Petersburg Cuisine

Menu of the Lunch Held at the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad on August 15, 1935 during the 15th International Physiological Congress.

Leningrad. 1935.

Color lithograph. 25.8x22.8, folded 25.8x11.5 cm.

Dish Recipes

Slavic Salmon Fillets

Cooking rules

Marinate salmon fillets as indicated (926) for four hours, then put them in a saucepan, pour over strong beef broth (37) and put in a hot oven; when the fish is half cooked, remove the skin, sprinkle with glaze and put back in the oven, glaze and pour fish juice until the salmon is browned and fry until cooked, then remove to a plate, garnish with champignons, small onions and crayfish necks, then strain the juice, remove the fat and, having boiled it with a part of the red sauce, pour it over the salmon.

Crayfish Sauce

Cooking rules

Dilute hot roux with boiling fish broth, add thin cream and all crushed shells left after cooking crayfish butter. Having reduced the sauce until the density of sour cream, strain it through a muslin or a rare napkin. Break eggs, separate yolks into a pan, add ready-made crayfish butter to them (how to cook crayfish butter, see the general entry on sauces - various butters) and incorporate the strained sauce into this liaison in the same way as with ordinary yolks and butter mixture, i.e. pour the sauce into the liaison. Before serving, add lemon juice, cayenne pepper to the sauce to taste and dip the peeled boiled crayfish neck into it. This sauce is served with fish dishes.

Explanations and notes

Crayfish shells. When reducing the sauce, add shells left over from cooking the crayfish butter to it in order to give it more crayfish taste.

Broth. For crayfish sauce, you need to take thin broth, because strong one will take away the taste of crayfish.

Crayfish butter. Crayfish butter is combined with the yolks so that it does not separate from the sauce and float to the surface.

Tea Parfait

Cooking rules

Take green tea 1/8 Russian pound, brew it very strong (1 teaspoon per ½ cup boiling water), do not let it boil so that the aroma does not evaporate. Then beat off 3 yolks in a saucepan, pour in ⅜ Russian pound of fine sugar, stir and pour strained infusion tea - only ½ cup, put on the stove and boil a very thick mixture, much thicker than for ice cream (the density of good sour cream). Then cool it and combine with ½ bottle of separately whipped heavy cream. It is necessary to slowly add the cream to the liaison and continue to whip with a whisk. Having made the parfait in this way, put it in a parfait mold and cover it with ice and salt for 2 hours. This proportion is sufficient for 5 people. In exactly the same way, you can make parfait from coffee, chocolate, pistachios and other products.