Soviet Canteen Recipes: Gravy, Stewed Cabbage, Goulash, Cutlets, Vitamin Salad

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

Soviet canteen recipes: preparing dishes of our childhood

One can argue for a long time about life in the Soviet Union. Someone sincerely nostalgic for those times and do not mind returning there, others categorically do not share this opinion. But, perhaps, everyone agrees on one thing: the taste of the dishes that were prepared in Soviet canteens, we will remember all our lives. It would seem that they were prepared from the simplest and most affordable products, and the recipes were uncomplicated. But for some reason now, when we try to cook them at home, we fail to achieve the same tastes. Let's still try to comprehend the secrets of Soviet canteens and learn how to properly cook the most common dishes of our childhood.

Content

• 1 Dishes from the menu of Soviet canteens

  • 1.1 Meat in gravy

    1.1.1 Video recipe for goulash with gravy

  • 1.2 Stewed cabbage
  • 1.3 Video recipe for rassolnik "Leningradsky"

  • 1.4 Pozharsky cutlets

    1.4.1 Video recipe for Pozharskie cutlets

  • 1.5 Vitamin salad
  • 1.6 Video recipe for meatballs, as in the Soviet canteen
  • 1.7 Schnitzel
  • 1.8 Video: recipe for cottage cheese casserole, like in childhood
  • 1.9 Fish balls in tomato sauce

Dishes from the menu of Soviet canteens

The set of ready meals in catering establishments was not very diverse. As a rule, the first, second and compote or tea were on the plastic distribution of each customer. The first was borscht or soup, the second was fish or meat with a side dish, and the third was a bun or casserole.

Meat in gravy

In fact, this dish is called goulash, but when I was little, everyone called it that - meat with gravy. Despite the fact that almost no spices are used in it, the taste was extraordinary. Perhaps it is so difficult to recreate it precisely because we are used to using a variety of seasonings. Try not to abuse them or completely abandon them, and you will see: this is the same goulash from the dining room of our childhood.

Any side dish is suitable for such meat with gravy.

You will need:

• 500 g of beef;
• 1-2 onions;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 tbsp. l. flour;
• 1 tsp tomato paste;
• 1 bay leaf;
• vegetable oil;
• salt and pepper.

Let's start cooking.

1. Cut the meat into small pieces. Fry in vegetable oil until golden brown.

   

   Fry the meat until golden brown

2. Chop the onion finely and add it to the meat. While it's browning, grate the carrots. Put it in the pan too. Stir, fry for 2 minutes, pour in an incomplete glass of water and simmer until the meat is fully cooked.

   

   Fry onions and carrots until soft

3. About 10 minutes before the meat is finished stewing, season with salt, add a pinch of pepper and bay leaf.

   

   Season the meat with vegetables with pepper and bay leaves

4. Take half a glass of water and dilute the tomato paste with flour. Stir as thoroughly as possible so that no lumps remain. Gradually pour the mixture into the goulash, stirring constantly. Simmer for 5-8 minutes, then remove the meat and gravy from the stove.

   

   Stir flour in water thoroughly to avoid lumps

5. Such meat can be served with any side dish: boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes, buckwheat porridge, rice, noodles.

Video recipe for goulash with gravy

Stewed cabbage

Although the cabbage was stewed without meat, it still turned out delicious and aromatic. It can be either a side dish or a complete lean dish.

You will need:

• 1 kg of white cabbage;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 onion;
• 2 tbsp. l. tomato paste;
• 1 tsp table vinegar 9%;
• 1-2 bay leaves;
• 3 tbsp. l. vegetable oil;
• 0.5 glass of water or broth;
• 10 black peppercorns;
• salt to taste.

Cooking process:

1. Chop the peeled onions and carrots. Simmer in hot oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

   

   Stew the onions and carrots first.

2. Cut the cabbage into thin strips. Remember with your hands and put in the cauldron. Send vegetables from the pan there. Pour in water or broth, stir the food. Cover the cauldron with a lid and simmer for 40 minutes over low heat.

   

   Add cabbage to frying and continue to simmer until tender

3. Combine flour and tomato paste, stir well and put in cabbage. Season with salt, sugar, seasoning and vinegar. Mix thoroughly and continue simmering for 10 minutes, without changing the intensity of the heat under the cauldron.

   

   It remains to add the tomato with seasonings, and the stewed cabbage is almost ready

4. Serve hot stewed cabbage. Although cooled down, it is also very tasty.

   

   Serve the cabbage as a side dish or as a stand-alone dish

Video recipe for rassolnik "Leningradsky"

Pozharsky cutlets

The recipe for these cutlets goes back several centuries, and there is no reliable information about who invented them. But it is known for certain that they were originally prepared from veal and only then they began to use only chicken meat.

To cook chopped cutlets "Pozharskie", take the following products:

• 500 g of chicken legs;
• 100-150 g of white bread or loaf;
• 1 glass of milk or cream;
• 70 g butter;
• 150-200 g white bread crumbs;
• 50 g creamy and 3 tbsp. l. vegetable oil for frying;
• salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

For a lezon:

• 2-3 eggs;
• 2 tbsp. l. milk;
• 1 pinch of salt.

1. Place the white bread pulp in a bowl and cover with milk. After a while, squeeze out the swollen bread from the liquid.

   

   For Pozharskikh cutlets, you need to take white bread and fresh milk

2. Wash and dry the chicken, remove the bones, put the meat in a blender, add butter and chop. Salt and pepper the minced meat, add the pulp of the loaf, stir. Fold in a plastic bag and beat back properly by tossing it on a table or bowl.

   

   Mix the minced meat and beat it well

3. Wet your hands and shape into patties. Mix milk, eggs and salt, shake with a whisk - this will be ice cream. Dip a cutlet in it and roll in breadcrumbs.

   

   Dip cutlets in ice and roll in breadcrumbs

4. Heat butter and vegetable oil in a frying pan. Spread the cutlets and fry until golden brown on both sides. After that, pour 3-4 tbsp into the pan. l. water and simmer for about 5 minutes.

   

   Cutlets must first be fried and then stewed

Video recipe for cutlets "Pozharskie"

Vitamin salad

This salad is very easy to prepare and will be a source of vitamins for you and your family. But in order to get the same taste familiar from childhood, it is important to accurately observe the proportions.

Vitamin salad was a must in the menu of every dining room

For the Vitaminny salad you will need:

• 450 g of cabbage;
• 1 carrot;
• 3-4 st. l. table vinegar;
• about a teaspoon with a small slide of salt;
• a tablespoon of sugar (no slide);
• 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil.

1. Remove the top leaves from the head and chop it with a sharp knife. Place in an enamel deep bowl, sprinkle with salt, remember with your hands properly. Pour in vinegar. Mix everything and put the dishes on the fire. Heat the cabbage for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally. As soon as the shredded vegetable has released juice, remove the bowl from the stove.
2. While the cabbage is completely cool, peel and grate the carrots on a coarse grater. Add it to the cooled cabbage, sprinkle with sugar, add oil, stir. Excess liquid forms in the salad, which must be drained. Then let the salad stand in the refrigerator for 2 hours and serve.

Video recipe for meatballs, like in a Soviet canteen

Schnitzel

Cutlets were often served in Soviet canteens, but schnitzels were especially popular. The recipes and cooking methods are similar, but there is a significant difference.

For "stolovsky" schnitzels you will need:

• 500 g minced meat;
• ¼ loaves of black stale bread;
• 1 large onion;
• 1 clove of garlic;
• 2 eggs;
• salt and spices;
• breadcrumbs;
• vegetable oil for frying.

The peculiarity of these schnitzels is that you can use more bread. Their recipe is a vivid example of how "a lot of meat" was made from "little meat" in the past.

1. Break the bread and soak it in cold water. When soaked, add it to the minced meat along with the onion and garlic. Pass all foods through a meat grinder.

   

   Grind minced meat along with bread, onions and garlic

2. Season the minced meat with spices, add the eggs and mix well, then beat it several times. by the way, instead of eggs, you can add starch: this is what they did in the canteens.

3. Moisten your hands with water and form cutlets from the minced meat. Immediately roll them in breadcrumbs and flatten them with the wide side of the knife. Schnitzels should be as long and wide as a chop.

   

   Shape the minced meat into large patties

4. Place the schnitzels in a skillet of boiling oil, 2 at a time, and brown on both sides.

   

   Fry the schnitzels in oil on both sides

5. Serve schnitzels with your favorite side dish.

   

   Serve the schnitzel hot

Video: recipe for cottage cheese casserole, like in childhood

Fish meatballs in tomato sauce

Another Soviet-era recipe is meatballs, which are made from fish fillets. And it can be any fish. You will need:

• 700 g of fish (for example, chum fillet);
• 100 g bread crumbs;
• 1 egg;
• fresh herbs to taste.

Also for tomato sauce, take:

• 500 ml of tomatoes in their own juice;
• 1 onion;
• 1 tsp paprika;
• 1 tsp ground cumin;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 2 tbsp. l. vegetable oil;
• salt, sugar, black pepper - to taste.

You can use ready-made bread crumbs instead of bread crumbs.

1. Pass the fish fillet through a meat grinder, add the egg, crackers, chopped herbs, salt and pepper. Mix the minced meat thoroughly.
2. Roll the minced meat into small, walnut-sized round meatballs. Place them on a flat surface covered with foil or cling film and refrigerate for now.
3. Make a sauce. For it, chop the onion and garlic in a blender and fry them until transparent in a deep frying pan with vegetable oil. Add paprika and cumin, pour in tomato puree, add sugar and salt. Simmer for 15 minutes on medium heat and stirring all the time.
4. Place the meatballs in one layer in the sauce. Cover the skillet with a lid, reduce heat to low and simmer for another 20 minutes.

5. Serve the finished meatballs with boiled rice and vegetable salad.

   

   Boiled rice is a great side dish for fish meatballs in tomato sauce

Despite the seeming simplicity and unpretentiousness, the menu in Soviet canteens was carefully checked, and the dishes were tasty, healthy and nutritious. In the wake of nostalgia, they are back in fashion, and now you can order such dishes even in expensive restaurants. But why, if now you have their recipes, and you can easily cook it all at home? Enjoy your meal!