How to Make Unsweetened Yeast Dough

Yeast dough is commonly used for baked pies and fried pies/dumplings (pirozhki/pyrizhky).

Slavic cuisine features pies with various sweet and savory stuffing, and they all are usually prepared with dough as simple as this one.

Dough for small pies doesn’t usually require time for rising, you can start assembling them as soon as dough is kneaded: when you are finished with last one - first is ready to to fry/bake.

For whole piece pies you may need to set dough aside for 20-30 mins before cooking to rise.

How to Skin Avocados

Ripe avocado pulp is very soft and their skin is dense and resembles a shell. And it is very easy to scoop pulp from the skin with a spoon if you are going to prepare avocado guacamole-like dip, salad dressing or milk shakes (yep, I was surprised too!), where avocados are mashed and it doesn’t really matter how you extracted pulp.

However if you need avocado in whole pieces for salad or sandwich, you will need remove pulp from the skin without damaging it.

So here are instructions how to do this easily.

How to Prepare Dough for Dumplings with Milk and Egg

This recipe for dumpling dough uses milk, egg and a bit of oil. It suites good for fried dumplings, such as chebureki, for example (this recipe is coming up next saturday).

Another difference in this recipe is that milk is warmed up till boiling temperature when it is mixed with first batch of flour. This makes dough more elastic.

If you have a stand mixer with dough hook feel free to use it, otherwise you can also knead this dough by hands.

Homemade Egg Noodles

Homemade egg yolk noodles are not so hard to do as it may seem. Lapsha (in russian cuisine) or klusky (in ukrainian cuisine) are as easy to do as simple egg and flour dough.

It is also a good way to use leftover yolks if you needed egg whites for some other dish.

Boiled homemade egg noodles can be served as a side dish or added to meat or chicken broth or soup.

How to Blanch and Deseed Tomatoes

Blanching and deseeding tomatoes may seem like a hassle considering big choice of canned already blanched and deseeded tomatoes in a nearby grocery shop.

However, I think no canned tomatoes or tomato paste can compare with the fresh tomatoes blanched and deseeded right before cooking.

Blanched and sometimes also deseeded tomatoes are used to cook soups and stews, as well as to prepare tomato juice, tomato paste, various dips and sauces.

How to Prepare Dough for Dumplings

Usually to prepare dumplings you need just 3 things: dough, stuffing and inspiration.

Below you will find simplest recipe for dumplings dough: only water, salt, all purpose flour and some time for kneading are needed to prepare it. And because there is no egg included this dough tastes soft and tender.

As for stuffing it is all up to you, you may cook dumplings filled with one or multiple kinds of minced meat or fish (such as "pelmeni" or "manty") or "varenyky" / "vareniki" or “pierogi” which are filled with sweet (various berries or fresh cheese with sugar) or savory (sauteed cabbage/ sauerkraut, potatoes, potatoes and mushrooms, potatoes and fresh cheese) stuffing.

And as for inspiration – I can't really advice you anything here, but since you are reading this post and decided to cook dumplings, I believe you've already found yours.

How to Separate Egg White from Egg Yolk

Some deserts, cakes, custards as well as some other dishes require using either egg whites or yolks or even both, but separately. So in order to prepare those you will need to separate egg white from egg yolk.

Of course there are some egg separating tools, but in case you don't have one under your hands or if you just prefer to have some fun bouncing egg yolks, learn How to Separate Eggs into whites and yolks without using any kind of special tools from my step-by-step instructions with photos.

How to Clean Herring

Many of you probably wonder why you would even want to clean and skin the salted herring yourself (ya, it is messy and doesn't look all that yammi on the pictures below) if you can get cleaned, skinned, filleted, portion herring from the closest supermarket.

The answer is simple, herring fillets from the shop are most probably prepared with oil or/and vinegar, mustard, mayonnaise, onions and other tasty things, however all those tasty things change taste of herring. Which is somewhat important if you want to prepare tasty herring salad.

Well if you are lucky enough to find pickled herring fillets cured only with salt (and a bit of herbs) in your nearby shop then you can skip this post in a favor of better looking recipes. All others, who really want to know how to get fillets from whole salted herrings, are welcome to read.

Beef Broth (Meat Broth)

Meat broth (meat bouillon, clear soup) is a base for most of the soups and sauces, it can be added to stews or served as separate dish.

Meat Broth can be prepared with using basically any type of meat: beef, pork, chicken, any kind of fish. Most common recipes are using meat broths made of beef or chicken.

How to Prepare Boiled Rice for Salad

Boiled rice is a part of a lot of salad recipes. It is important to prepare it right and let it cool down before you mix it with other ingredients of your salad. This article shows how I usually prepare boiled rice for the salad.