Great Lent 2018 has come, during which the Orthodox are preparing for Easter, which is early this year - it falls on April 8th.
Lent is the very first, long (it lasts seven weeks) and strict. Throughout the fast, believers must abstain from food of animal origin, pray and attend services, and work on their spirituality and morality.
All seven weeks of Great Lent have separate traditions and are dedicated to a particular saint.
Parts and weeks of Great Lent 2018
First week(week) of Great Lent is called "Fedor's Week". In the people, it begins with "Clean Monday". These days, the Orthodox remember all the saints who stood up for Christianity. Especially on Saturday they honor the great martyr Theodore of Amasea, who was executed for his faith. Tortured by hunger and iron, he did not renounce Christianity until his death.
Second week The Great Lent is dedicated to the memories of Gregory Palamas, who at the age of 20 renounced all the blessings prepared for life and became a hermit on Mount Athos, and went from a monk to the Archbishop of Thessaloniki. Saturday this week is considered Parental.
Third week called the Cross. Churches will install the Life-Giving Cross. He, according to legend, is able to heal diseases and has extraordinary power. Wednesday of this week is special, because it is in the middle of Lent.
Fourth week Great Lent honors the memory of the monk John of the Ladder. At the age of 16, he gave up all blessings and went into the desert.
Fifth week Great Lent is reminiscent of Mary of Egypt, who is considered the patroness of penitent sinners. Mary herself, according to legend, from the age of 12 led a sinful life, after 17 years she realized her mistakes, repented and received forgiveness. After that, she went to the desert lands, where she prayed until the end of her days.
sixth week Great Lent is otherwise known as Palm Week. These days, believers honor those days when people recognized Christ as their king and threw palm branches under their feet, laying an honorable path for him. In Russia, branches have been replaced by willow branches.
After starts Holy Week. It is at this time that you need to atone for sins and purify your soul, spend time with loved ones, trying not to let outsiders close to you.
Lenten Recipes for Lent 2018
Lenten table– not only considered beneficial for health, lean foods: vegetables, cereals are the most refined culinary products, often requiring special cooking skills and giving the most amazing results ...
In Lent, meat, eggs, dairy products, animal fats are excluded from the diet. Fish is allowed on the Annunciation and on Palm Sunday. Fish caviar is allowed on Lazarus Saturday ...
Salads
Cooking salads in a strict fast can greatly diversify the table. In Great Lent, of course, fresh vegetables are less available than in summer fasts, but preparations can be widely used: frozen, dried, pickled vegetables and fruits, tofu, add boiled rice or other cereals.
For dressing salads, sunflower oil, soy mayonnaise, sauces are used, or enough juicy ingredients are selected so that the salad is tasty without additional ingredients.
Salad from different vegetables
100 g kohlrabi, 50 g canned green peas, 2 carrots, 2 fresh apples, cucumbers, 50 g lettuce or green onion, 50 g plums or prunes, 1 fresh sweet pepper or tomato, 1 teaspoon sugar, 200 g .soy mayonnaise, pepper, salt to taste, dill.
Peeled boiled young kohlrabi, carrots cut into thin slices. Rinse prunes, pour hot water for swelling, remove the bones from it and cut into slices. Also cut pitted plums.
Tomatoes cut into 5-6 pieces, fresh Bell pepper, removing the stalk along with the grains, cut into strips. Peel the apples, remove the seed boxes from them and cut them in the same way as vegetables. Cut the washed lettuce leaves into 2-3 parts, and chop the cucumbers into slices.
Mix chopped vegetables and fruits, add canned green peas, lightly salt, pepper and season with mayonnaise when serving. You can add sugar to the salad (better powdered sugar) and lemon juice. Vegetable salad can be prepared with other vegetables available.
The vinaigrette
Peel boiled potatoes and beets, cut into small cubes or thin slices. pickled cucumbers and onion cut into cubes. Sort the sauerkraut, cut into large pieces.
If sauerkraut tastes very sour, rinse it cold water or even soak for some time, wring out, grind. Finely chop the onion. Then mix all the vegetables, salt and season with vegetable oil. Potatoes can be partially or completely replaced with boiled beans.
Lean seaweed salad
Dried sea kale soaked, boiled, washed thoroughly,. Separately, chopped onions are fried, mixed with prepared cabbage, seasoned with soy sauce, ajinomoto, and other spices to taste.
Korean salads
very many Korean salads have lean ingredients and therefore quite suitable for a Lenten meal. You can buy them ready-made or make your own. To prepare salads, you need a special grater (only an experienced hand can cut as thinly as necessary).
Here are a few classic options: 1) carrot (thinly chopped), 2) carrot and green radish (the second one is smaller, chop both products), 3) cabbage (cut into 2x2 cm squares, add either chopped carrots or beets, but the latter is very small, for color only). Prepared vegetables are salted, mixed, crushed, allowed to stand until juice is obtained, the juice is drained or squeezed.
Unscented sunflower oil is heated in a frying pan. At this time, vegetables are seasoned with vinegar, red pepper, ajinomoto, coriander. Finely chop the garlic and place a slide on the vegetables, pour the heated oil directly on the garlic, mix everything. Let stand, cool.
Salad of cabbage, carrots, apples and sweet peppers
The washed white cabbage is cut into strips, ground with a small amount of salt, the juice is drained, mixed with peeled chopped apples, carrots, sweet peppers, seasoned with sugar and vegetable oil. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs.
300 g of cabbage, 2 apples, 1 carrot, 100 g of sweet pepper, 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, herbs.
Beet caviar
Finely chop the onion, grate the carrot coarse grater. Fry everything in vegetable oil until golden brown. Then add grated fresh beets. Five minutes before it's ready, add salt to taste and tomato paste.
1 onion, 1 carrot, 3-4 medium beets, 100 g vegetable oil, 1/2 cup tomato paste diluted with water, salt.
Radish salad with butter
Peel and rinse the radish well, put it in cold water for 15-20 minutes, then let the water drain, chop the radish on a grater, season with vegetable oil, salt and vinegar, put in a salad bowl, garnish with herbs. You can add chopped onion sautéed in vegetable oil to the grated radish.
Radish 120 g, vegetable oil. 10 g, 3 g vinegar, 15 g onions, greens.
vitamin salad
Finely chop fresh cabbage, grate carrots on a coarse grater. Mix everything and salt. Add green peas (canned). Pour vinegar, vegetable oil, sprinkle with black pepper and herbs. You can add fresh cucumbers and green onions.
300 g of fresh cabbage, 1 large carrot, 5 tablespoons of peas, salt, 1 tablespoon of vinegar. 10 g vegetable oil, 2 g black pepper.
Salad “Summer”
Put the tomatoes in a colander, pour over boiling water, and then immediately - cold water. Remove skin. Cut peeled tomatoes into thin slices. Cut the peeled apple in half and remove the core. Cut the apple into slices too. Cut the onion and pepper into small strips. Mix everything. Salt, add sugar, add lemon juice and pour vegetable oil.
2 ripe tomatoes, 1 apple, 1 small onion, 1 sweet peri pod, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, salt, sugar, 1 tablespoon lemon juice.
Tomatoes stuffed with mixed vegetables
Wash the tomatoes sharp knife cutting down upper part, take out the core with a spoon. Finely chop the boiled carrots, finely chop the apple, grate the cucumbers on a coarse grater. Put all vegetables in a bowl, add peas, salt, vegetable oil and stir. Stuff the tomatoes with this stuffing. Sprinkle dill on top.
5 small tomatoes, 1 carrot, 1 apple, 2 pickled cucumbers, 100 g canned green peas, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, 1/3 tsp salt, dill.
rice salad
Boil rice in salted water. Chop vegetables, mix with chilled rice, salt, sprinkle with pepper, add sugar and vinegar to taste.
100 g rice, 2 sweet peppers, 1 tomato, 1 carrot, 1 pickled cucumber, 1 onion.
Leek
Finely chop the green part of the leek into rings (four stalks are needed), fry in margarine with garlic and thyme. Add the white part of the stems. Pour all this white wine in half with vegetable broth, before placing the container in the oven, cover with food paper, put in the oven and leave for 30 minutes.
4 stalks of leeks, 2 cloves of garlic, a bunch of fresh thyme, 115 g of butter (can be vegetable margarine), 2 glasses of chardonnay, 285 ml of vegetable broth, sea salt and black pepper.
Buckwheat crumbly with mushrooms and onions
3 cups of water, 1.5 cups of unground buckwheat, 2 onions, some dry porcini mushrooms. Fill the core with water, cover with chopped mushrooms and put on a strong fire, closing the lid.
When it boils, reduce the heat by half and continue to cook for 10 minutes until thickened, then reduce the heat again to low and cook for about 5-7 minutes more. until the water is completely evaporated. Remove from heat, wrap in warm water for 15 minutes. At the same time, fry finely chopped onion, salt. Add the fried onion to the porridge, stir evenly.
Mushroom pilaf
For pilaf, thick-walled dishes are preferable, evenly warming up and slowly giving off heat. The ratio of the main components: rice carrot mushrooms (frozen, fresh or soaked dry) is equal, i.e. for a pound of rice, exactly the same number of carrots and mushrooms.
Can be partially or completely replaced with mushrooms soy meat, however, it should be remembered that soy meat itself does not have the same taste qualities as mushrooms, and when using it, you should finish the dish with the help of seasonings and spices.
We heat the cauldron and the oil in it (do not spare the oil for pilaf: its taste improves significantly), fry the mushrooms and carrots, add salt and spices, cover from above, without stirring, with a layer of washed rice and pour gently with water (1.5 volumes from rice), so that rice is obtained covered with water with a margin of not a couple of centimeters. close the lid tightly, trying not to open the lid further unnecessarily.
When we hear that the contents of the cauldron are boiling, reduce the heat to a minimum, at this time we will prepare the garlic: we will need a few small cloves. They are placed directly in a cap of rice (rice has already swollen absorbed all the water above it) whole and lightly pressed down, immersed in rice, after which the cauldron is already turned off, but the pilaf continues to cook due to residual heat.
After ten or fifteen minutes, you can mix everything up and serve it to the table. good addition pilaf is served with homemade pickled cucumbers or tomatoes or sauerkraut.
Sweet barley porridge with poppy seeds
Rinse the barley groats and begin to boil in plenty of water over moderate heat, removing the foam. When the cereal begins to secrete mucus, drain the excess water and cook until the cereal is soft and thick, stirring occasionally.
Prepare poppy seeds (less than half a glass of poppy seeds for a glass of cereal): pour boiling water over it, let it steam, after 5 minutes. drain the water, rinse the poppy seeds, pour boiling water again, drain it immediately as soon as droplets of fat begin to appear on the surface of the water. Then grind the steamed poppy, adding a little boiling water.
Mix prepared poppy seeds with thickened, softened barley porridge, adding honey, warm over low heat for 5-7 minutes, stirring continuously, remove from heat, season with jam.
Millet porridge with pumpkin
Boil small pieces of pumpkin in water for 10-15 minutes. Rinse the millet thoroughly and add it there, lightly salt, sweeten. Stirring, cook until thickened (min. 15-20). You can put "walk" for a short time in the oven. The proportions between pumpkin and millet are chosen to taste, the amount of water is taken depending on the previous components, and with more pumpkin, less water is required.
FIRST MEAL
Adaptation to fasting kharcho soup
Pour half a glass of rice into two or three liters of boiling water. Fry 3-4 onions, put them in water with rice, Bay leaf, allspice (crush the peas). After 5 minutes, pour half a glass of crushed walnuts.
After a short time, add half a glass of tomato paste (in a more classic version: tkemali plums, which we do not meet, or half a glass pomegranate juice): dried herbs (basil, parsley), red pepper, a little cinnamon, suneli hops (a key seasoning for the taste of the soup).
After another 5 minutes, you can turn it off completely by adding fresh herbs and chopped garlic, let it brew. In a variant even more adapted to the Russian environment, you can put potatoes in boiling water before rice.
Rassolnik
Soak a small amount of pearl barley for several hours (no more than half a glass for a standard three-liter soup pot). Boil it lightly. In boiling water with barley, lay the potatoes cut into cubes. Separately, fry the onion, add the carrots to the rice and potatoes.
Later, close to the readiness of the potatoes, lay the chopped pickles and season with brine (it’s good to stew these cucumbers in brine a little before). At the end of cooking, add chopped garlic, bay leaf, dried or fresh herbs. Can be submitted with soy mayonnaise, if any.
Korean soup
For such a soup, you need to have a special soy seasoning: tai. It has a very thick consistency, dark brown color, specific taste and smell. The Japanese have its analogue, it is called “mizo”.
For lean version of this soup, three or four onions are fried with the addition of two or three tablespoons of tea, you can also add steamed soy meat here. After that, water is added (up to three liters), after boiling, potatoes and a little later a “profile” vegetable.
It can be fresh Korean cabbage or dried cabbage, or chopped zucchini, or a couple of green radishes. The soup is cooked until the vegetables are ready. Salinity and sharpness should give tai, if it seems insufficient, you can still salt and add red pepper. Serve with unleavened rice cooked in thick-walled dishes, the ratio of rice and water: two to three, gradually reducing the heat.
Lentil Chowder
Soak lentils for a couple of hours, put to boil, peel and cut potatoes, carrots and onions fried in oil. Successful additives and spices for this soup: coriander, thyme, garlic, herbs. It goes well with soy meat (fried together with onions and carrots), tomato, olives (the brine from them is added directly to the soup) and soy mayonnaise when serving.
Vegetable soup
Fry chopped onion, parsley and celery in vegetable oil, add water, put chopped carrots, turnips and shredded cabbage and cook over low heat for 20-30 minutes. Approximately in the middle of cooking, add crushed garlic, seasonings; put applesauce or grated apple at the very end. Serving on the table, sprinkle the soup with chopped herbs.
2 onions, 1 parsley root, celery, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 liter water, 2 carrots, 1 swede slice, 1 cup finely shredded cabbage (150 g), garlic clove, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 teaspoon cumin , 1 apple or 2 tablespoons applesauce, salt, herbs.
Pea soup with pearl barley
Soak peas overnight cold water and, adding the washed barley, put in the same water to boil. Cut carrots, onions and parsley into small cubes, fry in oil and combine with peas when it is half ready. Salt and sprinkle with herbs.
1 liter of water, 1 glass of peas, 1 tbsp of pearl barley, 1/2 carrots, 1/2 onion, 1/2 parsley root, 1 tbsp of vegetable oil, herbs, salt.
Lean pea soup
In the evening, pour cold water over the peas and leave to swell and cook the noodles.
For noodles, half a glass of flour should be mixed well with three tablespoons of vegetable oil, add a spoonful of cold water, salt, leave the dough for an hour to swell. Thinly rolled and dried dough cut into strips, dry in the oven.
Boil the swollen peas, without draining the water, until half cooked, add the fried onions, diced potatoes, noodles, pepper, salt and cook until the potatoes and noodles are ready.
Peas - 50 g, potatoes - 100 g, onions - 20 g, water - 300 g, onion frying oil - 10 g, parsley, salt, pepper to taste.
Russian lean soup
Boil pearl barley, add fresh cabbage, cut into small squares, potatoes and roots, cut into cubes, into the broth, and cook until tender. In summer you can add fresh tomatoes, cut into slices, which are laid simultaneously with potatoes.
Sprinkle with parsley or dill when serving.
Potatoes, cabbage - 100 g each, onions - 20 g, carrots - 20 g, pearl barley - 20 g, dill, salt to taste.
Borscht with mushrooms
Prepared mushrooms are stewed in oil along with chopped roots. boiled beets grated or cut into strips. Potatoes cut into oblong pieces are boiled in broth until soft, other products are added (flour is mixed with a small amount of cold liquid) and everything is boiled together for 10 minutes. Greens are put in the soup before serving. If tomato puree is added, then it is stewed together with mushrooms.
200 g fresh or 30 g dried porcini mushrooms, 1 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 onion, some celery or parsley, 2 small beets (400 g), 4 potatoes, salt, 1-2 liters of water, 1 teaspoon flour, 2 -3 tbsp greens, 1 tbsp tomato puree, vinegar.
SECOND DISHES
Peppers, eggplant, stuffed zucchini
Peel peppers, eggplants, young zucchini from stalks and seeds (cut off the peel from zucchini) and stuff minced vegetable, which includes finely chopped onions, carrots, cabbage, taken in equal proportions, and 1/10 of their total volume of parsley and celery.
All vegetables going to minced meat, pre-fry in vegetable oil. Also fry eggplants, peppers and zucchini stuffed. Then put in a deep metal bowl, pour 2 glasses tomato juice and place in the oven for 30-45 minutes. for baking.
Tikhvin porridge
Rinse the peas, boil them in water without adding salt, and when the water is boiled down by 1/3 and the peas are almost ready, add the prodel and cook until tender. Then season with finely chopped onion, fried in butter, and soda.
1/2 cup peas, 1.5 liters of water, 1 cup of buckwheat, 2 onions, 4 cm. tablespoons of vegetable oil.
Simple stew
Cut raw potatoes into large cubes and in a wide frying pan, in vegetable oil, as quickly as possible (over high heat) and fry evenly on all sides until golden brown. As soon as the crust forms, put the still half-baked potatoes in a clay pot, cover with finely chopped herbs, onions, salt, add boiling water, close the lid and put in the oven for 1 minute. Ready stew is eaten with cucumbers (fresh or salted), sauerkraut.
1 kg potatoes, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbsp dill, I cm. parsley spoon, 1 onion, 1/2 cup water, salt.
Braised cabbage
Finely chop the onion, put in a pan with vegetable oil and fry until golden brown. Then add finely chopped cabbage and fry until half cooked. For 10 min. before the end, add salt, tomato paste, red or black ground pepper, sweet peas and bay leaf. Close the pan with a lid. Sprinkle greens on the table before serving.
2 medium onions, 1 small head of cabbage 1/2 cup vegetable oil, salt, peas, 2-3 allspice peas, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 cup tomato paste diluted with water.
Potatoes in garlic sauce
Rinse the peeled potatoes and dry with a towel. Cut each potato in half. Heat most of the vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the potatoes until golden brown. Then cook garlic Sause. To do this, rub the garlic with salt, add 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil and stir. Drizzle fried potatoes with garlic sauce.
10 small potatoes, half a glass of sunflower oil, 6 slices of garlic, 2 teaspoons of salt.
Rice-oatmeal porridge crumbly
Rinse rice and oats, mix and pour the mixture into boiling water. Keep on high heat for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to medium and hold for another 5-8 minutes, then remove from heat, wrap warm and only after 15-20 minutes. open the lid. Season the finished porridge with onion fried in oil and finely chopped garlic and dill. Heat in a frying pan over low heat for 3-4 minutes.
1.5 cups of rice, 0.75 cups of oats, 0.7 liters of water, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 onion, 4-5 cloves of garlic. 4-5 tablespoons of sunflower oil, 1 tablespoon of dill.
pusher
Soak the poppy seeds for 10 hours, drain the water, wring out and grind in a mortar.
Soak the beans for 10 hours, boil for 2 hours and grind the boiled beans into a puree, to which, hot, add the crushed poppy seeds, mashed potatoes, finely chopped onion, sugar, pepper, parsley and grind.
5 potatoes, 0.5 cups of beans, 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds, 1-2 onions, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon of parsley, 0.5 tablespoons of ground black pepper.
Potato cutlets with prunes
Mash 400 grams of boiled potatoes, salt, add half a glass of vegetable oil, half a glass of warm water and enough flour to make a soft dough.
Let stand for about twenty minutes so that the flour swells, at this time prepare the prunes - peel it from the stones, pour boiling water over it. Roll out the dough, cut into mugs with a glass, put prunes in the middle of each, form cutlets, pinching the dough in the form of pies, roll each cutlet in breadcrumbs and fry in a pan in a large amount of vegetable oil.
Potato fritters
Grate some of the potatoes, boil some, drain the water, salt and add the onion finely chopped and fried in vegetable oil. Mix the whole potato mass, add flour and soda and bake pancakes from the resulting dough in vegetable oil.
750 g grated raw potatoes, 500 g of boiled potatoes (mashed potatoes), 3 tablespoons of flour, 0.5 teaspoons of soda.
Rice with vegetables
Heat oil in a frying pan, fry onion, carrot, sweet pepper in it. Then add lightly boiled rice, salt, pepper, a little water and simmer for another 15 minutes. Bring to readiness, rice should absorb all the liquid. Then add green peas, parsley and dill.
2 full glasses of rice, 100 g of vegetable oil, 3 onions, 1 carrot, salt, pepper, 3 sweet peppers, 0.5 l of water, 5 tablespoons of green peas.
Kvass, compotes
Dried fruit compote
Wash the fruits and then separate the apples and pears, as they take longer to cook.
Rinse the sorted fruits 3-4 times, put them in boiling water. Boil pears and apples for 35-40 minutes, other fruits - 15-20 minutes. At the end, add sugar.
200 g of dry fruits, 5 tablespoons of sugar, 1.5 liters of water.
Rhubarb compote
Wash the rhubarb stalks warm water. Remove the skin from the thickened ends with a knife. Then cut the stems into pieces 2-3 cm long, put in a bowl, pour cold water and leave in it for 15 minutes. Boil sugar syrup. Remove prepared rhubarb from cold water and immerse in boiling syrup, add lemon peel and cook for 10-15 minutes.
200 g rhubarb (petioles), 150 g sugar, 4 cups water, 8 g lemon zest.
Cowberry compote with apples
Wash apples of winter varieties, cut into slices, remove the core from them. Then immerse the fruits in sugar syrup made on broth apple peel and cores. Bring the syrup to a boil and put lingonberries in it.
150 g cranberries, 150 g apples, 150 g granulated sugar, 600 g water.
MUSHROOMS
mushroom vinaigrette
Mushrooms and onions are chopped, boiled carrots, beets, potatoes and cucumbers are cut into cubes, mixed. The oil is seasoned with vinegar and seasonings, they are poured over the salad. Sprinkle with herbs on top.
150 g pickled or salted mushrooms, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 small beetroot, 2-3 potatoes, 1 pickled cucumber, 3 tbsp vegetable oil, 2 cm. tablespoons of vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard, pepper, dill and parsley.
mushroom caviar
Fresh mushrooms stewed in own juice until the juice has evaporated. Salted mushrooms are soaked to remove excess salt, dried mushrooms are soaked, boiled and allowed to drain in a colander. Then the mushrooms are finely chopped and mixed with chopped onion, lightly fried in vegetable oil. The mixture is seasoned, sprinkled with finely chopped green onions on top.
400 g fresh, 200 g salted or 500 g dried mushrooms, 1 onion, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, salt, pepper, vinegar or lemon juice, green onions.
stewed mushrooms
The oil is heated, put into it thinly sliced mushrooms and chopped onions. Broth is added to boiled mushrooms, fresh mushrooms are stewed in their own juice for 15-20 minutes. By the end of the stew, salt and herbs are added. Boiled potatoes and a salad of raw vegetables are served as a side dish.
500 g fresh or 300 g boiled (salted) mushrooms, 2 tbsp vegetable oil, 1 onion, salt, 1/2 cup mushroom broth, parsley and dill.
PIES
Lean dough for pies
Knead a dough of half a kilogram of flour, two glasses of water and 25-30 g of yeast.
When the dough rises, add salt, sugar, three tablespoons of vegetable oil, another half a kilogram of flour to it and beat the dough until it stops sticking to your hands.
Then put the dough in the same pan where the dough was prepared and let it rise again.
After that, the dough is ready for further work.
Apple charlotte with black bread
Apples (preferably sour varieties, such as Antonov) - 3 pieces, granulated sugar - 100 g, cinnamon, cloves and vanillin to taste, almonds (I took hazelnuts, because there were no almonds) -20 g, dry white wine - 20 g, black mashed bread - 1 cup (I took 2 cups, it seemed to me that a glass was not enough), vegetable oil - 20 g, zest of 0.5 lemon, orange peels- 20 g. Peel the apples, cut into slices, remove the grains, put 2 tablespoons of sugar, add cinnamon, crushed nuts, orange peels, white wine.
Buckwheat porridge shangi
Roll out cakes from lean dough, put in the middle of each buckwheat porridge cooked with onions and mushrooms, fold the edges of the cake.
After laying the finished shangi on a greased form, bake them in the oven.
The same shangi can be prepared stuffed with fried onions, potatoes, crushed garlic and fried onions.
Buckwheat pancakes
Pour three cups of buckwheat flour in the evening with three cups of boiling water, stir well and leave for an hour. If you do not have buckwheat flour, you can make it yourself by grinding buckwheat in a coffee grinder.
When the dough has cooled, dilute it with a glass of boiling water. When the dough becomes slightly warm, add 25 g of yeast dissolved in half a glass of water.
In the morning, add the rest of the flour, salt dissolved in water to the dough and knead the dough until the density of sour cream, put it in a warm place and bake in a pan when the dough rises again.
These pancakes are especially good with onion fritters.
Pancakes with spices (with mushrooms, onions)
Prepare a dough of 300 g of flour, a glass of water, 20 g of yeast and put it in a warm place.
When the dough comes up, pour another glass of warm water, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, salt, sugar, the rest of the flour into it and mix everything thoroughly.
Soak the washed dried mushrooms for three hours, boil until tender, cut into small pieces, fry, add chopped and lightly fried green or onion, cut into rings. After spreading the pastries in a pan, fill them with dough, fry like ordinary pancakes.
Pea pancakes
Boil the peas until soft and, without draining the remaining water, grind, adding 0.5 cups wheat flour for 750 g pea puree. Form pancakes from the resulting dough, roll in flour and bake in a pan in vegetable oil.
Pies with pea filling
Boil the peas until cooked, mash, add the onion fried in vegetable oil, pepper, salt to taste.
cook simple yeast dough. Divide the dough into balls the size of a walnut and roll into cakes 1 mm thick. Put the filling. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
Fresh dough products
What are the features of unleavened dough prepared in fasting? We cannot put an egg in it to strengthen it. Our actions because of this are more dependent on the “character” of the flour, on the strength of its gluten.
If the flour is good and you tried to make a very tight dough (water:flour ratio = 1:3 by volume, and don't forget to add salt - adding salt also strengthens the dough a bit), then you will get an excellent dough for dumplings.
But a situation may well arise when the quality of the flour leaves much to be desired, there is not enough strength to knead the dough, there is no male power in the wings. Then you can pour more water (1:2.5), but be prepared for the fact that the dough “floats” during the cooking process, dumplings or other products will be slippery, falling apart. Prayerfully and patiently treat this and with humility (it is always useful) eat.
In the future, when using the same flour, you can “overcome” the weakness of its character by changing the method of preparation: steam it (it will already be something like manti), or fry in oil (like pasties).
Both of these methods require a softer dough. Interesting test options are obtained by replacing water with brine or another liquid. There are methods that use hot water, while the dough turns out to have a special taste, with a little sweetness, and more water is needed for such a dough.
The dough can be used directly, for noodles, dumplings, for a side dish or as a component for soup, or as a filling shell: fried cabbage or other vegetables, mashed potatoes, mushrooms, onions, greens, fresh or frozen berries with sugar, boiled and twisted dried fruits, bean or pea puree and even cereals: for example, millet or buckwheat.
We prepare the usual unleavened dough, let it rest for about twenty minutes, roll it into small thin circles and fry them on both sides. We serve on the table, where various fillings are prepared: bean paste, salad from fresh vegetables, stewed vegetables, and maybe jam, fruit salad. We spread the filling directly on the cakes and eat immediately along with the “plate”.
dumplings
Unleavened dough, kneaded in water, roll out into a cake 1 cm thick, cut into strips 2-3 cm wide, pinching off small pieces from each strip, throw into salted boiling water (or vegetable, mushroom broth). Dough for dumplings can also be prepared from a mixture of wheat and buckwheat flour. Dumplings boiled in water are drained and seasoned with onion fry. Dumplings boiled in broth are eaten with liquid.
Vareniki with mushrooms
Soak and boil 150 g of dry mushrooms, chop finely, add 2 onions fried in oil, 2 tablespoons of crumbs from stale rolls, pepper, salt, a little mushroom broth, knead everything and stew lightly. The dough is the usual for dumplings. Roll out thinly, make small dumplings and cook. Serve drizzled with oil.
Lenten manti with pumpkin
To prepare manti, you need special utensils: a double boiler or a saucepan with a removable top, where grates with manti (kaskan, mantovarka) are inserted. Dough: for 1 kg of flour, half a liter of hot water, salt, knead well, let it lie down.
Minced meat: pumpkin cut into small (half a centimeter) cubes, soy meat in proportionate pieces in equal proportions with pumpkin, spices: salt, red pepper, ajinomoto. Roll out the dough into thin circles the size of a small saucer. Minced meat is laid out in the middle, a tablespoon with a slide.
The dough is pinched from above: with a bag or figured. The grates are lubricated with vegetable oil. Put manti on them (not crowded, otherwise they will stick together), insert into a saucepan, where water is already boiling and steam for 45 minutes.
Serve with sauce: dilute soy sauce (classic, Korean, brown) half with water, add a little vinegar, red pepper (a noticeable amount), chopped garlic.
Vareniki with cherries
Make dough from flour on water, not very steep, roll into a thin cake. Peel cherries, sprinkle with sugar. The juice that drains is digested with sugar. Sculpt small dumplings, boil, strain into a colander, pour juice on a dish. Serve cold.
Vareniki with apples
For the filling, take 800 g of apples, 1/2 cup of sugar. Peel the apples, remove the core, cut into strips, sprinkle with sugar, make dumplings from a not very thin dough and boil them. When serving, sprinkle dumplings with sugar or sprinkle with honey.
desserts
I would like to start talking about desserts with the simplest, what does not need cooking: fresh fruits or washed and steamed dried (dried apricots, raisins, figs, dates, prunes), nuts of the most different types, halvah, kazenaki, marshmallow, jam of different consistencies.
Lenten include many candies and jelly sweets, marshmallows (technologically it can be lean). Of the prepared desserts, we note kissels, jelly, fruit salads. The latter are either prepared from the prevailing juicy fruit or dressed with syrup, prepared from canned fruit or prepared on their own. Baking, flour desserts will be considered separately.
apple dessert
Chopped baked apples mixed with boiled rice and add ginger and curry. Baked apples can also be served without rice with powdered sugar and cinnamon.
Cereal dessert with dried fruits
Cook the usual compote of dried apricots, raisins or other pitted dried fruits. When the fruit is ready, semolina (or other small cereals) is poured in a thin stream with stirring evenly, in a small amount.
citrus jelly
4 oranges, lemon, 100 g of sugar, 15 g of agar-agar, half a glass of water. Dissolve agar-agar and sugar in warm water, add the zest of half an orange, juice of oranges and lemon, mix, strain, pour into molds and refrigerate. When serving, the molds are lowered briefly under water so that the jelly separates easily.
fruit salad
Boil the pasta until tender, put it in a colander and pour over with cold water, season with grows. oil and mix. Cut the grapes in half and remove the seeds. Cut bananas into slices.
Peel the apple from the core and cut into thin slices. Add tangerines or oranges in slices or half slices. Sprinkle fruit with cinnamon sugar, sprinkle with lemon juice. Finely chop the figs and dates, chop the nuts.
Drain canned fruits in a colander, mix with pasta and other ingredients and add a little canned fruit syrup. Mix everything, sprinkle with coconut flakes and / or chocolate chips.
Jellied pumpkin
Stew the peeled pumpkin in the oven until transparent with a little water. Pour raisins, peeled walnuts (slightly chopped), dried apricots (also cut into 3-4 parts) into a flat dish at the bottom half a finger thick.
Top it all with a pumpkin. Do not pour out the juice remaining from cooking the pumpkin, but use it instead of water to make jelly (see the instructions on the bags with gelatin). Pour the workpiece with ready-made warm jelly, then put in the refrigerator, serve cold.
“It is very important to learn Christian asceticism.
Asceticism is not life in a cave and constant fasting,
austerity is the ability to regulate, among other things, one's own consumption by ideas and the state of one's heart.
Asceticism is the victory of man over lust, over passions, over instinct.”
© Patriarch Kirill
From the speech of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on the air of the Ukrainian TV channel "Inter"
Now the Russian holy fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church, who are monastics (black clergy), are the main determining and guiding force for the modernization of the entire great democratic Russia and the pious transformation of the spirituality of the wise and heroic Russian people.
A group photo of the faithful Supreme Teachers and Russian Reformers before a banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace:
The monastery meal is a collective ritual. The monks ate twice a day: lunch and dinner, and on some days they ate only once (although this "once" could be very long); for various reasons, it occasionally happened that meals were completely excluded. The main thing was not the quantity of food, but the quality of the dishes: fast or modest, the role of the dish in rituals, the time of eating.
Lean baked cold fish with decoration with lean mayonnaise and chopped vegetables.
Sturgeon baked whole without skin
(before baking, carefully remove the skin from the base of the head to the tail from the fish).
Pike-perch stuffed with mushrooms, avocado, potatoes (avocado and potatoes 1:1) and herbs and baked in the oven. The monks believe pike perch lean fish, because it has only 1.5% fat.
Additives to the monastic diet of fat-rich avocados, olives, and nuts make it possible to make up for the lack of fat on fasting days, on which, according to the monastic charter, dishes without oil are supposed to be eaten.
Representation of the ceremonial monastic dinner of the middle of the 19th century. allows you to compile a list of dishes that were served at the table on November 27, 1850, the day of the celebration of the memory of the founder of the monastery.
“Register of food on the feast of St. James 1850 November 27th
For an appetizer at the top
1. 3 kulebyaki with minced meat
2. 2 pike steamed on two dishes
3. Jellied perches with minced meat on two dishes
4. Boiled carp on two dishes
5. Fried bream on two dishes
In the fraternal meal for lunch
1. Kulebyaka with porridge
2. Pressed caviar
3. Lightly salted beluga
4. Botvinya with salted fish
5. Shchi with fried fish
6. Ear from carp and burbot
7. Pea sauce with fried fish
8. fried cabbage
9. Dry bread with jam
10. Kanpot from apples
Snack for the white clergy
1. Caviar and white bread on 17 courses
2. Cold head with horseradish and cucumbers on 17 dishes”
Serving examples:
Lenten monastic table setting for dinner.
Tomato slices with lean soy cheese, lean fish sausage slices, fish and vegetable snacks, hot Lenten dishes, various monastic drinks (kvass, fruit drinks, freshly squeezed juices, mineral water), fruit plate, unsweetened and sweet monastery pastries.
Monastic culinary recipes
St. Danilov Stauropegial Monastery
What is the fundamental difference in nutrition between laymen and monks - the former simply love to eat deliciously, the latter do the same, but with a deep charitable meaning and with lofty spiritual intentions. Of course, this great spiritual wisdom is not easily understood by ordinary lay people.
Blaming the contemporary atheistic Russian intelligentsia, Fr. Pavel Florensky said this about her attitude to food:
“The intellectual does not know how to eat, let alone taste, he doesn’t even know what it means to “taste”, what sacred food means: they don’t “taste” the gift of God, they don’t even eat food, but they “burrow” chemicals.
It is likely that many do not clearly understand the importance of food in the life of a Christian.
A modest monastic lunch:
Cold snacks:
- figured vegetable cutting,
- painted stuffed pike perch
- tender salmon of own special salting
Snack hot:
- julienne of fresh forest mushrooms baked with bechamel sauce
Salad:
- vegetable with shrimps "Sea freshness"
First course:
- fish hodgepodge "monastic"
Second course:
- salmon steak with tartar sauce
Dessert:
- ice cream with fruits.
Beverages:
- branded monastic sea
- kvass
And, of course, for dinner are served:
- freshly baked bread, honey cakes, various savory and sweet pastries to choose from.
Serving examples:
Monastic lenten snacks for the common monastic table.
Semuzhka own special monastic ambassador.
For squeezing lemon juice, monastic cooks recommend wrapping it with gauze to prevent lemon seeds from getting in.
Lenten fish hodgepodge with salmon.
Lenten fish hodgepodge of sturgeon with pie stuffed with burbot liver.
Steam salmon with lean mayonnaise tinted with saffron.
Lenten rice pilaf, tinted with saffron, with slices of fish and various seafood, which God sent today for dinner to the monastic brethren.
Fruity bouquet for a common monastic table.
Monastic lean chocolate-nut log.
Chocolate-nut masses in three colors (dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate) are prepared as indicated in the previous recipe "Monastic Lenten Candy Truffles". Then they are poured in layers into a mold, previously neatly covered with plastic wrap.
The widespread use of various nuts and chocolate in the monastic diet makes it possible to make monastic food tasty and quite complete.
Monastic fasting sweets-truffles.
Ingredients: 100 g dark dark chocolate, 1 teaspoon of olive oil (on days when oil is prohibited, olive oil do not add, but the sweets will turn out a little harder), 100 g of shelled nuts, 1 teaspoon good cognac or rum, a little grated nutmeg.
Peel the nuts in a mortar, heat the chocolate with the addition of olive oil, stirring, in a water bath to 40 gr. C, add crushed nuts, grated nutmeg and cognac, stir; take a warm mass with a teaspoon in a plate with cocoa powder (to taste, powdered sugar can be added to cocoa powder) and, rolling in cocoa powder, form balls the size of a walnut.
Recall that in monasteries they do not eat meat very often, in some they do not eat it at all. Therefore, the "spell" "Crucian, crucian, turn into a pig" does not work.
On great and patronal holidays, the brothers are blessed with a “consolation” - a glass of red wine - French or, at worst, Chilean. And, of course, dishes are being prepared for a special holiday menu.
breakfast menu of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on one of the days of April 2011.
Menus of patriarchal nutrition are carefully developed and balanced by nutritionists to maintain proper energy in the patriarch, which is necessary for the tireless conduct of his enormous spiritual, organizational and representative work.
In the patriarchal menus, all the original products and ready meals undergo the same check as in the Kremlin kitchen. All the dishes on the patriarchal table are the fruit of a long analysis, discussions and endless tastings of the highest class chefs, sanitary doctors and nutritionists.
For Patriarch Kirill's indispensable faith in God's mercy and protection is a high spiritual matter, and the work of the patriarchal guards from the FSO and the corresponding doctors and laboratories is a daily earthly matter.
Cold dishes:
Sturgeon caviar with buckwheat pancakes.
Caspian sturgeon, smoked, with galantine from grapes and sweet pepper.
Salmon stroganina with parmesan cheese and avocado mousse.
Snacks:
Pheasant roll.
Calf jelly.
Bunny pate.
pancake pie with blue crabs.
Hot appetizers:
Fried grouse.
Duck liver with rhubarb sauce fresh berries.
Hot fish dishes:
Rainbow trout poached in champagne.
Hot meat dishes:
Smoked duck strudel.
Roe deer back with lingonberry galantine.
Venison grilled.
Sweet foods:
Cake with white chocolate.
Fresh fruits with strawberry galantine.
Baskets with fresh berries in champagne jelly.
The monastery chef is happy to share his recipes vegetable salad with shrimp and fish hodgepodge.
First of all, in order for everything to turn out tasty and pleasing to God, you need to start cooking by reading a prayer. Have you read? Now to business!
Serving examples:
puff lean salad monastery recipe.
Lay the salad in layers, each layer under lean mayonnaise, salt to taste.
1st layer - canned crab meat, finely chopped (or crab sticks),
2nd layer - boiled rice,
3rd layer - boiled or canned squid, finely chopped,
4th layer - Chinese cabbage finely chopped
5th layer - steamed stellate sturgeon, finely chopped,
b-th layer - boiled rice.
Decorate with lean mayonnaise, caviar, green leaf and serve to the monk's table.
Vinaigrette according to the monastery recipe.
The composition of the vinaigrette includes: baked whole in the oven, peeled and diced: potatoes, carrots, beets; canned green peas, onions, pickles, olive oil.
Sometimes monastery cooks prepare a vinaigrette with the addition of boiled beans and mushrooms (boiled or salted, or pickled).
To taste, finely chopped salted herring can be added to the vinaigrette.
Lenten portioned dish of lobster boiled in vegetable kurt-broth (dip a live lobster upside down in boiling kurt-broth of carrots, onions, herbs, salt and spices, lobster boil time is 40 minutes, then let it brew for 10 minutes under the lid) with a side dish of boiled rice, tinted with saffron, and vegetables with separately served in a cup of lean flour sauce from sturgeon broth with the addition of onion, mashed through a sieve, simmered until transparent (avoid browning) and spices; garnish with a slice of lemon.
There is still a lot of interesting things about products, dishes and those who eat these dishes.
Everyone who, while living in a monastery, visited the monastery refectory, is surprised at how tasty the food is there, although the products are the simplest. To the question, what is the secret?
The monks themselves answer as one: "There are no secrets here, just when you cook and when you eat, you need to pray." But still there are some general principles, which are observed in most monasteries, following the instructions of the holy fathers.
Firstly, you can’t eat up your fill, food should not burden the stomach. You should leave the meal with a slight feeling of hunger, which, by the way, is absolutely correct, since, according to all the laws of our nature, saturation occurs half an hour after eating.
Secondly, the food should, if possible, be vegetable and devoid of any spices. As we were explained in the Solovetsky Monastery, “there is a fine line between satisfying the feeling of hunger and pleasing the whims of the flesh. A monk needs to learn to distinguish it well. it is the only joy left to him from the world."
To avoid such temptations, the monks adhere to simple rules: food should be simple, nutritious, healthy and contain the necessary vitamins. Food serves to saturate and maintain strength, nothing more.
Brest Nativity-Bogoroditsky Monastery
Lenten biscuits in brine
1 cup brine (preferably from canned tomatoes), 1 tsp. soda, three-quarters of a glass of vegetable oil, three-quarters of a glass of sugar, 1 sachet (11 g) vanilla sugar, flour.
Mix brine, vegetable oil and sugar, add vanilla sugar and flour. The dough should be dense enough so that it can be rolled out into a 1 cm thick layer. Cut out cookies with a cookie cutter and bake in a well-heated oven until golden brown.
Oatmeal jelly (lean jelly)
500 g of oatmeal, 3 crusts of rye (yeast) bread, salt, sugar - to taste.
Cereals pour warm water to cover them completely. Dip the bread crusts into the pan and put in a warm place for a day, stirring occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth, add 0.5 l of water, salt, sugar. Put on a small fire, stirring constantly, bring to a boil, stand for 5 minutes after boiling. Remove from heat, pour into bowls, let cool.
Lenten gingerbread
4 cups flour, 2 cups sugar. One glass of raisins, finely chopped walnuts, vegetable oil and dried fruit decoction, 25 g ground cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 teaspoons of soda, salt to taste.
Mix sugar, salt and cinnamon thoroughly with vegetable oil. Add minced raisins and chopped walnuts. Dilute with a decoction of dried fruits and add soda. Then gradually add flour, pour in vinegar and mix. Pour the dough into a greased and floured form and place in the oven. Bake at a temperature of 170ºС for 50-60 minutes.
***
Lenten Recipes:
- Lenten Recipes- Orthodox fasts and holidays
- Life without oil (Lent recipes)- Victoria Sverdlova
- Lenten Recipes: Breakfasts
- Lenten Recipes: Salads and Appetizers- Boring Garden
- Lenten Recipes: Lenten Soups
- Lenten Recipes: Main Courses- Nina Borisova, Maxim Syrnikov
- Lenten Recipes: Pastries and Desserts- Nina Borisova
- Fasting recipes: drinks in fasting- Maxim Syrnikov, Nina Borisova
- - Alexey Reutovsky
- The history of Russian cuisine: we in Russia are doomed to eat porridge- Maxim Syrnikov
- Special dishes of Great Lent: crosses, larks, ladders, black grouse- Maxim Syrnikov
- Kolivo: Athonite recipe- Boring Garden
- fruit table- Pravoslavie.Ru
- Advent Recipes: lentil soup, bread salad, green soup, squid stew, eggplant, avocado appetizer, squid-cube hodgepodge, couscous, gozinaki, apple toast, etc. - Ekaterina Savostyanova
- Recipes for the New Year- Ekaterina Savostyanova
- Maslenitsa: 10 best recipes- Orthodoxy and the world
- How I Made Ancient Roman Garum Sauce(with photos and comments) - culinary reconstruction - Maxim Stepanenko
***
Trinity Sergius Lavra
Millet porridge with pumpkin
1 liter of water, 100 grams of pumpkin, a glass of millet.
Sort millet, rinse. Rub the pumpkin on a grater, add water and cook for half an hour. After that, add millet, salt, sugar and cook until tender.
celery salad
600 g celery root, 200 g each carrot and apple, 2 teaspoons lemon juice
Grate the root, add grated carrots, an apple, sprinkle with lemon juice - so that the apple does not darken. Fill with vegetable oil.
Trinity Serafimo-Diveevo Convent
Bishop's cutlets
half a loaf white bread, 3-4 onions, a glass of peeled walnuts (they replace meat and fish), two potatoes, a clove of garlic.
Pass all other ingredients through a meat grinder. Add garlic, salt, ground pepper.
There is no need to add oil to minced meat, because. when frying, tunics absorb oil very well.
Breadcrumbs do not regret, they form a crust during frying, which prevents the cutlets from falling apart. Make the tunics small and thick, so that later it is convenient to turn them over.
I think you can experiment: add a jar to the stuffing canned beans, or mushrooms or double the proportion of potatoes.
Pyukhtitsky Dormition Convent
Pea porridge
500 g of peas, 2 - 4 onions, vegetable oil, salt to taste.
Put the peas in a large saucepan, wash thoroughly in cold water and pour 1.5 liters of water. Leave for 1 hour, then put on high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, carefully remove foam and cook until tender, stirring frequently. Cooking time depends on the variety and quality of peas and can vary from 45 minutes to 2-3 hours. Peas should boil down: turn into homogeneous mass like puree. Salt to taste, add finely chopped onion fried in vegetable oil and arrange on plates, sprinkled with fried onion rings on top. Pea porridge can be cooled in the form, then cut into pieces and served as a cold appetizer.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky Stauropegial Monastery
Lentils with beets
500 g green lentils, 1 large beetroot, vegetable oil, salt and spices to taste.
Wash the lentils, cover with cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove the foam, reduce the heat to a minimum and cook under the lid for 40 minutes, adding salt. Peel raw beets and grate on a coarse grater. Place the beets in the pot with the lentils and cook for 5 minutes. Add chopped garlic and spices - ground black pepper, turmeric, garam masala. Remove from heat and leave for 30-60 minutes. You can add vegetable oil. It turns out very tasty dish with a taste of borscht.
Solovki tea
Mix in equal proportion three varieties of tea - black, green and red (karkade). Take herbal collection - mint, lemon balm, oregano, thyme, cloudberries, a little chamomile and mix in equal amounts. The collection of herbs can be from one quarter to one tenth of the tea.
It is better to first put herbs in boiling water, wait 5 minutes, and then add a mixture of teas. Wait 5 minutes again and strain through a colander. This tea can be both stored and heated.
Spaso-Preobrazhensky Valaam Monastery
Shchi Valaam (with mushrooms)
A handful of dried mushrooms, 4 potatoes, 250-300 g white cabbage, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste.
Soak dried mushrooms overnight in cool water. In the morning, strain the water through a fine sieve or gauze into a separate container (do not pour it out, we will still need it). Rinse the mushrooms, cut into slices and put in boiling salted water. Cook for 1 hour until done. Cut the onion into small cubes, cut the carrot into thin strips and fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. Add diced potatoes and finely chopped cabbage to the pot. After 10 minutes, add the prepared carrots and onions and cook for another 15 minutes. The cabbage should not be overcooked, but should remain slightly crispy. Shortly before readiness, put a bay leaf in the soup and pour in the preserved mushroom infusion. Pour into bowls and season with black pepper to taste.
Potato salad
3-4 potatoes, 1 carrot, 200 g frozen green beans, 100 g frozen green peas, 10 olives, 1 onion, a few sprigs of dill and parsley, salt to taste, unrefined sunflower oil.
Boil carrots and potatoes in their skins, cool, peel and cut into cubes. Cook for a couple green beans and green peas. Combine potatoes, carrots, beans, peas, pitted olives and diced onion in a large bowl. Sprinkle with finely chopped spicy herbs - parsley and (or) dill and pour over with sunflower oil. Salt to taste and mix gently.
500 g of buckwheat, 1 large carrot, 1 onion, 300 g of frozen green beans, 2 tbsp. l. tomato puree (you can use chopped tomatoes in their own juice), 1 tbsp. l. flour, vegetable oil, chopped herbs, salt to taste.
Cook crumbly buckwheat porridge. While the porridge is cooking, prepare the vegetable part of the dish. To do this, finely chop the carrot, cut the onion into small cubes and fry in a deep frying pan for sunflower oil until golden. Boil green beans in a small amount of salted water for 5 minutes from the moment of boiling, drain the broth and transfer the beans to the pan with the rest of the vegetables. Pour flour into a small dry frying pan and lightly fry. Add vegetable oil, tomato puree and mix, preventing lumps from forming. Dilute with hot water until the density of sour cream, heat to a boil and pour into a pan with vegetables. Cook for a few minutes, season with salt if needed. Put buckwheat porridge and vegetables in plates, sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve immediately.
Alexey Reutovsky
Potatoes "in uniform" in the monastery are jokingly called "in cassock" - after all, the monks do not wear uniforms
Recently, I began to notice that when talking about products, dishes “monastic ...”, or “like a monastery ...”, people mean: “high-quality”, “real”, “delicious”. Honey, bread, lunch...
Observing it on purpose, it struck me that this trend is not only expanding, but is already being used by various product manufacturers, conscientious and not so good. Then the question arose: what is modern monastic food, monastic products? What stands behind the recognition of the consumer - traditional respect for the religious way of life, which excludes deceit and laziness, or the absence of intelligible state quality guidelines, the same GOSTs, for example?
For answers to these questions, we turned to Father Micah, Hieromonk of the Holy Danilov Monastery. The path that led this remarkable man to the church was not easy.
Let's start with the fact that Father Mikhey was a paratrooper and knows the concept of "hot spot" firsthand. Already, while in the monastery, Father Mikhei performed difficult obediences: setting up a skete in the Ryazan region, organizing a monastery apiary, acting as a cellar in the St. Danilov Monastery itself, and many others that I don’t know about.
As a result, we managed to build a picture of how a Russian Orthodox monastery lives today from questions and answers: what it produces, what it eats, whom and how it feeds.
AIF.RU: It is known that the vast majority of monasteries in Russia were self-sufficient in the production, storage and distribution of products. The monasteries owned gardens, fields, orchards, ponds and apiaries. Also, since ancient times, the tradition of feeding monastic products not only to the brethren, but also to workers, pilgrims, students, and guests has been preserved. Is this tradition alive in St. Daniel's Monastery now?
O. Mikhey: From a century in Russia, monasteries were not only centers of spiritual life, but also economic ones. Not only did they feed themselves, but they also carried out selection work, grew new varieties of plants, searched for and found new ways to store and preserve food. For many hundreds of years, monasteries not only fed themselves, but also widely helped those in need. As in normal times, and especially in war years, during lean periods, during epidemics.
There is no other way in the monastery: today the economy of the St. Danilov Monastery feeds up to 900 people daily. We have a little over 80 brethren, almost 400 laity workers. And also pilgrims, guests of the monastery, those in need - every day the monastery kitchen, with God's help, provides food for all these people.
Most of the products we have - own production. This is flour, from the monastic fields in the Ryazan region, and vegetables, and fruits, and honey. For the time being, we mainly buy fish, but we want to dig ponds in the same place, on the lands of the skete, and start raising fish. We keep cows - for butter, cottage cheese, milk. They don't eat meat in the monastery.
– How did the revival of the monastic economy begin?
– The revival of the monastic economy began from the moment it was handed over to the Church in 1983. Over the next five years, the monastery as a whole was restored, and the economy providing it began to function along with it. However, up to a truly independent structure that produces, preserves and nourishes – we are still just going to this all.
Until 1917, the monastery had vast lands, arable land, apiaries, and ponds. There were many good products. The monastery sold a lot, incl. in their own shops and stores. People have always loved them - both Muscovites and pilgrims. Then everything was destroyed, literally - to the ground.
But over the past 17 years, of course, a lot has been done. If you look back today, you see how much we, with God's help, have achieved! And we ourselves grow wheat on the monastery lands, grind flour, bake our famous muffin. And we grow and preserve all the vegetables we need: we preserve, sour, salt.
And now the monastery has more than one apiary - in the suburbs at the monastery farm, near Ryazan, near Anapa and from Altai, honey is also supplied from the apiaries of the Church of the Archangel Michael. Near Ryazan is the largest apiary. Now we have about 300 hives here, and during the season we manage to get more than 10 varieties of honey in apiaries. This is sweet clover, and linden, and buckwheat, and forest and field forbs honeys. Every new season, before the departure of the bees, special prayers are performed to consecrate the apiary, and the beekeepers receive a blessing for the upcoming work.
Honey is such a product - God's blessing. He should be treated that way. After all, if you put an apiary, for example, near the road, then there is nothing coming out of the exhaust pipes: both lead and all kinds of heavy metals. And the bees also collect all this and transfer it to honey. We are responsible before God for the fact that we have apiaries in good, ecologically clean places, and now we offer pure honey to people.
We love our people and want people to be healthy and beautiful and that children are born healthy. Beekeeping is a traditional Russian craft. Back in the 16th century, they said: "Russia is a country where honey flows." Almost every house was engaged in honey. It was also supplied abroad with wax. All Russian people ate honey. it required product for every person.
It is now customary for us to eat honey only when we are sick. Only this is wrong. Honey should be eaten three times a day: a spoonful in the morning, afternoon and evening. Honey contains everything the body needs, including vitamins. Because honey is natural product, which people have been eating for centuries to improve their health. Warriors of the past on campaigns always had honey with them. Tasting it, they increased their strength before the upcoming battle.
They began to revive the tradition of monastic bread. People come for our pastries from all over Moscow and even from the Moscow region. A variety of pies, which are prepared according to old monastic recipes, are very popular. Made with soul - and people love it!
Our parishioners and guests of the monastery really appreciate the fact that we use not only the recipes of our monastery, but also other holy places: for example, we have unleavened bread, baked according to Athos recipes, there is bread from the sisters from the Serpukhov Convent.
- And all this is managed by a small brethren of St. Danilov Monastery?
– Of course not! Lay workers and volunteers help us. There are really few monks, especially those who know how to work on earth. Many came to the monastery from the cities, some are not able to do physical labor. But work in honey apiaries is called "sweet hard labor" ...
Not everyone knows how much work has to be done to get good products on the table and the monastery.
– Tell us, please, about the monastic food system. What products and dishes make up the monastic table for the brethren?
– We don’t come to the monastery to eat delicious food – we come to reach the Kingdom of Heaven through labor, prayers and obedience. The highest virtue is fasting, prayer, rejection of worldly temptations and obedience.
By the way, according to the monastic charter, there are about 200 fasting days a year. Fasts are divided into multi-day (Great, Petrovsky, Assumption and Christmas) and one-day (Wednesday, Friday of each week). It was during the days of abstinence from fast food that thousands of original, simple, accessible to the population dishes were developed in the monastery refectories.
The main difference between the monastic table and the worldly table is that we do not eat meat. In the monastery they eat vegetables, cereals, dairy products, pastries and fish, mushrooms. A lot of sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms are always prepared in the storerooms of the monastery.
The cellar supervises this, and the monk brothers and the laity workers do it. And it goes to the table for everyone without exception. According to the charter, the monks eat only twice a day: at lunch and at dinner. The cellar of the monastery especially makes sure that the meals are both tasty and varied and supportive - after all, the interval before meals is long, and no one sits idly by, everyone has their own housework - obedience.
The everyday menu usually consists of fish soup, if allowed on that day, pickle, vegetable, mushroom or milk soup, and fish with a side dish. For dessert - tea, compote or jelly, pies, cookies. The Sunday menu consists of fish borscht, fried fish with a side dish of mashed potatoes or rice with vegetables, fresh vegetables, fish slices and products from the monastery courtyard - cheese, sour cream and milk. On the holidays of Christmas and Easter, a festive menu is served at the meal.
We have Father Hermogenes - he was the cellar of the monastery for more than 10 years, so he even wrote a book about the monastery meal, "The Kitchen of Father Hermogenes." At the moment, the cellar in the monastery of Fr. Theognost. I was a cellarer for several years, and before that I carried out obedience in the construction of the skete, the restoration of the Church of the Archangel Michael, the care of apiaries, the bakery ...
Now I have an obedience - I offer monastic products for Muscovites, in a honey shop and 2 monastic stores "Monastyrsky honey" and "Monastic grocery store", where you can buy our products: honey, beekeeping products, honey jam, an assortment of fish, cereals, monastery pastries, yeast-free bread, pies, health products: alcohol-free balms, sbitni, teas, herbs.
And also I have an obedience in the department of making posters of spiritual and patriotic content by modern and classical artists.
– We thank you, father Mikhey for your attention and story. We wish you joy in your work!
It so happened that in Russia it was the monasteries that turned out to be the guardians of not only spiritual culture, but also interesting recipes national cuisine. How to cook the progenitor of hodgepodge and pickle, what is hidden behind the "jelly banks" and what delicious radish dishes the chef of the Metropolitan Hilarion Church is capable of - in the RIA Novosti material.
kisselnye shores
“The monastery meal has always been considered the standard of tasty, high-quality and at the same time simple food,” says the chef of the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, Tatyana Tyshkevich. “Cookbooks and cookbooks appeared in Russia only in the 18th century. This can be learned only from monastic sources - "byikhodniks" and Kelar books.
True, the monks did not eat meat. But in those days, fish was a more affordable and common source of protein for the majority of the Russian population.
Foreign travelers in the 15th-16th centuries noted that Russians ate "more fish than meat and garden greens, that they preferred salted and smoked meat to fresh, as well as almost half-cooked skillfully cooked meat, that they respected cold dishes more than others and that they seasoned all their dishes excessively. garlic and onion or salt, pepper and vinegar."
In the refectory of the Vysoko-Petrovsky Monastery, Tatyana not only cooks for the brethren and pilgrims, but also deals with old Russian recipes. “We have restored the recipe for Moscow kalach and Moscow bagel, bake sourdough sourdough rye bread, and much more,” she says.
Among vintage dishes XV-XVI centuries - "fish hookah", the progenitor of the well-known combined hodgepodge and pickle.
She needs fish (halibut, chum salmon or any other), pickled barrel cucumbers, onions, turnips, salt, ground black pepper and dill. “Sweat cucumbers, turnips and onions until cooked in the oven, boil the fish, put stewed vegetables in the fish broth, and sprinkle the pieces of the finished fish with dill. You can serve it in a pot,” explains Tatyana.
And here is another very popular once in Russia dish - oatmeal jelly with cranberry sauce. “It’s about him in Russian fairy tales that they say “jelly banks,” the monastery cook notes. Oatmeal is fermented overnight with rye sourdough, rubbed through a sieve in the morning, honey or sugar, salt are added and boiled until thick. They eat such jelly cold with cranberry sauce on honey.
Monastery gingerbread
What to feed guests
The chef of the refectory at the temple in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" on Bolshaya Ordynka, Oleg Brizhinyuk, has to take into account not only the Lenten menu for the rector, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, but also the tastes of his foreign guests. Therefore, both national Slavic and modern European dishes are prepared in the kitchen.
"Once during Lent, I decided to make a radish steak. I bought white radish, cut into rings, boiled for about forty minutes, held a little in soy sauce with pepper, with spices and browned on the grill so that stripes from frying appeared. Everyone thought it was sea scallops. And this is a radish!" - says Oleg.
He says that when he worked in a restaurant, it was easier - there was a menu approved for six months. And here you have to have time to navigate and compose something all the time. “I literally dissolve in my work. I like the way Jamie Oliver, Gennaro Contaldo cook, simple and clear. I copied some things from them,” the chef admits.
Meat, fish and greens he buys in the market, something on the little things - in the store.
“Recently, a European delegation came to us, and I was asked to demonstrate Russian cuisine. I made cabbage rolls, Russian salad and borscht. Everyone liked it,” he adds.
fennel salad
One of Oleg's latest discoveries is a salad of fennel and Italian burrata cheese: "The taste is unusual, and it looks good. The combination is awesome." And all you need to do is finely chop the fennel, lemon zest, pour over lemon juice and olive oil, salt, pepper and leave for ten minutes. Then top with cheese, cherry tomato halves and sprinkle with mint leaves. You can add a little more sugar.
A few years ago, Oleg worked as a cook's assistant at the Donskoy Monastery. One of the most favorite dishes in the monastery was cutlets from two or three varieties of fish. "Let's say we take salmon and cod, or salmon and pike perch, or tuna and salmon - the combination should be dry-fat. Chop into small cubes, finely chop the onion, salt, pepper, add a little starch and flour, mix, sculpt small round cutlets and It remains to “finish” for about ten minutes in the oven, ”the master of the monastery kitchen shares the recipe.
He serves this dish green sauce: basil, parsley, garlic, olive oil, a little citric acid, salt, pepper grind with a blender. (“The sauce turns out to be just a bomb! It can also be added to salads,” Oleg clarifies.) And he recommends broccoli as a side dish (boil, and then “press” on the grill, “so that there is a crust”). Or other fried vegetables: tomatoes, bell pepper, zucchini ("this goes well with meat").
Fish cutlets according to the recipe of the Donskoy Monastery
“I remember that during the days of Great Lent, Patriarch Kirill came to the Donskoy Monastery, and we baked beets: cut them into slices, sprinkled with dry basil and decorated with basil, it turned out delicious,” he recalls.
"Or bake eggplant, bell pepper in the oven, and then add raw tomato, onion, greens, salt, pepper, garlic to taste on top. You can cook without oil. Scald the tomato, remove the skin, chop finely. It turns out caviar - spread on bread "Oleg continues.
"And broccoli with spinach on coconut milk doing well. It is lean, so it helps out well - you eat up. Sweet, but ok in soup. You can add a little lemon," he goes on to the first courses. And he recommends the Belarusian soup "holodnik" for the summer. dill, grated boiled eggs and kefir - if one percent, in a one-to-one ratio with water. Well, more salt and a little sugar, a little lemon or a couple of drops. table vinegar. Soup should be sweet and sour," explains Oleg.
And yet, in the end, he remembers the modest. Meat, according to him, such as beef or veal tenderloin, should not be fried for a long time - two minutes on each side and on the sides. “I cut it into plump medallions, salted it, pepper it, fry it - you don’t need to put a lot of pieces, the meat gives juice and starts to boil, then it’s in foil, and the meat still comes. Opened it - the juice came out. The veal is tender, soft, cooks quickly," says monastery cook.
Cooking secrets
Another Oleg, Olkhov, chef of the Danilov Monastery and brand chef of the Revival of Traditions center, hosts the Monastic Kitchen program on the Spas TV channel. He is sure that the culture of the Russian meal to this day is inextricably linked with the monasteries.
At the age of 14, Oleg came to the restaurant as a cook's apprentice, now he is 42. "I never stop learning from my colleagues, but I don't consider it shameful to use the experience of non-professionals. Often, you can learn some trick from someone's grandmother, an interesting dish, which is no longer who doesn't," says the chef.
"The profession of a chef, on the one hand, is very creative, but on the other hand, it is full of daily routine. Creativity is the creation of new dishes, their development, testing and assembly. with the staff. Often the routine takes up most of the working time, and there is no longer enough strength for creativity. In addition, the profession is not an easy one - the chef has an irregular working day, sometimes you have to spend the night at work, "says Oleg.
Among his specialties are lentil cutlets and pumpkin in honey sauce.
Lentil cutlets
It is necessary to cook lentils, add chopped garlic, salt, pepper, mix, let cool, then add onion sautéed in vegetable oil. Make cutlets out of this stuffing, roll in flour and fry on both sides in vegetable oil. And the pumpkin, peeled and diced, is poured with honey, diluted with water and the juice of one lemon, cranberries are added and put in the refrigerator - after 24 hours, the pumpkin dessert with honey and cranberries is ready. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
"Monastic cuisine is very useful, we can say that it is diet food: fish, seafood (easily digestible protein, polyunsaturated amino acids), cereals, grains and cereals, legumes, herbs, vegetables, berries, mushrooms (vitamins, vegetable protein, fiber, minerals, carbohydrates). Products of lactic acid fermentation - kvass, soaked berries, apples, turnips, sauerkraut - have a beneficial effect on digestion. Rye and rye-wheat sourdough bread, which is baked in the monastery bakery, is also very useful. In general, it is balanced and tasty food", - sums up the chef of the Danilov monastery.
Pumpkin in honey sauce
