Belarus Cuisine

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Modern Belarus cuisine is based on cuisine of agricultural population of eastern and western areas that includes the most widespread and long existing on Belarus territory dishes of urban population developed basically under the influence of Polish cuisine but with Belarus adaptation. As a result, Belarus cuisine acquired a number of mainly used, favourite ingredients and its own special ways of food preparation, preliminary and thermal processing of foodstuffs. It led to such a selection of dishes in Belarus cuisine that neighbouring countries do not have, though principles of preparation of certain Belarus dishes are also used by Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Lithuanians.
However, similarity of foodstuffs used by these three cuisines, and also common type of stove (Russian stove in which dishes of Belarus cuisine were created) at first sight gave an impression that Belarus cuisine was just a branch of all-Russia cuisine.
Today we are introducing you to the brightest and the tastiest dishes of Belarus cuisine.

Kolduny

12 potatoes
2 tbsp flour
3 tbsp butter
1 cup sour cream
salt
for minced mushrooms:
40g dried mushrooms
1 onion
2 tbsp butter
for minced meat:
400g fat pork.
1 onion
salt and pepper to taste
Soak mushrooms in cold water; boil them. Drain water, chop and fry mushrooms, combine with fried chopped onions, salt and pepper. Chop pork with a knife, add raw chopped onions, salt and pepper, do not fry. Grate raw potatoes. Press out juice, let it settle, then pour out the juice, and combine the remaining starch with potatoes, add salt and mix. Form flatbreads and put a little minced mushrooms or meat. Roll into a ball, roll in flour, fry in oil. Put in latka, fill with sour cream and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Serve hot with sour cream, fresh vegetables, sauerkraut, pickled gherkins, pickled cowberry or apples. It can also be served to meat or mushroom broth.

Minsk Kholodnik

80g selected and rinsed sorrel
1 boiled beet
2 tbsp julienned cucumbers
1 tbsp diced onions
1 bunch spring onions
2 eggs
0.5 tsp apple vinegar
salt, sugar and sour cream to taste
fresh dill
Slice sorrel into strips 0.5 cm wide, simmer in boiled water for 1 minute, take off the heat. Grate beet coarsely. Pour 1L cold boiled water into beet, add sliced cucumbers, onions and sorrel together with the broth it was simmered in. Slice spring onions, rub it with salt and add to the mixture. Add salt to taste, sugar and sour cream, vinegar, stir thoroughly. Before serving, put half boiled egg in each plate, then fill the plate with kholodnik, add another spoon of sour cream, and sprinkle with dill. Boiled beef can also be served.

Draniki

250g potato mass
100g pork forcemeat
2 onions
vegetable oil
Perhaps, the "most Belarusian" dish, an integral part of the national cuisine. Grate potatoes with onions (so that the former does not get dark). Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and put a portion of potato mass into it with a spoon. When it gets together, put forcemeat in the middle, and another portion of potato mass on top. Let it get brown and turn carefully. Put the prepared draniki in a clay pot, pour with sour cream, and stew a little in the oven.

Perepecha

800g wheaten flour
300g milk
1 tsp sugar
50g yeast
4 eggs
100g butter
salt
National Belarusian dish. Served to soup and main course. Make dough brew from yeast, warm milk, salt, sugar. When the brew rises, pour in rubbed yolks and whisked whites, gradually stirring in flour, and, having added melted butter, knead pastry until bubbles appear. Shape four thin flatbreads, bake in a buttered pan sprinkled with breadcrumbs.

Goose Smazhenny

1 goose
1kg antonovka apples
1 garlic
salt
Celebratory Belarus dish. Disembowel the goose, singe, rinse, dry, rub the inside with a mix of salt and garlic, stuff densely with quarters of antonovka apples, sew up and put in a hot oven on a baking tray or in latka. Fry three hours, frequently pouring over with the forming fat.

Pike Stuffed

1 pike, 1.5kg
1 slice white bread
0.5 cup milk
5 medium onions
2 tbsp vegetable oil
100g butter
200g stewed cep mushrooms
1 egg
0.5 tsp nutmeg
Clean and disembowel pike, making a cut over the gills near the head. Carefully cut out meat with bones, trying not to damage skin and leaving some fillet on it. The head and tail should remain integral. Remove bones from the fillet, cut it finely, salt, add fried onions, soaked in milk and pressed out bread, mushrooms, egg and butter. Stir, add salt, pepper and nutmeg. Fill the pike with the resulting forcemeat. There should not be too much stuffing. Butter the baking tray, put fish and butter it as well. Roast in the oven at 180 C 20-30 minutes.

Bigus

1kg cabbage
2 medium tomatoes
1 cup meat broth
1 soaked apple
5 cored prunes
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp sugar
50ml red dry wine
150g each: raw-dried gammon, boiled goose fillet, pork tenderloin and boiled smoked ham
Peel and core tomatoes, dice finely. Cut soaked apple coarsely. Slice cabbage, fry 5 minutes, add broth, prunes, apple and tomatoes. Stew 15 minutes, add spices, bay leaf, sugar and wine. Let the wine evaporate, take off the heat. Cube tenderloin 2cm wide and fry 5 minutes. Add other cubed meat products; cook 5 more minutes. Put in a pot alternating layers of meat products and cabbage (top layer - cabbage), and stew 10 minutes in the oven at 150 C. Serve with sour cream and fresh herbs.

Machanka

15 (350g) smoked or salted pork ribs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
200g home sausage
600g sour cream sauce
for sauce:
1 tbsp flour
2 tbsp butter
1 cup meat broth
1 cup sour cream
To make sauce put flour and oil in a cold frying pan; quickly fry flour constantly stirring and take it off the heat. Pour in broth, stir to avoid hard pieces. Add sour cream, stir, salt and pepper. Simmer ribs in boiling water for 5 minutes, fry in vegetable oil, put them in a pot. Add fried half-cooked onions, sausage circles, pour in sour cream sauce and stew 5 minutes.

Tsibriki

1 kg potatoes
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
2-3 tbsp flour
salt
Grate raw peeled potatoes, press out the mass, add flour, form cherry-sized balls and fry them in well-heated fat. Serve hot with warm vegetable oil, sour cream, milk (in a glass).

Breadcrumb Kletski in Sour Cream

200g wheaten bread
2/5 cup milk
2 tbsp flour
1 egg
1/2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sour cream
20g breadcrumbs
Grind dry bread into crumbs and soak them in milk. When the breadcrumbs swell, add flour, eggs and stir thoroughly. Cut the mass into 15-20g balls and cook them in boiling water until floating, then drain them in a colander, put in a deep frying pan, dress with butter, sour cream, breadcrumbs and bake in the oven.