This is one very retro dish.
My generation was served Sausage Sauce for dinner at school .
And this was one of the our favourite school lunch dish.
At school the table was already set . Plates were on the tables and food in big bowls.
Who was quicker to run, got a bigger portion 🙂
Today, at home I do this very rarely.
I added tomato pasta, because of better picture:) but you can leave this out. This dish is made from cooked sausage. But you can use frankfurters.
Beans are traditional Good Friday dish.
Barley has been cultivated in Estonia longer than any other crops – for over 4,000 years. And pearl barley has been a staple food for Estonians through the ages; it has even been a food fit for celebrations. In the olden days, the tradition in Estonian villages was to make sauerkraut soup with pork and barley groats on Thursdays and Sundays.
You can cook this soup on the traditional way: swell beans and barley overnight. Prepare beautiful and delicious broth, and cook up to 2 hours.
But I recommend the easier and faster ”everyday version”:
This soup has enough flavours, so you can cook this without meat. If needed add some meat leftovers or strengthen flavour with ready broth.
And Use prepared/canned beans and barley groats.
Good dish for “meat free Mondays ” 🙂
Notice, that if you change balance of buckwheat and quark in favour of buckwheat, you receive more crispy result. Eat warm, because cold dish become crispy, as well (what is not bad at all).
In my picture are balls. But if you prefer to serve them as burger, form loaves.
I’m not a big fan of frying these fritters as I barely have time, plus I get my sufficient amount of fat from other sources anyway. 
Therefore, I’ve adapted the recipe for baking in the oven.
In case you want to fry on to the skillet: leave dough in to the refrigerator at least for an 1 hour, before frying.
I decided, that buckwheat flour is too expensive, so I did this by myself from buckwheat groats 🙂 In this case I suggest to use closed mill: blender or similar. otherwise count with cleaning… 🙂
Groats are so light, that they are jumping out from your mixer:)
Continue reading “Buckwheat and Quark Fritters. Tatra- kohupiimapallid”
Estonians usually season their dishes with pepper and salt ( You have probably noticed this by now, I believe). Yes, we do have different edible plants that most of us know. But due to our climate we can only use ’’indoor cultivated plants’’ from October to May. However, there is this one ingredient that is able to take away some foreigner’s breath – our strong mustard. Forget about Dijon and sweet mild Finnish and Swedish mustards. Estonian mustard is hot. As this brown dish doesn’t look quite appealing serve it with some green peas or beans.
A sweet and spicy Chicken for dinner
Like I wrote last year, the most important custom on Shrove Tuesday (Vastlapäev) is sledding.
You can understand why this activity is important by just looking at the ingredients of the Shrove Tuesday’s pea-soup: beans, sauerkraut, barley…
Foods that give you lots of energy to burn.
You can cook this soup the traditional way: swell beans and barley overnight. Prepare beautiful and delicious broth, and cook up to 2 hours.
But I recommend the easier and faster ”everyday version”:
All ingredients can be prepared, canned or frozen…If you want, you can add some smoked meat, ham or broth just to give it a bit stronger taste.
One more recipe about ” what to do with boiled buckwheat”.
I love buckwheat and in my opinion, it is goes with everything. This is one possible combination
boiled buckwheat
red onion
pickled cucumber
boiled beetroot
You can serve this with oil- acid sauce, but I like more mayonnaise- sour cream (smetana/creme fraiche) sauce. It makes salad more creamy and nutritious
My husband eats almost everything. And my husband eats everything as long as it’s drowning in mayonnaise or sour cream.
The only two dishes that still give him traumatizing flashbacks from the past are milk soup and millet.
The latter mainly because he used to serve in a Soviet army somewhere in the Middle East many years ago where one of the main dinners he got to eat a lot was millet porridge which he found terrible.
So, now I did attempt to turn his mind over. And I succeed.
I have been able to successfully change his mind about this dish though. Millet however is not a grain that can be found growing in Estonia which is unfortunate as this interesting yellowish sweet cereal is also very healthy.
In children stories we used to dream about the country, that had “porridge mountains and milk rivers”, and all these mountains have drawn yellow. Like millet.
This January, I would like to introduce you to a foreign dish that throughout the years has become more and more popular in Estonia to the point where me and my fellow estonians consider it being part of our national cuisine.
Rassolnik is light vegetable soup. As name says “rassolnik “-“rassol” means in Russian cucumber brine. So, this soup contains and has specific salted cucumbers taste.
If you follow my blog, You know, that I prefer dishes that do not take much time to prepare. Yes, you can cook proper broth. But in weekdays I have not time for this.
I make this soup using meat leftovers and/or season this soup with stock fond.
OMG :). Did you know that expression OMG will be this year 100 years old?
And Winston Churchill used it the first time to describe the situation in Tallinn (this time Tallinn was Reval).
Now the situation in Tallinn is ok :). Thank you for asking 🙂
But I will present OMG dish. Because of I believe that this or similar dish in each cuisine, because this is dish ” what to do with mashed potatoes leftovers”.
I will describe to You Estonian version.
And if you really do not know, how to do mashed potatoes, please look at this recipe.
A delicious dish for a dinner.
Do you know old story about Axe Soup?
Long long time ago. Poor Soldier came from War.
He was tired and hungry.
Knocked on the door and asked for food. The hostess was stingy and said that she is poor herself and have not any food.
Ok, said Soldier. But do you have an axe? Lets cook an ax soup, then.
This sounded interesting, the hostess heard for the first time about ax soup and agreed.
Soldier put cattle on the stove and added water and an ax. Let it simmer, tasted and said: it is too strong. To make this lighter, we have to add something. Do you have some meat?
Yes, agreed hostess and went to the pantry for meat. During this time soldier hid an ax and changed water.
Hostess brought meat, soldier added this in to the cattle. Let simmer, tasted and asked. This is still too strong. You have very strong ax,.. To make this lighter, please bring some barley…
then they added some vegetable to make soup ” lighter”.
Finally was soup ready. Look, said Soldier: we cooked this so long, that ax is just dissolved!
Hostess tasted soup and was amazed: so delicious, who might have known that ax is so delicious!
This is story about envy, greed and deceit. And how to cook something about nothing 🙂
Now you probably already know, that I prefer dishes which take time max 30 minutes. And this soup is the same. You can cook it in a decent manner: prepare stock and use meat and spend hours to have perfect dish.
But at the afternoon, you have not time. And this is the simplest version to prepare soup. In my opinion cabbage suits with sausages. But you can cook vegan version, or use minced meat or bacon or…. whatever you like.
Estonian Cuisine. Eesti Toit. 