Russian recipes vocabulary

APPETIZERS AND SALADS

Ikra  - Caviar, black  or red . Served with eggs, bread and butter, or pancakes.

 Gryby so smetanoi - Mushrooms with sour cream sauce. Served hot or cold and usually quite good.

 Stolichny salat - The classic Russian salad. The main ingredient is potato; other ingredients depend on what is around that can be hidden by large quantities of mayonnaise.

 Vinegrette  - Pickled cabbage, potatoes, beets, carrots and onions are the basis of this salad which, like most other Russian salads, can also include just about anything from meat and fish to very small rocks.

 Zalivnoye, Studen - Cold meat or fish covered with gelatin. Sometimes carrots, peas, and floor sweepings can be found in there too.

 Myasnoye/Rybnoye Assorti - Meat or fish cold cuts. The fishy variation can contain some rather salty aquatic specimens.

SOUPS

Most Russian soups are based on a few key ingredients: beets, cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, and stock of meat or bone, and are usually topped with a dollop of sour cream. The naming of soups depends on which ingredient receives the most emphasis or on any strange addition to the usual repertoire. For instance, borshch  is heavy on the beets, whereas shchi  favors cabbage. Adding pickles to either borshch or shchi produces rassolnik , and adding olives and tomato to rassolnik produces solyanka .

MEAT AND FISH DISHES

Shashlyk  - Shishkebab. The piece that looks like solid fat really is.

Kotlety  - Russian hamburgers; the meat is usually cut with breadcrumbs and covered in a semi-sweet reddish sauce that resembles ketchup about as much as these resemble hamburgers.

Escalop - Your typical slab of pork or veal cooked in a sour cream sauce.

Kotlety po-Kievsky  - One of the most famous dishes, Chicken Kiev is a large fried chicken football stuffed with mushrooms and butter. A true expert can cut it in such a way as to squirt hot butter on fellow diners.

Beef Stroganov  - In Russia Beef Stroganov is strips of meat with a thick creamy sauce, just like the TV dinners only better because it was invented here.

Tsyplyonok tabaka - Fried chicken with garlic.

DESSERTS

Tvorog-  resembles cottage cheese and comes in various degrees of sweetness. Often it is served with sour cream or jam.

Blinis - Russian pancakes, are a common dessert (though they sometimes double as an appetizer or as breakfast) and are often served with tvorog, sour cream, or jam.

Pirog  - This can be a small pastry or a larger cake. Pastries are usually filled with apple, tvorog, jam, or cabbage.

Tort  - Russian cakes. Lots of creamy frosting and usually extremely sweet.

Morozhenoye  - Ice cream. Eaten with a vengeance both in cafes and on the street, regardless of the weather.