1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (106 page)

⅓ cup plus 2 teaspoons sugar

6 extra-large eggs, separated

1 piece (2 inches) vanilla bean, or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the filling

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup sugar

⅔ cup cold double-strength brewed black coffee

Coarsely chopped walnuts, for garnish

1.
Make the torte: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter and lightly flour a 10-inch round or square cake pan. Invert the pan and tap out any excess flour.

2.
Combine the walnuts and bread crumbs in a small bowl and set the mixture aside.

3.
Place the ⅓ cup of sugar and the egg yolks in a large mixing bowl and beat until the
mixture is thick and pale. If you are using a piece of vanilla bean, cut it in half lengthwise and, using the tip of the knife, scrape the seeds out into the yolk mixture. Or stir in the vanilla extract, if using.

4.
Beat the egg whites with the 2 teaspoons of sugar until they form firm, shiny peaks. Gently but thoroughly fold the beaten egg whites and the bread crumb and walnut mixture into the yolk mixture.

5.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake the torte until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let the torte cool in the pan, then turn it out and split it horizontally into 2 even layers.

6.
While the torte cools, prepare the filling: Place the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat them until smoothly blended and the sugar has dissolved, 3 to 5 minutes. Blend in the coffee until it is evenly distributed.

7.
Spread half of the filling on top of one torte layer. Place the second torte layer on top and spread the remaining filling over it. Garnish the top of the torte with a generous sprinkling of coarsely chopped walnuts. Let the cake set in a cool place (but not in the refrigerator) for 1 to 2 hours before serving. Covered, the torte will keep for 5 to 7 days.

Where:
In Chicago
, City Fresh Market, tel 773-681-8600,
cityfreshmarket.com
;
in Milwaukee
, Three Brothers Restaurant, tel 414-481-7530.
Further information and additional recipes:
The Balkan Cookbook
edited by Snezana Pejakovic and Jelka Venisnik-Eror (1987);
easteuropeanfood.about.com
(search serbian reform torte).

Given the veritable bread basket that is Ukraine, with its vast landscape of wheat fields, it is easy to understand why that grain, and the breads and cakes made from it, are held sacred in the region. They inspire all sorts of prayers and celebratory folk customs, somewhat more numerous for bread than for cake.

The most revered Ukrainian bread is the carefully made
kalach
or
koloch
, with its gluten-strong wheat, granular winey yeast, milk, and small amounts of salt and sugar, all braided into a gold-crusted ring. The word
kolo
means circle, and the bread’s shape signifies eternity.

For Christmas and New Year’s Eve, three graduated rounds of this bread are stacked, and a candle is placed in their center.

The form known as
korovai
, a wedding bread-cake made of the same dough as koloch, offers a stupendous feast for the eyes. A high-domed, honeyed, golden bread covered with roses intricately sculpted in bread dough, the cake may also boast sculpted pine-cones, often added as a good luck symbol.

To carry out the theme with an old
tradition, invitations to the wedding were (and in some places still are) delivered in the form of bread pinecones and roses. They are much appreciated for the following day’s breakfast, when butter moistens the creamy, softly chewy bread interior with its thin veneer of a crust.

Hallmark, take note! Who could say no to such an invitation?

Where:
In New York
, with advance order, Larysa Zielyk, 212-677-1551;
in Brooklyn
, with advance order, Bohdana Slyz, 718-457-3517;
in Chicago
, with advance order, Ann’s Bakery, tel 773-384-5562.
Further information and recipes:
Traditional Ukrainian Cookery
by Savella Stechishin (1991);
kingarthurflour.com
(search ukrainian wedding bread);
foodgeeks.com
(search korovai);
ukrainemarriageguide.com/?item=korovai
.

A real chicken Kiev is worth seeking out.

The decadent and quaintly antique entrée takes its names from the capital city of Ukraine—and it’s one of those dishes that led a humble life in its homeland and gained cachet upon reaching the United States. The crispy fried, rolled breast of chicken hides a happy surprise for first-timers: a well of hot melted butter that can spurt up and ruin a necktie the minute a knife is stuck into the plump, golden morsel.

The ingredients for chicken Kiev are simple, but its preparation is something of a high-wire act. A boned and skinned chicken breast, pounded thin and wrapped around a chilled pencil-shaped slice of sweet butter, is dipped into flour and then into beaten egg, and finally coated with bread crumbs and fried. When properly pulled off, the technique results in butter that melts but doesn’t leak, and chicken whose flesh is incredibly moist and rich, an excellent counterpoint to its crunchy exterior.

Several theories exist as to the dish’s invention. One origin story has it created by the French inventor Nicolas Appert in the eighteenth century. Another holds that it was first made at a private club in Moscow in 1912. The most logical theory is the one Ukrainian historians hold, about an unheralded Ukrainian hotel chef who introduced the dish to Moscow in 1819.

Whichever explanation is accurate, the chicken breast originally was served with the first wing joint still attached, which is how some restaurants in Kiev still prepare it. It is customarily served atop buttered toast, with fried shoestring potatoes. An instant classic in that big city, the bird made its first documented appearance in the United States in the 1930s at Chicago’s Yar restaurant, a celebrity hotspot whose owner was a Russian immigrant named Wladimir W.
Yaschenko. Since then it has been seen in America with any manner of side dish, most deliciously rice, but also kasha or egg noodles.

Unfortunately, popularity has compromised the labor-intensive chicken Kiev, and it is now available in frozen, ready-to-fry versions. For a time, the airline industry seemed to specialize in bastardized versions of the dish, which has also been co-opted by the low-fat prepared food industry, whose practitioners borrow the term
chicken Kiev
for any number of unbreaded, unbuttered concoctions that bear little resemblance to the original.

The real thing, when you find it, is still about as excitingly extravagant as chicken can be.

Where:
In Kiev
, Dnipro Hotel & Restaurant, tel 380/44-254-67-77,
dniprohotel.ua/en
; Tsarske Selo, tel 380/44-288-9775,
tsarske.kiev.ua/en
;
in New York
, Mari Vanna, tel 212-777-1955,
marivanna.ru/ny
;
in Washington, DC
, Russia House Lounge, tel 202-234-9433,
russiahouselounge.com
;
in Las Vegas
, Red Square, tel 702-632-7407,
redsquarelasvegas.com
;
in San Francisco
, Red Tavern, tel 415-750-9090,
redtavernsf.com
.
Further information and recipes:
À La Russe
by Darra Goldstein (1983);
Please to the Table
by Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman (1990);
saveur.com
(search chicken kiev);
cookstr.com
(search chicken kiev blashford-snell).

An essential culinary landmark on New York’s Lower East Side.

Along with a host of iconic delicatessens and dairy restaurants, one of the Jewish immigrant legacies to large American cities (most notably New York) are the tantalizing food meccas traditionally called “appetizing stores”—their offerings are meant to awaken sleepy palates and to form the basic menu for non-meat meals.

Kosher food rules regarding dairy do not prohibit the mixing of dairy and fish, which is why the gastronomic core of these stores is preserved fish—salted and smoked salmon, whitefish, carp, sturgeon, and sable, and all kinds of herring in all kinds of sauces. Prepared salads (egg, fish, potato, eggplant, and coleslaw) join the fray as well, and shoppers can also find appetizer-platter staples like vinegar-accented roasted red peppers; pungently salty, wrinkly, sun-dried black olives; and cheeses such as cream cheese, Swiss, pot, and Munster. There are necklaces of dried Polish or Russian mushrooms (see
borovik ceps
), sweets such as halvah, sesame and honey candies, and a jewel-like array of dried apricots, prunes, apples, and pears. Some of these stores carry bagels, onion rolls, and other breads that enhance all of the above; but in days gone by, local rabbis discouraged the shops from carrying breads so that neighboring bakers could make a living.

Although some of the original appetizing stores were strictly kosher, most were not. They never carried any kind of meat (no chopped liver or even chicken soup), but they did offer smoked sturgeon and its prized by-product, caviar, despite the fact that sturgeon has never been strictly kosher. The most observant were limited to the roe of permissible fish, such as salmon, that have not only gills but also recognizable scales.

Several of these classic stores still flourish in New York, largely because they have expanded their wares to draw in a wider range of customers. And because Scandinavians rely on such stores for herring, their special crispbreads are now stocked as well.