How to cook the most disgusting dishes of Soviet childhood

When it comes to disgusting dishes from Soviet childhood, most people remember about the same thing – boiled milk with foam, cold blue-gray pasta stuck together, “snotty” jelly and fruit soup, which is actually compote with the addition of a handful of rice. All these miracles of gastronomy, as a rule, are hopeless – and it is best to just forget about them once and for all. However, there is another category – dishes that could easily have been made tasty, but for some reason the cooks of the times of the USSR did not succeed: due to lack of time, low-quality products, laziness, or just healthy indifference. Now everything is in our hands – and it is quite possible to cook them deliciously.

Remove the foam from the broth, don’t make a mistake

The most common example is soup. Almost every Soviet child grew up in an unshakable confidence: you must definitely eat the first one, because … well, why – no one really could explain it. It is necessary – period. Of course, there is nothing wrong with soups as such, but Soviet catering (and sometimes mothers!) managed not only to make everyone and everyone sick of the soup, but also irrevocably spoil the taste of the dish itself. How to achieve this?

First of all, spoil the broth itself, on which the soup is cooked. And the reason is not at all that the “soup set” that could be bought in the store (we are not talking about excellent bones from the market and domestic chickens!), Looked unattractive – no, the beauty of the bone is not important for the broth. Everything rests on technology.

Mistake number 1 – forget to remove the foam. Any meat contains protein, which, when heated, curls up and rises to the surface – this is the foam. You need to remove it before the moment the broth begins to boil. To do this, you need to stand over the pan, armed with a special slotted spoon, and be alert. Many housewives of the times of the USSR considered this ritual a waste of time, so they simply filled the bones with water and left to do their own thing. The result is a cloudy broth with an unpleasant aftertaste (theoretically, it can be strained or made into a special “extract” from a raw egg, but few people bother with this).

Error number 2 – active boiling. The broth must be left on the very, very weak fire, so that it does not even boil, but trembles a little. This is how a rich meaty taste is achieved, coupled with transparency. Well, the high temperature during the heat treatment of vegetables and meat leads to the loss of their rich taste and aroma – and as a result, an indistinct substance is obtained that can prevent children (and adults too!) from eating any soup for years to come.

Mistake number 3 – do not follow the sequence of adding ingredients. Contrary to stereotypes, soup is not exactly “put everything in a pot and forget it.” For example, the most common baby food soup is chicken noodles. An important nuance – the noodles themselves must be put in the pan literally 3-5 minutes before they are ready, otherwise they will boil and turn into porridge. The idea of ​​simmering noodles a few days in advance and reheating is a bad idea: with each subsequent reheating, the noodles will become softer and softer (or just stick together into a single lump!).

Many childhood nightmares are associated with boiled onions and carrots, which could be found in a bowl of soup. The path to salvation is very simple: the onion must be thrown into the broth as a whole, without peeling (by the way, the onion peel will give the soup a slight golden hue), and then pulled out and thrown away. The same goes for carrots and, for example, celery stalks. Vegetables are needed to give their taste and aroma to the broth, and then you can and should get rid of them. Well, if the soup recipe involves the addition of onions and carrots at the next stage, then they should be finely chopped and sautéed beforehand – it will be much tastier!

The next insidious ingredient is greens: professional chefs advise sending parsley, green onions and dill either into ready-made soup, which has already been poured into plates, or into a saucepan, but at the very end of cooking. You can’t cook fresh herbs for a long time: it will darken, become slimy and unpleasant in taste.

The mystery of semolina

The childhood nightmare of most inhabitants of the post-Soviet space is semolina: it was not in vain that the hero of Deniskin’s Tales threw it out of the window on the head of a passer-by in despair! But here’s the mystery: why? Semolina is just wheat: smaller than couscous, but larger than flour… What’s so disgusting about it?

Of course, the technology of preparation. A myth was rapidly spreading across the expanses of the USSR – they say, semolina should be poured into boiling milk! This is the mistake: in such a scenario, lumps inevitably form – once in hot milk, the cereal instantly sticks together. An alternative is to pour semolina into cold milk and stand over it, stirring constantly (both before boiling and after it). So the porridge thickens evenly, there will be no lumps.

The following nuances are suitable dishes and the ratio of salt and sugar. You need to cook semolina porridge in a saucepan with a thick bottom, otherwise the milk may burn, and then the porridge will get a very unpleasant aftertaste. It can also happen if only sugar is added. Children’s classics are semolina porridge with jam, so initially it can be sweetish, but you should not forget about salt: a couple of pinches must be added to make the taste more balanced.

Modern chefs recommend a life hack – use vanilla sugar instead of ordinary sugar: this way the porridge will turn out very fragrant, like a full-fledged dessert. If you want variety, you can boil it in coconut milk, slightly diluting it with water – this mixture does not burn, and the taste of the finished porridge will be more velvety. There is one more nuance: semolina, like pasta, comes from soft or durum wheat. Solid, of course, is both tastier and healthier – it has more protein and complex carbohydrates, it does not raise blood sugar levels and does not boil down into gluten.

Well, aerobatics, which will help to reconcile with semolina porridge even those who could not stand it in their childhood, is, of course, Guryev porridge: a complex traditional Russian dessert. Strictly speaking, this is not quite porridge, but the word “pudding” in the Russian gastronomic vocabulary has not taken root, although it would be most correct to use it. To prepare Guryev porridge you will need:

– 500 ml of cream 20% fat or milk 6% fat;

– 100 g of semolina;

– a tablespoon of sugar;

– a pinch of salt;

– a bag of vanilla sugar or vanillin;

– 50 g of butter;

– 2 eggs;

– nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts), dried fruits and fresh fruits (any to your taste), jam or honey.

First you need to cook ordinary semolina porridge on cream or milk – falling asleep, again, cereals in cold milk to avoid the appearance of lumps. After boiling, keep the porridge on low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. During this time, it should thicken to the desired consistency.

Add butter and vanilla sugar to the porridge, mix and let cool slightly. After 10-15 minutes, beat raw eggs into the same place and mix well (you can even beat with a mixer at low speed).

After that, start spreading the porridge in a baking dish, after sprinkling its bottom with breadcrumbs. You need to spread it in layers: a little porridge – then a generous layer of fruits and nuts, and so on several times. Some variations of the recipe also involve the use of cream from melted cream in the oven.

Guryev porridge is sprinkled with nuts on top, and then sent for 20 minutes to the oven, preheated to 180 degrees.

Nasty “mashed potatoes” or potato cream?

The list of anti-heroes of Soviet gastronomy also included mashed potatoes – not any, of course, but only the one “like from a school cafeteria” (although some managed to repeat this at home). The answer to explaining children’s dislike is quite simple. Most Soviet housewives used only a manual potato masher – not everyone had a mixer, and if they did, not everyone considered it necessary to get it out to make mashed potatoes.

In turn, not everyone worked thoroughly enough with the pusher, and as a result, the mashed potatoes turned out with a fair amount of lumps – there was no need to talk about any “velvet” texture that allows you to call the mashed potatoes “potato cream” (as in modern restaurants). In addition, the simplest Soviet recipe for mashed potatoes required adding the same water in which the potatoes were boiled to the mashed potatoes – they say, cheap and cheerful! You can’t argue with this thesis, of course, but watery puree doesn’t taste particularly pleasant.

If the hostess nevertheless agreed to spend milk on mashed potatoes, then they often poured in cold milk – and here the next mistake lay in wait. If you pour in cold milk, the potatoes will darken – and the mashed potatoes will acquire a dubious grayish tint, which by no means causes appetite.

The way to salvation is first of all to arm yourself with a mixer. The next step is to add a hefty dollop of butter, and some people recommend using a raw egg as well. Well, then heat the milk before pouring it into the potatoes (the most delicious option involves using cream at all), and pour directly under the mixer blades, watching the texture change: if you overdo it, you will get potato soup. Beat with a mixer at maximum speed for 2-3 minutes. Other additions – fried crispy onions, cheese, herbs, bacon – optional and at the very end. Then there will be every chance to kill the nightmarish childhood memories of gray watery mashed potatoes and appreciate what the words “potato cream” mean.

Stewed cabbage and “healthy” liver

In almost every list of gastronomic nightmares, stewed cabbage flickers from childhood. Her smell alone, filling the dining rooms, is remembered by many with horror. Why? It would seem – the simplest dish, moreover, an integral part of the national cuisine of Germany, Poland or the Czech Republic … these countries cannot be inhabited entirely by perverts! Of course not. Everything rests, as usual, on the technology of preparation. The richest option for stewing cabbage is Polish bigos. The secret of this dish is that all components should be equal:

– mushrooms – half salted and fresh (dry);

– cabbage – fresh and sauerkraut in half;

– sausages and meat – half fresh and smoked.

First, the cabbage must be properly fried in a hot frying pan – otherwise it will instantly give juice and turn out to be more boiled, and this is not tasty. After that, you can add a little tomato paste, or better – fresh tomatoes. It is advisable to fry all other components separately (they should be spacious in a pan), then add to the cabbage and hold everything together under the lid for 20–25 minutes. If you do everything right, then the cabbage will crunch, and not resemble a rag.

Some more interesting ideas can be found in foreign national cuisines. For example, in the Czech Republic, cumin must be added to stewed cabbage. In Alsace, a region on the border of France and Germany, it is customary to stew cabbage in white wine (for example, in Riesling), and serve with ribs, sausages and stewed duck legs. This dish is called choukrut – the French reading of the German word sauerkraut, which means “sauerkraut”.

Another anti-hero is the liver: most often stewed, tough and bitter, but supposedly very healthy, so many children were forced to eat it. As for the benefits, by the way, they didn’t lie – the liver contains a lot of iron. Well, suffering when eating it is not at all necessary – this is easy to avoid.

Firstly, before cooking, the liver must be thoroughly washed and cleaned of films and veins – not only can they be bitter, they are also tough, and it is difficult to chew a poorly cleaned liver. In order for the films to come off easily and quickly, you need to lower the washed liver into boiling water for half a minute. Secondly, you can soak the liver for a short time (for 1-2 hours) in milk or mineral water – this way the bitterness will definitely go away, and the finished dish will become softer. Well, after these preparations, you can choose a nice cooking option.

It turns out very tasty, for example, a liver fried in breadcrumbs – for this you need to cut it into large flat pieces, like chops, and breaded. You can also make a Stroganoff-style liver stewed in sour cream – then the liver will need to be cut into thin small pieces (like beef for beef stroganoff) and fried with onions. An exquisite version is the Venetian liver: small medallions stewed in red wine with the addition of a large amount of onions and herbs.

Completing the list of disgusting dishes from childhood is often milk soup – for example, vermicelli. Here, alas, there is no chance: this dish cannot be saved – it is doomed in advance by the very absurdity of its recipe. It’s not even worth trying.