National Russian cuisine

Russian feast has always been famous for its hospitality

Despite the fact that Russia had long been unaware of many modern products: potatoes, tomatoes, corn, rice, etc. foreigners had always noted that the Russian table was the richest in the world, even among the common people. Russian dishes do not require special knowledge nor exotic ingredients, but to prepare a really tasty dish one needs a lot of experience.
The main products in Russia were turnips, cabbage, radish, cucumber, fruit, berries, mushrooms, fish and sometimes meat. The abundance of grains - rye, wheat, oats, millet, peas, lentils - is used to prepare many varieties of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer and vodka.

Russia is a multinational state with each nationality having its "brand" dishes, borrowing recipes and culinary tricks from their neighbors, and sharing their secrets with them in return. Every region of Russia boasts its authentic cuisine.

In the 16-18th centuries, the Russian cuisine absorbed the best from European diets: salads and green vegetables, smoked meat, chocolate, ice cream, wine and liquor, sugar and coffee.

Soups play an important role in the Russian cuisine. Their diversity, high nutritional value, great original taste and aroma earned them wide popularity. Soups are primarily based on meat, fish, mushroom and vegetable broths, as well as milk, kvass, or brines. The most popular are the so called filling soups - cabbage soup, rassolnik, borscht, saltwort. Soups are usually served with sour cream, porridge, pastry - cakes, loaves, meat pies, fish pies, vegetable pies, etc. There is also a lot of chilled soups such as botvinya, okroshka, swekolnik, and sweet soups.

Russia has always been famous for fish dishes, in particular boiled fish (sturgeon with horseradish, boiled zander with Polish sauce, boiled salmon and cod, fish belly salted in brine). Poached fish dishes with the steam, Russian, tomato, or brine sauce are delicious. But the real specialties of the Russian cuisine have always been baked dishes: fish, baked with cream, white, milk, tomato, or mushroom sauce, fish egg casserole, fish baked in pastry, etc.
As for meat dishes, stewed dishes prevail. Meat is often roasted in large pieces, whole poultry is cooked (goose with cabbage, duck with apples, etc.). Russian chefs always pay tribute to offal dishes as well.

Among the most common sweet dishes and drinks we can list kissel (preferably thick), pastries (pancakes, twiglets, crumpets, jam noodles, gingerbread cookies, poppy seed rolls), compotes, tea, kvass, fruit drinks, honey drinks, sbiten etc.
Take a virtual tour throughout the vast expanse of Russia by tasting national dishes of different nationalities of the country.