Salt & Time: Recipes from a Russian Kitchen (paperback)

For many, Russian food remains a mystery, tinted with the stereotypes of the Cold War and obscured by the complexities of contemporary Russian politics. I often find Russian cuisine is trapped somewhere between two very opposing ideas: the romanticized notion of Russians eating blinis with caviar every morning, or a stark image of the Soviets gazing at bare market shelves to the soundtrack of their rumbling stomachs... In this book, I would like to invite you to sit next to me at my Russian table, to share my memories of growing up in Siberia and to accompany me on a journey across the vast country as well as into its fascinating history. —Alissa Timoshkina

Timoshkina, who now lives the UK where she runs a catering business, does an impressive job of defying all the stereotypes she mentions above. This is due in part to her upbringing in Kamchatka, the great peninsula on the Pacific coast of Siberia, where ocean seafood is abundant and influences from China and Korea appear more frequently than they would is a Moscow kitchen. You will find borsch and blinis here, but more interestingly, food like squid poached in smetana sauce, a tangy sweet curry-like dish; lagman, a complexly spiced beef soup that originates in Central Asia; and millet prepared risotto-style, with pancetta and sage.

Paperback. Color photographs throughout. UK measurements.