Self portrait with solyanka

I don't usually go in for SPs but I was taking a picture of my latest culinary creation at the cafe, and surreptitiously trying to include a couple of helpers in the background, when my camera was taken out of my hands and turned on me with the accusation that I was the only one never to have been photographed (I wonder why?) So I had to submit.



Recipe for vegetarian solyanka, a Russian dish of baked cabbage.
(From The Food and Cooking of Russia by Lesley Chamberlain)


1 large Savoy cabbage
2 carrots
1 parsnip
2 onions
50g butter
2 tbs tomato puree
1 pickled cucumber
1 tbs capers
half tbs flour
half tbs sugar
1 tbs vinegar
2 eggs
vegetable stock
Grated cheese, breadcrumbs and sweet pickle for the top

Chop cabbage and boil till tender. Drain.
Peel and chop onions, carrots and parsnip and fry lightly in butter.
Sprinkle on flour, then add tomato puree and chopped cucumber and stir well.
Mix together with the cabbage, add beaten eggs, sugar, vinegar and seasoning.
Transfer it to buttered ovenproof dish.
Pour stock over to half way up.
Sprinkle top with cheese, breadcrumbs, capers and dollops of pickle.
Bake in medium oven until the dish is bubbling and the top is lightly browned.
Jacket potatoes make a good accompaniment.


The recipe for me is more complex since my genetic ingredients are heterogeneous and probably impossible to source ever again.

[Apologies for lack of activity on the Blip front but my computer has been out of commission all evening - son re-installing Windows to try and improve its functioning.]