since a proper sour dough rye bread is practically unavailable here, I keep experimenting with all sorts of recipes to achieve something similar, preferably without going through the whole trouble of make-your-own rye starter. I had a recipe using some molasses kind of thing, which we normally do not buy either; and there I came up with an idea to use appel stroop instead, because it is similar consistency thing, just with apple flavor, obviously. I suppose honey or any other honey like substance could work too, especially if it is on a sour side.

Need:

for plikinys (boiling water starter):
100g rye flour
2 table spoons of appel stroop or molasses
1 table spoon of caraway seeds
300 ml water
1 tea spoon of citric acid
2 table spoons of bran (zemelen, sėlenos)

for dough:
300 g of rye flour
100 g of wheat flour
1 table spoon of salt
1 table spoon of brown bastard sugar
2 table spoons of sunflower oil
14 g of dry yeast
250 ml of warm water

Part I: Plikinys
Boil the water with molasses/apple stroop, caraway and citric acid, stir it so it is evenly dissolved. Pour 100 g of rye flour into boiling water and whisk it like hell, so it turns into a smooth mass without lumps. Stir in bran and leave the whole thing to rest for a few hours.

Part II: Bread
To the bread baker add water, boiling water starter (aka Plikinys, kneaded/stirred a little) and the rest of the ingredients, with dry yeast at the end, on top. Set to whole grain program (longest possible). Alternatively, knead, let it rise, knead again, let it rise, bake till done.

Notes:
It is not a bread that rises much, if at all. It is worth exploring a possibility to use 200g rye and 200g of wheat mix for the dough. Also, I did not knead the starter before adding it to the bread baker, which seemingly resulted in some areas with a bit of more appel stroop. Not that it is a very bad thing, but I'd rather have it more evenly spread.

Sour cabbage and potato stew

In the times past we ate quite some sour cabbage based dishes, especially after spending a day oudoors. It was one of the first things I've learned to cook and it still is a lovely winter season dish, if you like a simple country style kitchen. For the best result it is wise to forget all what you have been told about the fats in your food for a day; sour cabbage generally needs some fat to taste good, bacon, lard or any other fatty meat is the best add. It's a farmers dish, not a supermodels dinner crumbles. ;)


Need:
200 g of sour white cabbage
4-5 normal size potatoes
200 g of fatback or bacon (preferably fat and not too salty).

Peel the potatoes and slice them into not-too-thin slices. Take the cabbage out of packaging and squeeze some of the liquid off it (you can wash it under a stream of cold water as well, in a sift, if you want less sourness). Take a pot and layer potato slices and cabbage: one layer of potatoes, one of cabbage, rinse and repeat. Pour water into the pot, so that the last layer is submerged, add a pinch of salt. Cook it for about 40 minutes on a medium fire.

While stew is cooking, slice the fatback or bacon into the small cubes. Fry it on the frying pan for 5 min or so. When the stew is done, pour the water off, mix in the bacon with all the fat. I like to wash it down with a glass of cold milk, have no idea why, it just goes right with it.

Kissel

Kissel is an old dessert/drink from North-East of Europe. The origin of the name seems to be a Slavic word kisly, meaning sour. In the old times it was commonly made from the oats or other local grain, often after a mild fermentation for a few days, resulting in a sour dish, commonly eaten with a bit of butter or bacon/lard scraps. I remember my grandparents making oat kissel when I was a kid; a few years ago I made it myself to see if it tasted as horrible as I remembered it - and yes, it did, you have to be used to it to like it!

Either way, a kissel I am talking about is the one made from berries and it is entirely different story taste wise from its oaty ancestor. Technically it can be made from any berry (or fruit), which can be turned into a more or less flavored syrup, however usually red berries work best. My favorites are strawberry-raspberry (either of them alone can work too, but together I like it better), cherry (sour cherry only), black/red current (both work well, black has dark purple and red - bright red color), cranberry (more sour and bitter), blackberry (rich purple).

Need (drink):
150 g of berries
1 liter water
3 table spoons of sugar
1 table spoon of potato starch

Wash your berries, take pits out from cherries and similar fruits. Save a half of a glass of cold water, bring the rest to boiling. Add berries and sugar, boil it for about 10 minutes. Sift the resulting sirup, as we need it clear, pour it back to the pot and bring to boil again. Mix a half glass of cold water with starch and pour it into the pot, stirring frequently. The whole thing will start thickening, bring it to boil, stirring, take from fire, close the lid and let it to cool of. Drink cold, possibly with a spoon of whipped cream on top if you want it as a dessert.

Need (dessert):
150 g of frozen berries for syrup
300+ g frozen strawberries or/and raspberries for adding to the kissel
1 liter water
4 table spoons of sugar
4 table spoons of potato starch

Since it is fairly difficult to come by fresh quality berries in the winter, and even then they tend to cost a fortune, I came up with a way to combine kissel and frozen berries in a more or less instant dessert, with much of a kiddie approval. I usually use strawberries and raspberries as fruits to add, since they seem to keep the taste best when unfrozen (aka do not turn horribly sour), but it matters less from which fruit you make the syrup part.

Save almost full glass of cold water, bring the rest to boiling. Add syrup part of frozen berries and sugar, boil it for about 10 minutes. Sift the resulting sirup, pour it back to the pot and bring to boil again. Mix the remaining cold water with starch and pour it into the pot, stirring frequently. Bring to boil, stirring, as it thickens quite fast (turning fire to soft might be a good idea too, as it is inclined to burn at the bottom). Add 300 g of frozen berries, wait for it to boil again, turn the fire off. Stir it for a bit, so the frozen fruit unfreezes faster and the juice gets mixed with the rest. Eat cold, with or without whipped cram.

Curd pudding

A common and simple lunch dish from home, eaten with a spoon of sour cream.

Need:
300g of curd
2 eggs
4 table spoons of semolina (here known as griesmeel)
2 tabble spoons of sugar
1 handful of raisins
a bit of butter for oiling the baking form

Note: Curd is not everywhere the same. Here they have mostly creamy curd, which is quite wet - because of that I do not use milk to soak the semolina in. In case you have a normal block of curd, then add about 100 ml of milk to the mix.

Mix everything, let it rest for about 15 min, so the semolina fluffs up a bit. Stir it through again, put in a buttered oven dish, bake for about 30 min on 180C. Best served warm, but can be eaten cold if you have leftovers.

"Novelty" chocolate cake

I am sorry for a poor photo of this cake, that's all what I could salvage in the morning! It is now officially our daughters favorite cake and it must run in a family, as it also was her grandpa's favorite. I never made it at home before though; normally we bought it from a cake shop back at home, ever since it appeared there in the 80ties, under a rather plain name "Novelty". I tried to find a recipe for that original one, unsuccessfully, but in one of the forums someone gave an idea that it must be a butter-whipped based cream in some proportion and I could puzzle it out from there. Mind, this is not a very big cake, so for a celebration you might want to do a double portion.

Need:
Cake layer ingredients:
5 eggs,
5 table spoons of sugar,
5 table spoons of flour

Cream ingredients:
200 g good butter
200 g cream for whipping
100g good dark chocolate (70% cacao)

100g dark chocolate and 2 spoons of milk for top

Separate egg yolks from whites. Beat the whites separately, beat the yolks with sugar. Sift the flour (do not skip sifting!) into the bowl and carefully mix it with egg whites and egg yolks. Do not use mixer for this, it will ruin it! Just easy, slowly mix with the spoon or hand. Also, if you are making double portion, first make and bake half, then make the other half. This pastry cannot stay long after it has been made, so it is wise to make only what you can bake at once.

Put baking paper on an oven plate, pour the mix on it, even it out. Bake at 160C for 20-30 min, depending on how thick the layer is. Cut it into 3 same size sheets (middle one does not have to be intact, as long as it is more or less covering same surface, the sides work well for that one).

While cake layers are cooling off, prepare the cream. Beat room temperature butter til white and fluffy (10 min, same add as for whipped cream). Melt chocolate in a water bath (smaller bowl with chocolate put in a large bowl with hot water). Whip cold whipped cream. Add melted chocolate to butter, then mix it with whipped cream.

Note: if you melt chocolate some other way, it has to be cool enough before you add it to butter. If it melts in water bath, it is similar process as if it melts in your hands, so that is more or less temperature you have to aim for.

Do a layer of cake, a layer of cream, a layer of cake, a layer of cream, a layer of cake. Pour molten chocolate (mixed with a bit of milk) on top and let it soak through in a fridge for a day, but this cake is best when it was out of a fridge for a bit before serving, so keep that in mind before bringing it to the table.