½ teaspoon ground turmeric
4 small waxy potatoes, peeled and cut in half
4 ounces cauliflower, broken into bite-sized florets
1 medium onion, cut into 8 wedges
4 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths
2 small zucchini, scrubbed and cut into ½-inch chunks
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
¼ cup sour whey from drained yogurt (this page) or 2 to 3 teaspoons freshly squeezed lime juice (optional)
Cilantro for garnish
Put the chickpea flour in a bowl and mix to a paste with a little of the water. Add the rest of the water and the buttermilk and mix as smooth as possible.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the ghee until fragrant in a deep saucepan. Add the pinch of asafetida along with the fenugreek and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, stir in the cumin seeds and nigella, then (in a few seconds) the curry leaves and dried peppers. Stir in the turmeric and let it sizzle a few seconds. Add the thickened buttermilk, and stir to distribute everything. Let the soup simmer over very low heat, partly covered, for 30 to 35 minutes.
While the soup cooks, heat the remaining ghee in a deep skillet or wide saucepan. Add the potatoes and sauté, stirring, for a few minutes. Stir in the other vegetables and sauté until the onion is translucent. Add 1 cup water and cook, partly covered, over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 20 to 25 minutes.
Transfer the vegetables to the buttermilk soup and stir to distribute everything evenly. Taste for seasoning; add salt and—if you think it can use a dash of acid—some sour whey or lime juice, a little at a time. Serve hot, garnished with cilantro. It’s lovely spooned over plain rice.
MORU KOZHAMBU
(SOUTH INDIAN BUTTERMILK SOUP)
This dish, also anglicized as mor kozhambu, is the South Indian counterpart of kadhi. It, too, is often served with chickpea- or lentil-flour dumplings, but vegetables are just as usual. I use the same mixture as for kadhi, but one or two of the following would be more authentic: okra, plantains, small eggplants, tomatoes, taro, Indian bottle gourd, “ash gourd” (winter melon).
Because of the coconut-laced mixture of ground seasonings and the smaller amount of starch, the “soup” will be thinner and quite different in flavor.
YIELD: 6 servings
Vegetables as for the preceding kadhi (potatoes, cauliflower, onion, green beans, zucchini)
1 tablespoon toor dal (“red gram,” hulled split pigeon peas)
1 tablespoon channa dal (“yellow gram,” hulled split Indian chickpeas)
4 to 6 small hot green peppers, deseeded if desired
A 1-inch chunk of peeled fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
⅓ cup grated coconut, fresh or frozen
A pinch of asafetida
¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
4 cups cultured buttermilk or plain whole-milk yogurt
3 tablespoons ghee or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon Indian brown mustard seeds
6 to 8 fresh curry leaves
2 small dried red peppers, deseeded if desired
1 to 1½ teaspoons salt, or to taste
Prepare and cook the vegetables as directed for kadhi. Meanwhile, soak both kinds of dal in a small bowl of water for 30 to 40 minutes. Drain well and put in a blender or food processor with the hot peppers, ginger, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, grated coconut, asafetida, and turmeric. Process to a paste, adding water if necessary to help the grinding. Mix the paste into the buttermilk.
Heat the ghee in a saucepan until fragrant. Add the mustard seeds and cook until they start to pop. Add the curry leaves and dried red peppers. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the pan, and cook over low heat, stirring, just until heated through. (It will curdle if allowed to boil.) Stir in the cooked vegetables, let heat through, and serve at once. This also is perfect with rice.
COLD BLUEBERRY SOUP
Cold fruit soups, among the most refreshing of summer dishes, flourish vigorously in eastern and northeastern Europe. They fall into several families—starch-bound, creamy, or based on sour milk. This version with blueberries is a nontraditional composite of the latter two approaches that I found long ago in The Berry Cookbook by Barbara R. Fried. The original called for two cups of sour cream. I now find this too heavy and replace it with part buttermilk. Vary the proportions of sugar, sour cream, buttermilk, and wine according to your preference and the flavor of the berries.
Americans have great difficulty figuring out just where to fit fruit soups into a meal. I think they make excellent first courses for a summer lunch menu featuring a light main-dish salad or vegetarian grain dish. They also win converts as dessert, accompanied by crackers or plain, not-very-sweet cookies.
YIELD: About 6 cups (6 servings)
2 cups blueberries, rinsed and drained
½ cup sugar, or to taste
A 3-inch piece of cinnamon stick
1 lemon, sliced thin
½ cup red wine (any preferred kind)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup cultured buttermilk
Put the berries in a nonreactive saucepan with 2 cups water and the sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the berries are cooked; add the wine during the last minute or two. Pour through a mesh sieve into a bowl, pushing with a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids. Let cool to room temperature. Whisk in the sour cream until smooth. Add the buttermilk, a little at a time, until it is thinned to your taste. Taste for sweetness and acidity, adding a little sugar (dissolved in water for easier mixing) or lemon juice if desired. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours before serving.
VARIATION: During the brief summer season of sour cherries, I sometimes turn this into a cold cherry soup very inauthentically based on the celebrated Hungarian meggykesköce or meggyleves. Use 2 pints (about 1½ pounds) fresh sour (not sweet!) cherries, ¾ cup sugar or to taste, 3 inches of cinnamon stick, the juice of 1 large lemon, a dash of red wine, a dash of almond extract (bitter almond, if you can find it), 1 cup sour cream, and a little heavy or light cream. (Hungarians mix the sour cream with flour to prevent curdling and stir it into the hot soup, but I prefer it flourless.) Pit the cherries, saving a handful to add at the end; place the rest and their juice in a saucepan with 3 cups water, the ¾ cup sugar, and the cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil and gently simmer, uncovered, until the cherries are very soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, wine, and almond extract. Fish out and discard the cinnamon stick; puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Pour it into a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Whisk in the sour cream until smooth. Taste for the balance of sugar, acidity, and creaminess, and add a little sugar (dissolved in water for easier mixing), lemon juice, or sweet cream until you like the result. Add the reserved pitted cherries and chill in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours before serving.
SOUR CREAM/CRÈME FRAÎCHE AS COLD SAUCE AND DIP
Sour cream, crème fraîche, Russian smetana, Latin American crema, and the rest of the family can effortlessly be turned into cold sauces and dressings perfect for a hundred purposes. The story is different as regards hot sauces, because of the ease with which heated sour cream curdles. The richest versions of crème fraîche (unfortunately, different brands vary) are more heat-resistant, as is crema. But in most cases coldness itself is part of what’s delightful in their pairings with other foods, hot or cold.
The parade of marvelous table sauces or dressings begins with plain sour cream itself, simply mixed smooth or given a brief draining as with yogurt. (Draining is helpful if it is to be combined with anything a little watery.) It responds happily to minimal additions like salt, lemon juice or wine vinegar, and/or sugar, with or without some enriching egg yolk. One basic formula for a savory sour cream sauce—you can omit anythin
g except the sour cream—would be an egg yolk whisked smooth in a small bowl and combined with a large pinch of salt, 1 cup sour cream, ¼ to 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 to 2 teaspoons grated onion, and 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar. Whisk in the sugar and acid a tiny bit at a time until you like the balance of flavors.
Many other seasonings can be used with or instead of these. Dill, fresh or dried, is the classic herb, but minced chives or scallions are also popular. Caraway seed has the same affinity for sour cream as cumin for yogurt. Other wonderful additions include grated apple, minced sour pickles of all sorts, and strong-flavored accents like prepared horseradish or mustard, Tabasco or chipotle sauce, cayenne, curry powder, capers, and anchovies. Chopped hard-boiled egg is a natural. If you can find the Balkan sweet red pepper and eggplant sauce called ajvar, mix it with sour cream in any proportion to make a pretty and delicious relish (or spread for rye toast).
The foods that such sauces go with are numberless. In the Ashkenazic Jewish kitchen, a bowl of plain or (less often) flavored sour cream regularly accompanies blintzes, potato pancakes, and—a truly lovely marriage—pot cheese or farmer cheese. (Whenever possible, try to look for the best of all sour-cream versions, smetana, in Russian stores.) It is nearly mandatory with Russian blini, and I prefer it to syrup on most kinds of pancakes or fritters. Everyone knows that sour cream goes perfectly with hot baked potatoes, but it’s just as good with boiled potatoes (dill is great here), braised red cabbage, or braised sauerkraut. It’s among the best of all salad-dressing bases; try sour cream instead of mayonnaise in potato or egg salad as well as cole slaw. Mix it with sliced or chopped cucumbers or radishes (especially black radishes). Combined with cured herring, sardines, or smoked chub or whitefish, it magically cuts their fishiness. And please follow Mimi Sheraton’s suggestion (in From My Mother’s Kitchen) of mixing chunks of pumpernickel or rye bread into a bowl of sour cream.
When it comes to sour cream or crème fraîche as dessert sauce, all I can say is the plainer, the better. Most seasonings except for maybe—maybe—a touch of lemon juice, sugar, and/or ground cinnamon or allspice are just so much lily gilding. All by itself it’s the ideal dressing for mixed fruit salads (leave out the pineapple unless it’s cooked or canned) and a heavenly foil for blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and sliced peaches or nectarines. Put some on a dried-fruit compote. Or make an instant and excellent pseudo-mousse by mixing it into cooked-down fruit pastes like apple butter and prune or apricot lekvar.
A final use invented by the late Helen Evans Brown and immensely popular for a couple of generations: For the world’s simplest chocolate frosting, melt 5 ounces of semisweet chocolate in the top of a double boiler and stir in ½ cup sour cream.
BUTTERMILK SALAD DRESSING
Sorry if hopeful cooks coming on something called “Buttermilk Dressing” expect a cousin of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. Mine was designed with potato salad in mind, though I expect it would also be good with coleslaw.
YIELD: About 1 cup
1 scant cup walnut oil, or any combination you wish of peanut and walnut oil
3 tablespoons cultured buttermilk
1 tablespoon sour cream
2 to 3 tablespoons sour pickle brine (from half-sour kosher dill pickles, sauerkraut, or brined capers)
1 garlic clove, mashed to a paste with a knife blade
3 to 4 tablespoons grated onion
1 teaspoon caraway seeds, lightly bruised with a mortar and pestle
Salt if needed (there may be enough in the brine)
Freshly ground pepper
FOR GARNISH:
3 large scallions (whites and some of the green parts), minced
Fresh dill
A handful of walnut meats, coarsely chopped (optional)
Whisk together the oil and all other dressing ingredients. To use for potato salad, toss with the freshly cooked potatoes while they are still warm. Scatter the salad with minced scallions, snipped dill, and (if desired) some chopped walnuts.
CUCUMBER-RADISH SOUR CREAM SAUCE
If you are fond of cold yogurt sauces or sauce-salad-relishes like Turkish Cacık or Indian Raitas (this page and this page), probably you will enjoy this sour-cream counterpart. One of my longtime favorites is this fresh, summery version in The Book of New New England Cookery by Judith and Evan Jones. I generally use one of the small thin-skinned Persian-type cucumbers and—because I like the sharp flavor of black radishes—substitute a chunk for one of the red radishes. This is especially luscious if you use Homemade Sour Cream.
YIELD: Makes about 1½ cups
½ cup grated cucumber, peeled, split in half, and seeded by scooping out center
3 fat radishes, grated
2 teaspoons minced fresh dill
2 minced scallions, including tender greens
1 cup sour cream, or 1 part plain yogurt to 1 part sour cream
Salt
3 to 4 shakes Tabasco sauce
After you have grated the cucumber and radishes, squeeze them dry in a towel. Then mix all of the ingredients together, salting to taste. Refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.
MENNONITE BUTTERMILK “SALAD”
One of my favorite historically oriented international cookbooks is The Melting Pot of Mennonite Cookery 1874–1974 by Edna Ramseyer Kaufman, happily back in print after a hiatus. It traces the wanderings of the Mennonites from the Low Countries and Switzerland to parts of the old Prussian, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires and eventually the New World. It’s remarkable to see the cooking traditions that survived the many journeys of this sect, some of whom were among my family’s oldest neighbors in Pennsylvania.
The book contains no fewer than three versions—from three separate parts of the Mennonite diaspora—of a “salad” that must stem from a very ancient shared tradition. It takes some explaining to people who have never seen this kind of peasant dish: You first soured fresh milk by letting it stand, then added freshly torn or cut lettuce and sliced or chopped hard-boiled eggs to it. (There were versions with homemade noodles or cucumber and scallions.) The resulting soup-salad was seasoned with salt and eaten very cold, sometimes with a little sugar and vinegar. A bit of sour cream might enrich the sour milk. It was a summer dish, considered extremely refreshing and healthful in hot weather.
I tried it for myself one hot July when I had some freshly made cultured buttermilk and sour cream on hand. It was indeed beautifully restorative. You won’t, however, get the same delicate freshness with commercial buttermilk and sour cream. Made with the homemade articles, it gives you one of those startling glimpses into the past achievable by nothing except firsthand tasting.
Have everything well chilled and mix only at the last minute. The amounts per person are about 1 cup Homemade Cultured Buttermilk stirred smooth with ¼ teaspoon salt (or to taste) and a few spoonfuls of Homemade Sour Cream; a dash of cider vinegar and/or sugar, if desired; 1 sliced hard-boiled egg; and a large handful of tender lettuce (Boston, Bibb, or any young leaf lettuce), torn into bite-sized pieces. Eat it from a soup bowl.
BEEF STROGANOFF
Beef Stroganoff, named for a family of long pedigree in czarist Russia, was a reigning party favorite a generation ago and is one of my leading nominees for a return from limbo. The dish started being extolled in the 1930s by members of the self-styled “gourmet” movement in the United States. Its distinguishing features are thin strips of rapidly seared beef, a sauce enriched with sour cream, and an otherwise complete absence of agreement on the necessary ingredients.
It takes a lot for any beef Stroganoff to be certifiably “inauthentic,” though I’d probably draw the line at the addition of habanero salsas or herbes de Provence. Most recipes have onions and mushrooms, but there are cooks who reject either or both. One extremely lofty recipe has you fry some onions in the pan “for flavor,” then throw them out lest they mar the noble simplicity of the beef. The amount of sour cream (a few atypical recipes have sweet cream) can be half a tanker or a
few tablespoons. I have seen Stroganoffs from several continents with or without tomato paste, catsup, condensed mushroom soup, tarragon vinegar (not a bad idea, that), Tabasco, cayenne, paprika, wine marinades, flambéed brandy, sugar, Madeira, and moose meat (this last in a marvelous book titled Cooking Alaskan).
All I can say about the following version is that I like it. If that much filet mignon or sirloin is a financial impossibility, try thin-sliced flank steak for a chewier but still excellent result. The classic accompaniment is noodles or a rice pilaf; some people sauté the mushrooms separately and serve them as a garnish or side dish.
YIELD: 6 to 7 servings
2 pounds filet mignon or beef sirloin
3 to 4 tablespoons flour
1 large onion
½ pound (or more as desired) fresh white mushrooms, cleaned and trimmed
6 tablespoons butter
½ cup strong beef broth, preferably homemade
2 to 3 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Parsley or fresh dill for garnish
Cut the meat into strips about 2 to 3 inches long and ⅓ to ½ inch thick. This is easier if you first put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Put the strips, well separated, on plates or a work surface and dredge with flour, turning them to coat lightly on all sides. Chop the onion fairly fine and cut the mushrooms, stem and all, into thin lengthwise slices.
Heat half the butter over high heat in a large heavy (preferably cast-iron) skillet. When it is sizzling and fragrant, reduce the heat to medium-high, add a few strips of meat at a time, and brown them very quickly on both sides, stirring with a wooden spoon. As each batch is done, remove it to a plate and add a few more strips. From time to time add a little more of the butter to moisten the pan. The trick is not to crowd the pan (which makes the meat stew in its own juice) and to brown the meat rapidly without letting the flour scorch; keep adjusting the heat as necessary.
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