Eating Around the World (From Home....And Gluten Free...): May 2025

Welcome to Russia! This is a country that is fascinating to me, but scares me too. I've always been taught that Russia is a scary country, and yet the pictures I see are beautiful The onion-dome buildings, mountains, hilarious videos on YouTube. Patricia Polacco, one of my favorite children's authors, wrote and illustrated some of my favorite kids' books - many of them took place in Russia. The story of Anastasia is one that has always interested me, which takes place in Russia too. Even so, I don't think I would like to visit. Maybe someday that will change. According to Google, the population of Russia is 143.8 million people and the capital is Moscow. Their national dish is...

Pelmeni!

It is also said that their national dish is Shchi as well. So, in order to try both, we did two evenings of Russian food! Pelmeni is a meat dumpling, and shchi is a cabbage soup. To go with each of these meals, we made a Russian honey cake and Russian Apple Cake Sharlotka. It was a lot of prep, a lot of work, and a lot of good food! Here's what I did:

PELMENI

Dumpling

1 C cottage cheese

1/2 C milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp oil

1 C brown rice flour

1/2 C cornstarch

1/2 C tapioca starch

4 tbsp potato starch

2 tbsp sweet rice flour

2 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp salt

Meat filling

1 lb ground pork
1/2 lb ground chicken
1 onion, grated
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp water
3 tbsp dill, chopped

Cooking

Salted water

2 bay leaves

Butter, melted

Serving

Curry powder

Sour cream

Minced dill

Siracha sauce

In a blender, add cottage cheese, egg, milk, and oil and blend until completely smooth.
Place dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle and mix.
With the stand mixer on low, slowly add the wet ingredients until dough has come together (it will be VERY sticky).
Lay out a piece of plastic wrap on the counter, and lightly dust with some brown rice flour.
Roll a piece of dough into the size of a golf ball and place on the plastic wrap.
Fold the plastic wrap over the dough and roll it out as thin as you can while still being able to take it off the plastic wrap.
Remove the top layer of plastic wrap and spoon about 1-2 tsp of the meat filling onto half of the rolled out dough.
Wet the outside edges of the dough around the filling and crimp the sides together to seal it.
Place on a pan that is lightly dusted with brown rice flour, and repeat until the dough and meat filling is gone.
Bring a large pot of salted water and bay leaves to a rolling boil.
Gently lower the pelmeni's into the water, a few at a time, and cook until floating (about 4-5 minutes).
Remove from the pot and place on a parchment paper-lined plate or pan, and drizzle with melted butter.
Serve hot with a dollop of sour cream, curry powder, dill, and siracha.
Enjoy!

(Source: Pelmeni; Pelmeni; Pelmeni)

RUSSIAN HONEY CAKE

Cake

70 g Unsalted Butter
2 tbsp honey
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups gluten free flour

Frosting

200 g Unsalted Butter
8 oz cream cheese room temperature
16 oz heavy whipping cream
12 oz dulce de leche

Bring a pot of water to boil and place a heat-safe bowl on top (this is called a "steam bath").
Place the butter, honey, and sugar inside the bowl and allow the mixture to melt.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with baking soda until smooth in consistency.
Slowly, add the egg mixture into the honey mixture in the steam bath, continuing to stir as you combine.
Cook the batter for about 30-40 minutes until the color deepens.
Take the batter off the steam bath and add in the vanilla extract.
Let the batter sit for 10 minutes.
Add in the flour (the batter will be sticky and that's OK).
Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Flour a work surface generously to help you work with the sticky dough.
Divide the dough into 12-14 equal-sized pieces.
Roll out each dough piece into a large round circle (you'll want it big enough so you can shape it into a perfect circle later).
Roll the circle back onto the rolling pin and unroll it onto the lined baking sheet.
Bake each cake layer for 5-7 minutes, or until golden brown.
While one cake is baking, roll out another layer to speed up the process.
Once the cake layer comes out of the oven, use a plate as a stencil to cut out a perfect circle.
Repeat the process until all your cake layers are baked and cut out with a stencil.
Save the cake trimmings for decorating.
Allow all the cake layers to cool at room temperature in a single layer – do not stack them while they're hot!
Whip the butter with the cream cheese and dulce de leche until smooth in consistency.
Add in the heavy whipping cream and whip until you get stiff peaks.
Frost a cake layer and stack another on top.
Repeat the process until all the layers are stacked.
Frost the outside of the cake with the remaining frosting.
Shred the leftover cake pieces in a blender and use it to decorate the sides of the cake.
Allow the cake to set in the fridge overnight.
Before serving, allow the cake to sit at room temperature to develop the moisture.
Slice and enjoy!

(Source: Russian Honey Cake)

SHCHI

Beef Broth

1 lb stew meat
8 C water
1 onion, quartered
1 carrot, halved
1 stalk celery, halved
1 tsp black peppercorns

Shchi

2 large potatoes, diced
1 carrot, grated
1/3 C celery root, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp avocado oil
1 onion, finely minced

2 1/2 C sauerkraut
2 C green cabbage, shredded
4 tbsp tomato sauce
2 bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, through a press
Salt and pepper, to taste

Sour cream, for serving
Parsley, for serving

In a large stock pot add 8 cups of water along with stew meet.
Bring the water to a boil and add all ingredients for stock.
Cook on a medium-low heat for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.
Discard the vegetables and transfer the meat to a plate.
Sift the broth through a fine mash sieve and put it back on a stove.
Add diced potatoes to a pot with a broth and cook for 10 minutes.
Add carrot and celery root and cook for another 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat avocado oil in a large skillet and on a medium heat.
Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes.
Add sauerkraut, fresh cabbage, 3-4 tablespoon of tomato sauce, cover with a lid and sauté on a medium low heat stirring occasionally for 20 minutes.
Add sautéed vegetables to a pot with potatoes and carrot, along with cubed meat, bay leaf, salt, pepper to taste and continue cooking on a medium heat for 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat, add garlic pushed through a garlic press and let the soup rest for at least 20-30 minutes.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of parsley.

(Source: Shchi)

RUSSIAN APPLE CAKE SHARLOTKA

1 lb green apples, peeled and sliced, seeds removed
8 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups gluten free flour
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease 9 inch. baking pan and line it with parchment paper.
In a mixing bowl combine 8 eggs and 2 cups of sugar.
Using stand mixer, whisk on high for about 10 minutes or until double in size and the batter is light color.
Whisk in vanilla and flour.
In a baking pan, lay out apple slices to cover the bottom of the pan.
Then, pour in 1/3 of the batter to cover the apples.
Lay out another layer of apple slices followed by batter; repeat one more time. Total of 3 apple layers.
Bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hour or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the Sharlotka cake.
Let it setin the cake pan, then carefully remove it from the pan and dust it with powdered sugar.
Cut a slice and enjoy!

(Source: Russian Apple Sharlotka Cake)

The verdict? Buckle up...this will be long. The pelmeni's were a pain in the rear end to make. The dough was so incredibly sticky and was so difficult to make. I have great memories of eating pelmeni's in Alaska when I lived there, so I knew what they should look like and taste like. Let me tell you, they did NOT look correct - they were more the size of perogis (see Poland!). That said, when they were finally made and finally eaten, they were so good. Brought me right back to the wharf in Alaska! They were so time consuming, but I ended the night very happy. The Russian honey cake was interesting. When I was making the cake, the layers were very crispy (they were supposed to be) and tasted like graham crackers. The frosting broke, so it didn't look correct either. I made it a day before eating it (the recipe said to do so!) and when we ate it, it tasted like a soggy graham cracker. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't terrible. We didn't end up keeping the leftovers...The shchi was interesting. After letting it sit for 30 minutes, the soup wasn't hot, and so it tasted funky to me. When I reheated it, it was much better. The sour cream and parsley was really good on the soup as well. It wasn't anything great, but wasn't terrible either. The apple cake was very strange. I think there were supposed to be three layers of apples, but all the apples sank to the bottom of the pan. So it's a fluffy cake with a top layer of apples (I flipped the cake like an upside down cake). The cake wasn't super sweet at all, and didn't have much flavor, so the powder sugar really helped. Overall, Russia was good, but not great. Except for the pelmeni...I did love those...