I’ve been meaning to tell you.
Living on an island in a small Greek (empty) village is not a particular hardship. You can go for a walk and end up with your pockets full of kumquats or a real maracuya (passion fruit) — just like that. You can’t go to a grocery shop around the corner (first of all, there is no grocery shop around the corner and, second of all, even if there was one, it would be closed between October and May), but if your stocks are in order, you can do miracles without shopping for quite a while.
Covid definitely taught us how to stock up — if anything. Before corona (was there ever a before?), I’d visit my local supermarket in Berlin every two-three days, just because I’m not the kind of person who plans a family menu for months ahead. That changed though. I’m now planning breakfasts, lunches, dinners, quick bites and leisure (books, stickers, puzzles, games and whatever else occupies the child) until Easter. Then we’ll see.
I didn’t ever stock up on toilet paper. Not once. I’m proud of that and might put it onto my CV as a positive personality trait.
My stocking up habits are not yet as advanced though as I would like them to be. I was looking at my measuring cup this afternoon and thought there was room for improvement. In Berlin I would immediately go amazon, on Corfu, however, I need to be more flexible.
Anyway — it seems that “non-essential” stores will reopen next week, so there is a good chance to upgrade the equipment.
As a Russian-speaking family of five here, we cook a lot of “nostalgic” food. Nostalgic food, as all things nostalgic, has nothing to do with reality, it is rather about your own perception and interpretation of the past. If you returned, you’d see that most of the things you were so nostalgic about never actually existed.
That’s not true though if we talk about oladushki.
Oladushki are real.
What I like about this dish is that it’s so flexible. Russian pancakes are, in general, an old tradition, so they have indeed tried to serve them with all imaginable toppings:
- Butter and savoury spreads
- Sour cream
- Sour cream and herbs
- Caviar (of course!)
- Salmon
- Cheese
- Vegetables — baked, fried, fresh
- Paté — fish, meat, veg
- Yoghurt — plain or sweet
- Sour cream and sugar
- Honey
- Fruit — baked, candied, fresh
- Jams, marmelades, sweet spreads, melted chocolate…
The list is super long. There are practically no boundaries.
And another thing about oladushki is that — unlike blinis — you don’t have to worry about the recipe. Which makes them a worthy candidate for being featured in this blog.
1. Again, we start with the dough. We aim for a certain consistency and texture, which is way more important in this case than ingredients or proportions. So, we take flour, sour milk (kefir, buttermilk) — 400–500 ml, baking soda (half teaspoon), some salt, one egg. Comment on flour: I tried different combinations and I’m not a fan of plain wheat, but I do use it to “glue” things together in some cases. My favourite is a mix of wholemeal, rye and plain wheat flour. You can choose your favourite, even gluten-free, but don’t forget about the “glue”. Comment of sour milk: you can actually take milk, but then use baking powder instead of soda. I also tried it with yoghurt. Kefir is classics and if you can go an extra mile to get a bottle of kefir, you do that. I also add a bit of cinnamon into the dough, regardless of whether I plan to serve oladushki with sweet or with savoury toppings. Try if you dare.
2. Mix egg, salt, sour milk and soda in a bowl. Gradually add flour until you reach this consistency:
3. That’s it, actually. We are ready to cook, for that we need a frying pan, some refined vegetable oil. Heat a bit of oil in the pan, not too much, just to coat the surface.
4. With a tablespoon pour dough onto the pan, don’t overfill the pan, otherwise it won’t be as easy to turn the pancakes over. Cook 1–3 minutes on each side until they are light brown and mouth watering.
5. Mmm… put on a plate and devour with a topping of your choice?
In the meantime I’ve just baked a rye bread loaf. And I’m running out of flour. But that’s another story.
