Alex's Kitchen

FOREWORD

Hi! I am Alex. I am a matchless red panda and inimitable cookery expert. Moreover, I am both the best cook of all well-known pandas and the greatest panda among all famous chefs! OK, it’s a joke, and now I try to be more serious. I want to propose you something incredible: I invite you to a journey around cookery!

Firstly, I let you out something secret: your mom didn’t know how to cook when she was a child. And her mom, your granny, didn’t too. They learned this little by little, grain by grain, and now they are real home chefs, aren’t they?

Thus you have a brilliant chance to begin you culinary education, and I promise to help you with it. You will know how to make some dishes, to prepare basic foodstuff and then to surprise your mom and dad.

But before we start it, I’d like you to remember some rules. Above all, you should be careful very much. Kitchen is a place where there is a plenty of dangers: knives can be too sharp, stove is too hot, and some pots and pans are too heavy.

And you need to be very attentive with:

gas stove – it is very dangerous device. You can’t see gas as it’s transparent, and can be seen when burns. If you turned it on accidently or some put it out it keeps on its running. Gas can cause poisoning and explosion!

kitchen utensils – they become hot quickly and may burn you. Use special mittens – oven gloves to take the covers and handles.

oil – it is dangerous especially when hot! Do not stay near stove when oil is getting hot!

If you touched some hot pan or pot, or oil splashed on your hand you should put burned part in cold water.

unknown substances in plates, boxes vials, etc – they may be toxic, poisonous or just bad. Never taste any thing you don’t know!

knives and fragments of broken tableware – they are sharp, and you may cut yourself. Be careful with such things!

electric devices, of course – they are too intricate in using! You should always turn them off when their work is done. Don’t you dare to turn them on with wet hands or put your fingers into it!

Remember! If you are not sure in something, ask mom, dad or somebody else of grown-ups!

And some important abbreviations and conversions you should know:

tsp is for teaspoon which is used when you drink tea, equals 5 ml

tbsp is for a table spoon you eat soup with, equals 15 ml

drop is the less cookery measure that equals 1/60 of teaspoon

dash is a small cookery measure that equals 1/16 of teaspoon

fl. oz equals 30 ml

cup equals 240 ml

Well, are you ready to start?

So come on!

SANDWICH

Sandwich is the simplest meal you can only make. You needn’t fry, or boil, or cook something for it in any way. All you need is bread and some accompanied in slices – ham, cheese, sausage, fish and so on, and so forth. For more interesting sandwiches, you can take sauce or seasoning: mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise.

First sandwiches became known in 1762. A certain Edward Gibbon wrote in his diary that John Montague, Duke Sandwich, inveterate gambler, could spend twenty-four hours at a card-table. As he needed to eat something not leaving a game, he asked for some cold roast-beef between two pieces of bread.

There are many kinds of sandwiches now, and any of them may be great – everything depends on likings and bases. Usual sandwiches are square, and fashionable “clubbers” are triangular: somebody invented them when cut usual ones diagonally.

If you want to make classic sandwich with ham and cream cheese, you need:

TOAST BREAD

2 pieces

HAM

1 slice

(it should be of the same contours as bread is)

CREAM CHEESE

1 tsp

ROMAN LETTUCE

1 leaf

(wider than bread and ham are)

TOMATO

1 piece

For making sandwiches, you should:

spread evenly cream cheese on both of bread pieces

put slice of ham on one piece of bread

lay lettuce upon ham

cut tomato in rings and put some on lettuce (tomato rings must not be wider than bread)

NOTICE: you should be attentive for not cutting yourself

cover sandwich with the other piece of bread.

NOTICE: if you want to present your sandwich more interesting, you can make clubbers of them or shape it as you like.

Bon appetite!

CANAPE

A canapé is a peculiar kind of sandwiches. First, it’s very small – as the saying is to bite once only. Second, canapé can consist of any solid food – bread is not of sine qua non; moreover, there are vegetable or fruit canapés. Third, it is served on sticks, and this is the most interesting in it!

This hors d’oeuvre is French. It was named after a sofa where people sit and eat something light and not staining their hands or clothes. Today canapé is a part and parcel of fourchettes and other official dinners. Nevertheless, you can make it yourself and gladden your mom and dad.

For making canapes with cheese, green olives and vegetables, you need:

PAPRIKA

1 piece

ROMAN LETTUCE

for serving

GREEN OLIVES

170 g

(contents in one can)

COTTAGE CHEESE

100 g

(mozzarella or feta)

STICKS

After that, you can start assembling your canapes:

cut cottage cheese into cubes of 1 centimeter

slice paprika into squares of 1 centimeter

pour out pickle from can with green olives and put them on a plate

lay lettuce on a dish

take one stick and pin down one green olive, a slice of paprika and a cube of cottage cheese

set canapés on lettuce in a dish (cottage cheese should be below)

NOTICE: for more attractive serving you may take a half of green and a half of red paprika, or a half of green olives and a half of olives – all in all you may experiment with your canapés as much as you want!

Bon appetite!

CROQUE MONSIEUR

Of course, it is French! This kind of sandwich is very popular in France, especially Paris. It was invented some more than a hundred years ago.

Why does it have such a strange name? Some people say that one jester innkeeper joked in such a way about himself as if he was cannibal. Other story tells about French word with meaning ‘to crunch’ and monsieur as a French man… OK, we won’t look for the roots – we will do our croquet monsieur!

For making croque monsieur you need:

TOAST BREAD

2 pieces

CHEESE

(GRUYERE DESIRABLE)

2 slices

HAM

1 slice

OIL FOR FRYING

1 tsp

When you got all of this, you should:

put one slice of cheese on one piece of bread

put slice of ham on cheese

put the second slice of cheese

cover it with the second slice of bread

pour oil into a frying-pan and heat it

NOTICE: be attentive when stand near hot frying-pan with heated oil!

put sandwich into frying-pan and fry for three minutes

NOTICE: watch bread not to burn

turn over croquet monsieur and fry it for more three minutes, then put on a dish

NOTICE: When you add to your croque monsieur fried egg, you get croque madam!

Bon appetite!

TARTLET

Tartlet is a kind of sandwich with no bread – there is a little baked basket instead of it. They are made of short dough – word ‘tartlet’ came from French ‘tartelette’ – small pastry. Nowadays they are much more closer to sandwiches than to cakes, although European cookery uses to fill tartlets with sweet fillings.

Tartlets are both nice and simple as they are ready-to-use: you can buy set of them in any grocery. Let’s try to surprise your parents, making tartlets in Slavic style!

For making tartlets with chicken and mushrooms, you need:

SET OF TARTLETS

10 or 12 usually

CHICKEN MEAT

500 g

FIELD MUSHROOMS

300 g

EGGS

3 pieces

ONION

1 piece

MAYONNAISE

2 tbsp

OIL

1½ tbsp

GREEN DILL

2 springs

When everything is ready, you should:

pour 1 liter of water with 1 tsp of salt into a pot

when seethed, put chicken into pot, boil for twenty minutes and then take it from pot and put on a plate

put eggs into another pot, pour 1 liter of water, let them seethe for eight minutes and then put them in a cold water

cut onion finely and mushrooms into cubes of 0.5 centimeter

pour oil into frying-pan and heat it

NOTICE: be careful both with knife and with hot oil!

fry mushrooms with onion for 5 minutes stirring every minute

NOTICE: Mushrooms are blushed and onion becomes transparently yellowish when ready

cut chicken and eggs into cubes of 0.5 centimeter

put chicken, eggs and mushrooms with onion into a plate

add mayonnaise and mix thoroughly

fill tartlets with mixing of chicken, eggs, mushrooms and onion

tear dill springs and strew tartlets

NOTICE: tartlets are delicate so you should serve them in 10-15 minutes

Bon appetite!

HAMBURGER

Hamburger is a high-class of sandwich cookery. It means that we cook it if we have already cooked all other collations of this chapter. I can explain such a severe tone: sandwiches, canapés, etc. are made of READY-TO-USE ingredients whereas hamburger needs TWO steps: first, making burger for it, and second, building the hamburger.

Those who make word ‘hamburger’ of burger and ham are mistaken. This meal came from German immigrants to America. Hamburg is one of the biggest cities of Germany, so people who lived there were called hamburgers. One of them opened it luncheonette serving meat cutlets in rolls. Soon ‘White Castle’ canteen began to sell hamburgers that became its trademark.

Today you can taste hamburgers of McDonald’s, KFC’s and many other fast food restaurants. Doctors consider this meal unhealthy, but it is one of the most popular dishes all over the world. Don’t you mind if we cook classic hamburgers for your family?

For making ‘family’ hamburgers you need:

BREAD ROLLS

3 pieces

MINCED MEAT

400 g

TOMATO

1 piece

PICKLED CUCUMBER

1 piece

VIOLET ONION

1 piece

MAYONNAISE

2 tbsp

KETCHUP

2 tsp

ROMAN LETTUCE

six leaves

OIL (FOR FRYING)

1½ tbsp

SALT

0.5 tsp

PEPPER

0.5 tsp

For cooking and setting hamburgers, you should:

mix minced meat, salt and pepper thoroughly, and form three cutlets

NOTICE: press every cutlet in the centre: they will stay flat when fry

pour oil into a frying-pan and heat it

fry cutlets for five minutes from one side, then turn over and fry for more five minutes from another side

take burgers away from frying-pan and put them on a plate to flow oil down

cut onion and pickled cucumber into thin rings, tomato into six rings

NOTICE: be careful with the knife when cut vegetables!

mix mayonnaise and ketchup

cut bread rolls across

smear lower halves of rolls with ketchup and mayonnaise mix

tear three leaves of lettuce and put onto lower halves of rolls

put some onion rings

place two tomato rings on each half of roll

put burgers, then pickled cucumber rings and cover these with upper halves of rolls

lay dish with the rest of lettuce and put hamburgers on it

NOTICE: if you put a slice of some cheese (cheddar, for example) on a burger you will get cheeseburger

OLIVIER SALAD

Olivier, or Russian salad is a famous dish invented in Russia. This legendary salad associates with New Year: overwhelming majority of Russians makes it especially at this holiday. Its inventor, however, was born in France: Lucien Olivier came to this country as a chef in Moscow restaurant ‘Hermitage’. All visitors ordered this salad, and everybody tried to guess what it consisted of, but with no success.

First Olivier’s recipe was issued in 1894, and there was nothing of the kind of a modern course. Fried hazel-hen, capers, crawfishes, Cabool sauce – have you ever seen them in Russian salad? I haven’t, too; but I’m sure that Olivier’s salad in its usual way is worse not at all. So, let’s make it now!

For Olivier’s, or Russian salad you need:

TINNED GREEN PEAS

1 piece (usually 300-350 g)

EGGS

6 pieces

PICKLED CUCUMBERS

1 piece

(when you have pickled gherkins, take 4 pieces)

CARROTS

2 pieces

MAYONNAISE

150 g