Is it really Russian?

I am hoping that there is a reader who has some Russian in them and can tell me if anything I have made seems even remotely familiar.  I bought a book a few years ago that was Russian, Polish and German recipes.  It was one of those always on sale at Borders $5.99 cookbooks:

I was immediately drawn to one of my favorite dishes, Beef Stroganov.  What is very interesting about this recipe, is that it is different than the Americanized version that we are used to seeing in restaurants, cookbooks and the frozen food or hamburger helper aisle.  This recipe is missing two key ingredients that are fundamental of the average American's idea of beef stroganov: noodles and mushrooms.

With this recipe, you start with cooking cuts of beef and then when that is finished you cook sliced onions in the same pan.

Then when the onions are cooked and tender, you add the flour in to create a small roux, then add a splash of stock (or white wine in my case), the cooked beef, mustard and sour cream.  You also add a squirt of lemon juice as well as a squirt of tomato puree'.  A lightly seasoning with salt and pepper and you are left with something so healthy and flavorful that it makes you wonder why you ever ate the other version.

Now, this is freakin' delicious.  I highly suggest that everyone make this and even more so, if you have a chance, make this recipe and then get a hamburger helper version and see for yourself.  I took a picture of the recipe and I have it below.

It is interesting to note that the earliest written account of this recipe had no mushrooms and onions as well, in 1861.  In 1912, the recipe was changed to have onions and the tomato paste and is very similar to the recipe I have above, which is considered the national dish of Russia. 

A great themed restaurant with no theme....

This past Friday night, I had an opportunity to review and experience the River City Casino's finest food and beer establishment: the 1904 Beer house. This beer house was supposed to be of a 1904 old time, river boat, theme and the only thing that established that idea was huge chandeliers and some pictures of some old steam and paddle boats. The restaurant has dark and stained wood on the bar, huge marble slabs for the table tops, and hard wooden floors and chairs.  The male servers and wait staff wore dark overalls with white shirts and the ladies wore a red, white and blue colored dress, like the St. Paulie girl on the beer bottle.  The bartenders, had just basic black shirts and pants on.

The menu isn't that large and can be quickly looked over as there isn't anything that seems to stand out as it was trying to be traditional American, I would assume, but some things were of different nationalities.  My group of 4 foodies, including myself, decided to order all appetizers and some other things to see how everything tasted.

What you see here, in a clockwise direction is: onion rings, pretzels with cheese sauce, sausage pizza, fried Rubens, and German spaghetti.  The onion rings were your basic onion rings.  They had a similar crunchy breading to that of Steak N'Shake. So, while I enjoy them, I wasn't overly enjoyed by them.  They get a 3 out of 5 from me.  The pretzels were large, thick and tasty.  They were cooked all the way through which is tough for pretzels that large.  They were perfectly done on the outside and with just the right salty flavor as well.  I didn't make it to the pizza, as I tried everything else, but my friend who had eaten it said it was great, giving it a 3.5 out of 5.  The fired Rubens were tiny balls of meat and cheese and such and then rolled together in a bread crumb breading and then deep fried.  They have a 1000 island dipping sauce and overall, I really liked them.  They were not mind blowing but the first I have seen of this type so they get a 4 out of 5 for me.

This was the German spaghetti and was not an appetizer but a normal entree'.  It was a huge portion and had basil, garlic, cheese, cream, mushrooms and sirloin tips in there.  It reminded me of a proper beef Strogonoff, with the sour cream sauce but this one perhaps has some white wine and garlic and butter. I tried some and it was delicious.  I'd probably give the pasta dish a good 3.5 out of 5 stars as well.  That large thing was probably about a pound of bread.  The bread had a minimal flavor as it was a tool for soaking up broth or sauce more than anything.

These slider-looking burgers were actually Kobe beef burgers.  The burgers were quite large as the Kobe was in more of a meatball shape.  They were deliciously cooked and probably just seasoned with salt and pepper.  They were juicy and worked well as a burger as my father had said :"That was the best tasting burger I have ever had."  I thought they were good as well and get a 4 out of 5 from me.

My father ordered the sausage and cheese board and this is it. Several kinds of cheese, sausages and olive along with a mustard and ketchup sauce is what this entails.  Everything was good but none of it was over the top or super delicious, as it was a general meat and cheese tray.  It was good though with creamy light cheeses and a good selection of Italian meats like pepperoni and prosciutto.  I would give this a 3 out of 5.

  Lastly we have the German deviled eggs with a Creole seasoning.  What these were though, were the very basic deviled eggs with bacon on top.  The seasoning tasted like paprika and the mix in the eggs were just very basic and didn't taste anything special or fancy.  I'd give these eggs just a simple 2.5 out of 5 as their addition of bacon tried to move it up further trying to back up on the bacon.  Bacon does make everything better, but you can't make a normal item and put bacon on it to make it better.  The eggs get a 2 out of 5 for me.

Overall the night was a lot of fun and the food was good, especially when paired up with a good selection of their beers and drinks.  All the food was reasonably priced and since it was located just outside of the gaming area, children could technically come into the restaurant as well.  It is definitely a good place to go for a meal, a snack or a drink.

So, what's for dinner?

I admit, that the photos I take for this blog are not the most professional looking nor do they always sometimes make the food look really tasty. Like the above picture, that may not look that delicious, but hey, that was the cactus dish I made, before adding the quinoa.  It had chopped onions, tomatoes, green chilis, garlic, and salt and pepper besides the chopped cactus in it. While I did take a course on food presentation, to be honest, I have so little time each day to experiment and cook fun things that I don't have the added hour or so to plate this dish and then clean it up and take the most awesome photo of it I can.  And let's face it even further, if you are a stay-at-home person or just the one who cooks at home, chances are that you don't have the time to make it look really nice either.

I posted a status message about this on Facebook as for some reason, just a pan full of onions cooking smells so good that I once wondered about making a relish purely on diced and cooked onions; and did it by the way. The problem with that photo is that onions are pale and pretty much colorless.  So taking a picture of them doesn't show a lot of color and such so they look like a blob or just not so appetizing.

Now when I am out and reviewing restaurants, I pull my tiny camera out and take pictures of the food and the place, on my own, and quickly as to not get thrown out or have anyone complain towards me.  These in-restaurant food photos tend to have the lighting off a bit or the color and again, as most restaurant reviewers don't want to be recognized, now with the growing number of food bloggers, and the increasing number of people bringing cameras with them wherever they go, I find it easy to take a snapshot and get away with it.  What I can do in the future, is try to take better photos at home, with a better camera.  This way, when I am doing something, you can get a better view of it.  Even my wife suggested using a stand to place a camera onto it so that I could record my process of cooking or doing something fun, like make caviar and place it on here for all to see.  Either way, with luck and more time, better photos will be on here.  Or maybe, when I finish each dish or thing I cook, I can plate it and take a good photo or two.