1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (104 page)

A preparation that exalts the humblest of fungi.

For Russians, there is no fungi that can’t be made satisfyingly edible, but there’s certainly a hierarchy at play. To whit, in his memoir,
Speak, Memory
, Vladimir Nabokov writes of his mother’s summer searches for wild, earthily complex
Boletus
mushrooms and her disdain for the small, white field or button mushrooms we know as champignons, classified as
Agaricus
or
Psalliota campestris.
Nevertheless, even the smallest of these snowy, second-rate button mushrooms can be pickled in an enticingly spicy and herbaceous marinade that preserves them for three or four weeks in the refrigerator, where they are readily at hand to spark an appetizer or
zakuski
(hors d’oeuvre) assortment. As the firm mushrooms soften in a dousing of red wine vinegar, they absorb the fragrance and flavors of lemon, garlic, dill, bay leaves, coriander seeds, and, for some tastes, a slight sting of dried hot red chile flakes, for a juicy, tingling palate awakener.

Makes 1 quart; serves 6 to 8 as an appetizer or side dish

1 pound uniformly small, very fresh white button mushrooms (see
Note
)

¾ cup red wine vinegar

2 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed with the side of a chef’s knife

6 to 8 black peppercorns

4 whole coriander seeds

1 small bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried dill seed, or 8 to 10 sprigs fresh dill with stems

2 teaspoons salt

1 small, dried hot red chile, or ½ teaspoon dried hot chile flakes (optional)

2 thin, round lemon slices

1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, preferably sunflower, but olive oil will do

1.
Clean the mushrooms with damp paper towels and, if the bottoms of the stems look bruised, trim them but leave the mushrooms whole. Set the mushrooms aside.

2.
Place the wine vinegar and ⅔ cup of water in a 2-quart enamel or stainless-steel saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the garlic, peppercorns, coriander seeds, bay leaf, dill seed or sprigs, salt, and dried chile or chile flakes, if using.

3.
Add the mushrooms and let simmer, partially covered, over low heat, stirring frequently until the mushrooms are a bit darkened and softened
but have not wrinkled, 8 to 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the mushrooms to a bowl, setting aside the cooking liquid, and let both cool to room temperature.

4.
Place the mushrooms in a 1-quart glass or ceramic jar that has a tight-fitting lid. Add the lemon slices and pour in the cooking liquid with its herbs and spices. Gently spoon a ½-inch layer of oil over the top of the marinade and close the lid. If the lid has a metal lining, place a piece of wax paper or plastic wrap over the mouth of the jar before screwing on the lid to prevent corrosion.

5.
Let the mushrooms marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 weeks before serving. If you are not using all of the mushrooms at once, try to leave all the seasonings in the jar with the remaining mushrooms. Always add a fresh layer of oil to cover the remaining mushrooms. The preparation can be refrigerated for 3 to 4 weeks.

Note:
Be sure the mushrooms you buy have tightly closed caps, indicating that they are fresh.

Where:
In Brooklyn
, Primorski Restaurant, tel 718-891-3111,
primorskiny.com
.
Mail order:
Russian Table, tel 800-761-2460,
russiantable.com
(search pickled mushrooms “maslyata”).
Further information and additional recipes:
The Food & Cooking of Russia
by Lesley Chamberlain (2006);
Please to the Table
by Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman (1990);
À La Russe
by Darra Goldstein (1983);
easteuropeanfood.about.com
(search russian pickled mushrooms);
natashaskitchen.com
(search marinated mushrooms).

At first glance, feathery, fernlike chervil may be loved for its delicate lacy leaves, but its flavor is what really enchants. Think of it as parsley with a college degree—which is to say, more subtly complex, with whispery, verdant undertones of anise and springtime.

Highly perishable and fragile, chervil is expensive, so it is not often found in American markets. Fortunately, with careful nurturing it can grow well in window herb gardens or outdoors, in a spot that isn’t too bright, and in soil with decent drainage.

French chefs are wise enough to pluck its petite leaves or fine sprays for garnishes, and chervil is an essential player in the traditional French herb mix
fines herbes
, combined with fresh parsley, chives, and tarragon for a subtle blend that’s tossed liberally into omelets (see
Omelette aux Fines Herbes
) and salads and slipped underneath the skin of roasting chickens. In Germany, it is an essential ingredient in the green herb cream soup served on Holy Thursday and Good Friday (see
Frühlingssuppe
), and it lends itself especially to recipes based on eggs, cold shellfish, and poultry. Chervil adds a verdant touch to tea sandwiches in England and in Denmark provides a frilly, festive topping for many open sandwiches, especially those that include egg.

Native to southern Russia and the Caucasus, chervil is still prized there, especially for cold soups. A word of caution: Chervil (
Anthriscus cerefolium
) should never be cooked, as heat will almost surely turn it bitter. Best to use it to add flourish to a food after it has been portioned or is in the serving bowl. Nevertheless, chervil steeped for a minute or two in boiling water is
considered by herbalists to be a cure for everything from hiccups to high blood pressure.

Mail order:
To buy seeds for home gardens, Burpee, tel 800-888-1447,
burpee.com
(search chervil);
localharvest.org
(click Shop, then Seeds, then Herbs, then Chervil).
Further information and recipes:
The Encyclopedia of Herbs, Spices & Flavorings
by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz (1992);
Handbook of Herbs and Spices
, Vol. 2, by K. V. Peter (2012);
The Herbal Kitchen
, by Jerry Traunfeld and John Granen (2005);
The German Cookbook
by Mimi Sheraton (2014);
epicurious.com
(search chicken in horseradish and chervil sauce; spring vegetable ragout with fresh chervil);
saveur.com
(search kerbelsuppe).

Move over, gazpacho.…

In regions where winters are long, hard, and unrelentingly frozen, soups are understandably served steaming hot. But come summer in those same climes, even a mild heat wave seems torrid to those whose most typical season is winter—and demand for soups turns to the icily chilled. Just as cold, in fact, as the hot soups were hot, for palates and perhaps temperaments seem to dote on extremes.

A few such chilled soups are well known abroad, most especially cold beet borshch (see
listing
), available in jars and quite decent, especially if fresh lemon juice and some sour cream are stirred in before serving. Cold sorrel soup called
schav
(see
listing
) and eastern Europe’s much-loved sour cherry soup (see
listing
) are other beloved cold soups.

But that’s only the beginning around the Ural and Caucasus mountains and the Volga river. One of the best-loved cold soups is
okróshka
, a salad-in-a-soup-pot based on the yeast-fermented beverage
kvass
(see
listing
). That pungent, tingling liquid is combined with sour cream or buttermilk, diced cucumber pickles, cooked potatoes, chives or scallions, minced boiled beef, chicken or tongue, and slivered radishes, all garnished with a hint of mustard, hard-cooked eggs, and verdant sprinklings of aromatic dill, tarragon, and parsley.

Russia’s
kholodnyk
is a leaner chilled soup, based on similar vegetables plus beetroot and its greens, veal, radishes, and cucumbers, both fresh and pickled; its chicken stock base is enriched with a light stirring of sour
cream just before serving. The Ukrainian version is uncooked and vegetarian, based on buttermilk, sour cream, and raw vegetables, and garnished with dill and chopped hard-cooked eggs, a distant cousin perhaps of Denmark’s Kærnemælkskoldskål (see
listing
).

For
botvinia
, freshwater fish, such as cooked salmon or sturgeon, is added to a vegetable mix that colorfully combines beets, sorrel, spinach, cucumbers, and scallions, along with smoked whitefish and a few shelled shrimp or crayfish. Ciderlike
kvass
, the basic liquid, lends a pleasant sting to a restorative chilled soup that is further enlivened by grated horseradish, sprightly mustard, and dashes of lemon juice, with aromatic bay leaves, onions, and dill providing a gentling touch.

Further information and recipes:
The Art of Russian Cuisine
by Anne Volokh and Mavis Manus (1989);
À La Russe
by Darra Goldstein (1983);
Please to the Table
by Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman (1990);
The New York Times Jewish Cookbook
edited by Linda Amster (2003);
cookstr.com
(search cold beet borscht sheraton);
natashaskitchen.com
(search holodnik; okroshka).

Despite many scattered attempts to legally require that the term
caviar
be applied only to sturgeon roe, efforts have been in vain. It’s not only that all fish roes are billed as caviar. Throughout eastern Europe, and especially in Russia, various chopped vegetable combinations have also been so designated. Whatever their base, the so-called “poor man’s caviars” tend to be slightly salty, and pungent enough with onion and garlic to render them appealing only in small, appetizer quantities. Most often served as cool and silky spreads on thin slices of moist, dark pumpernickel, these caviars are presented much as the real McCoy would be, perhaps even garnished with minced raw onions and chopped hard-cooked eggs.

A favorite member of the group is eggplant caviar—
baklazhanaya ikra
—a heady spread of baked eggplant folded into sautéed chopped onions, garlic, and drained diced tomatoes, well salted, peppered, and sparked with either fresh lemon juice or a little wine vinegar, with a few drops of olive oil whipped in if the mix runs dry. Some cooks add green pepper, others a finely diced, seeded hot green chile. The dish is close to the Middle Eastern
baba ghanoush
(see
listing
), but is slightly coarser in texture and without the smoky overtones of flame-broiled eggplants.