[Sca-cooks] Russian recipe translation

[Phlip]

Here's the Russian recipe translation from Alexey. He wrote:

"Here you are with the recipe translation. Hope you understand the
text. Sometimes I didn't, as I have no traditional oven (even the one
in my wife's country house is of "Dutch" construction with a
fire-grate) and speak a slightly different language (the text belongs
to 1880s-1900s)."

Home-made brown bread.
(The peculiarities of spelling suggest the text was written much before the
language reform of 1917)

If you are baking rye or wheat (Sitny - traditional sort of wheat bread from
high-quality flour) bread for the first time, you should take a good wooden
tub, that should be well scalded with juniper (??? Maybe, adding juniper to
the boiling water before scalding the tub) and heated (that means long
heating in the open fire or an oven for sterilization)

Also, you should prepare the fermentation agent for the sour dough. Scald ½
pound rye flour with boiling water, add 2 tbs vinegar,  then stir well,
adding same amount of flour, to make the dough thick. For the next session
you just leave a portion of dough wrapped in a piece of cloth on the bottom
(literally - in the corner, as here the rectangular tub is meant) of the
tub, which should not be washed (to keep dust away simply cover it with a
large tablecloth, tying together all the four ends. The tub should be stored
in a dry place to prevent mold.

The exact flour/water proportion depend on many things: dryness of flour, of
fermentation agent's state and of the oven's temperature. But all the same
you should take about thrice more flour than water, e.g. 1 bucket of flour
and ¼ bucket water, and before baking add another third (??? In Russian it's
no easier to understand) of flour or even more. In the previous evening you
should put half the flour into the tub, add as much water as is needed to
make the dough thin enough to stir it with a spade (here the wooden baking
spade/shovel is meant, don't know if there is a special term in English).
Add warm water to the sour dough and stir well. Then spread a little flour
over it, cover the basin and let it stay in a warm place, e.g. near the oven
that's not too hot.

The next morning, after the dough has risen, add salt to the taste, but not
too much, and flour enough to make the dough of regular thickness (??? You
must know better than me how thick that means). Then knead the dough with
your hands until it stops sticking to them. Then leave it in a warm place to
rise, covering it with a tablecloth and a woolen blanket. It must be ready
in 3 to 4 hours. When the oven is ready, the breads are left to rise for ¼
to ¾ hours.

(Then comes the temperature control which is set for the peasants' "Russian"
oven with burning wood in the same place where food is cooked. Maybe Paul
will draw it for you??? )

Then shovel the burning charcoal (to be precise, that means what remained of
the burning wood, not cooking on charcoal from the beginning) to the front
of the oven (usu. the wood burns in the far end, and the pots are in the
middle/front, controlling the temperature of cooking by moving the pots back
& forth), and throw some flour onto the middle. If it slowly starts turning
black, the oven is ready. Then place the breads onto the wooden spade, on
which some flour is spread to avoid sticking. Having applied some warm water
on the breads (that suggests a wet hand, not pouring water) and put them
into the oven for 1 to 2 hours depending on their size. Then shut the oven
well with a lid and draw the charcoal to the lid (maybe, to get the heating
from all sides, not to cool them). In 1 to 1 ½ hours a sample bread is taken
out. If it is light and you hear the sound of striking the top crust with
your finger, it's ready. Then take the breads out of the oven, spreading
again some water on them, and put them on the table slightly rising one end
of every bread (e.g. putting a stick down under) until they cool down to
make them softer.





Phlip

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....