What to eat when you come to St Petersburg if you want to try Russian food? Here are some ideas, let’s start with salads.
Olivie salad is the most typical of Russian salads, no celebration will go without it (it’s funny that the most “Russian” salad is called after a French cook who invented it). It is a mixture of boiled potatoes, eggs, green pea, pickled cucumbers, onion, meat, often carrots and mayonnaise.
Seledka pod shooboy – another popular salad is layers of boiled potatoes, beetroot, carrots, apples, herring and eggs served with mayonnaise.
Also you can try many soups in St Petersburg. Borsh came to us from Ukraine, but we like it so much that consider it very typical. It is made of beetroot, potatoes, meet, cabbage, tomato paste, onion and seasoning. Borsh is always served with sour crème.
Shi is another popular soup made of cabbage, potatoes, carrot, onion and meat, this is a really traditional Russian soup.
Okroshka – is a popular soup that we usually eat in summer as it’s served cold. The main ingredient of okroshka is kvas, a traditional Russian drink made of bread. Cucumbers, meat or pieces of sausages, boiled potatoes and greenery are added. The taste of okroshka may seem strange and unusual, but why not to try it?
Fried koryushka is the only dish typical for St Petersburg and not other Russian cities I can think of. It is a small fish that is sold only in spring, usually in April-May.
Pelmeni or meat dumplings is a dish that came to us from Siberia and probably originated in China. Russian pelmeni are traditionally made with meat and boiled, not fried, and served with sour crème or butter.
Holodets is a dish that looks like a jelly with pieces of meat. It’s made of boiled pork legs and broth. Holodets is usually served with “gorchitsa” or “hren” sauces.
Pancakes is probably the best-known recipe of Russian cuisine. Anything can be used as a filling – ham, cheese, sour crème, fish, caviar, cabbage, jams, whatever, so they can be used as a main course or a dessert.
The same is true for “pirogi”, a baked dish made of dough with different fillings. Small pirogi have different from and are called “pirojki”. The most popular pirogi are pirogi with meat, pirogi with cabbage or sweet pirogi with apples.
Pyshki or Russian donuts is another popular dessert, but I have a special post dedicated to them.