1. Salad with stewed maral and fern tar-tar
Siberian cuisine is impossible to imagine without maral, a large deer that lives in the local forests. People here also love fern, which they boil, stew, fry and even salt to get a delicious dietary snack. The salad of Vladimir Bragin, chef of the ‘Zaboy’ restaurant in Kemerovo, is served with fried egg yolk and lettuce.
Ingredients for 1 serving of salad:
- 95 gr. of Fern tar-tar
- 40 gr. of onion sauce
- 35 gr. of Maral sous-vide
- 1 egg
- 15 ml of vegetable oil
- A pinch of salt
- A pinch of pepper
- 1 twig of processed dill
- 1 leaf of lettuce (frillice or any other)
To make fern tar-tar (ingredients for 500 g):
- 400 gr. of processed fern
- 80 gr. of onion
- 80 gr. of carrot
- 50 ml of vegetable oil
- 13.5 ml of soy sauce
- 10.5 gr. of peeled garlic
- 37 gr. of chukka salad
To make maral sous-vide (ingredients per 1 kg):
- 1.7 kg of processed maral (can be substituted with regular venison)
- 9 gr. of salt for softening
- 3 gr. of dry basil
- 180 ml of olive oil
- 45 gr. of table mustard
- 90 gr. of processed kiwi
- 500 gr. of vegetable oil
To make onion sauce (ingredients per 100 g):
- 18 gr. of processed green onion
- 30 ml of mayonnaise
- 69 gr. of Cremette cheese
- A pinch of salt
- A pinch of sugar
How to prepare:
- Begin with the fern tar-tar: soak the fern in water for a day, then cut off the hard part and chop the fern itself into 0.5 cm pieces. Finely chop the onion and carrot. Pour vegetable oil into a hot frying pan and add the onion and carrot. Fry until half done, then add the fern followed by soy sauce after 2-3 minutes. Fry for another five minutes, then drain off excess oil with a sieve.
- Onion sauce: pour boiling water over the green onion to remove excess bitterness, then sieve and wring a little to remove excess moisture. Place the onion, mayonnaise, Cremette cheese, salt and sugar in one bowl and beat with a blender until smooth.
- Maral sous-vide: cut the maral into pieces each weighing 200-250 g, marinate in salt and black pepper, add the grated kiwi and mix well. Transfer to a saucepan, cover with vegetable oil and simmer for 6 hours at 70°C.
- Mix the fern tar-tar with the onion sauce, place in the center of a plate. Using your hands, separate the maral into fibers and lay on top.
2. Shor soup tut-pash
The Shors are a small people (numbering about 13,000), mainly living in Western Siberia. Their traditional soup includes maral, onion and potato. The author of this recipe is Nikolai Karyshev, chef and owner of ‘Yurt’ bar in Sheregesh.
Ingredients:
- about 2 kg per 5 liters of water of Maral meat on the bone
- 3-4 potatoes
- 1 onion bulb
- 2.5 tbsp. of flour
- 2-3 eggs
- 100 ml of water
- 1 tbsp. of salt
How to prepare:
- Place the maral with bone in a saucepan, cover with water and cook for at least 2 hours. Take out the meat, separate it from the bone and remove pellicles and veins.
- Add the potato and onion to the broth, boil until tender, remove the vegetables and run through a sieve and beat with a blender. Strain the finished broth and add in the resulting vegetable puree.
- Add the eggs, a couple of pinches of salt and about 100 ml of water to the sifted flour. Knead the dough, put in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.
- Divide the dough into several parts, roll each of them into a thin layer and cut into small pieces about 4x4 cm in size.
- Dice the meat into 1.5x1.5 cm cubes, add to the soup with the dough pieces and cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes.
3. Beef tongue with fern
In Siberia, fern is often used not in salads but in hot dishes, since it moderates the fat content of meat. It is a kind of Siberian asparagus, only tastier, which also improves metabolism. The author of this recipe is Olga Lebedeva, owner of ‘Ta Eshe Ptitsa’ bar hotel in Kemerovo.
Ingredients for 1 kg of beef tongue (for 4 people):
- 1 kg of beef tongue
- 500 gr. of bracken fern
- 2 onion bulbs
- 3-4 cowberries (per serving)
- Vegetable oil
- Salt (to taste)
How to prepare:
- Place the beef tongue in a saucepan of water, season with salt and simmer for 4 hours on low heat.
- Take 500 g of bracken fern (you can collect and clean the leaves yourself, or buy it dried or salted), cut into small pieces and also chop the bulb onion.
- Clean the boiled tongue, cut into small layers and fry in a pan with vegetable oil until dark brown.
- Add the fern and onion to the pan and fry with the tongue for no more than 5 minutes.
- Place the finished tongue with the fern on a plate and add a few cowberries on top.
4. Pelmeni with cedar nuts
Anton Avramchuk, chef at the ‘Volna’ restaurant complex in Kemerovo, offers his own unique take on pelmeni.
Ingredients for 1 kg of pelmeni:
- 350 gr. of cedar nuts
- 250 gr. of sautéed onions
- 50 gr. of peeled garlic
- 20 gr. of butter
- 2 gr. of salt
- 10 gr. of ground black pepper
- 400 gr. of dough for pelmeni
- 75 gr. of wheat flour
- 2 eggs
- 30 gr. of butter
- 20 gr. of vegetable oil
- 250 ml of 2.3% fat milk
- Use 4.5 g of dough and 6 g of filling per pelmeni.
How to prepare:
- Dice the onion and garlic very finely.
- For the dough, mix together milk, egg, salt, pepper, vegetable oil and butter, and mix thoroughly. Add the flour in portions, and mix again until the dough has a firm consistency throughout. Leave at room temperature for an hour.
- Fry the chopped onions in butter until golden brown, throw in the cedar nuts and garlic, fry for 3-4 minutes, add salt and black pepper to taste, let cool.
- Now for the dough: roll it out to a thickness of 1.5 mm and cut pieces with a 4x4 cm shape-cutter.
- Now for the pelmeni: take a piece of dough, moisten half of the edge with water, spread the cedar nut/onion/garlic filling in the center, fold in half to obtain a semi-oval, and press well with your fingers so that the filling doesn't ooze out during cooking. Next, take the edges of the semi-oval, draw them together and press so as to “close” the pelmeni. Repeat for each piece of dough.
- Place the pelmeni in a saucepan of boiling water and start cooking, stirring clockwise for 2-3 minutes.
- Serve with satay sauce or sour cream.
5. Smoked grayling
Another main dish option is the local grayling. The Shors people smoke it on an open fire and eat it with juniper berries. The author of this recipe is Alexander Glukhov, chef of the ‘Alpen Club’ hotel and restaurant complex in Sheregesh.
Ingredients:
- 500 gr. of fresh grayling
- 10 gr. of juniper berry
- 5 gr. of sea salt
- 20 gr. of cedar nut oil
- 2 gr. of freshly ground black pepper
- 100 gr. of lemon slices
- 10 gr. of thyme
How to prepare:
- Marinate the pre-skinned grayling in cedar nut oil with juniper, salt and black pepper for 3 hours. Make an incision in the belly of the fish and insert the thyme and lemon.
- Smoke the grayling in a home smoker on cherry wood chips for an hour at 135°C.
- Garnish with a sprig of thyme and a slice of lemon.
6.‘Vitamin Sh’ tonic tea
This drink will warm you up in cold weather and restore your body after a hard day. The author of the recipe is Yuri Sergeev, a member of the Bartenders Association of Russia in Kemerovo.
Ingredients for a 1-liter teapot:
- 60 gr. of steamed and chopped rosehip
- 40 gr. of rosehip
- 30 gr. of dried sea buckthorn
- 150 gr. of pine cone jam
How to prepare:
- Place the rosehip, sea buckthorn and pine cone jam in a teapot. Pour over with hot water (95°C) and stir.
- Brew for 10 minutes. After brewing, use a strainer to separate the tea from the larger fruit pieces.