Herring In A Jacket (Herring With Vegetables)

http://www.li.lv/index.php?Itemid=487&id=80&option=com_content&task=view

Ingredients:

• 1 salted herring
• 150g (5.25oz) boiled vegetables (carrot, beetroot, green peas)
• 100g (3.5oz) sour cream
• 10g (0.35oz) horseradish
• salt
• sugar to taste
• spring onions

Directions:

• Soak herring and peel off skin.
• Slice fillet into angled pieces.
• Dice vegetables and arrange to cover a fish plate in a slight mound.
• Arrange the pieces of herring on top of the mound with the points coming together in the centre.
• Mix sour cream, horseradish, salt and sugar and pour diagonally over the herring.
• Spread chopped spring onions.
• Cut hollow cone shapes from a boiled carrot to decorate the centre or one side of the dish.

Pork In Aspic

http://www.li.lv/index.php?Itemid=487&id=80&option=com_content&task=view

Ingredients:

• 1kg (2lb., 3oz) pork
• 50g (1.75oz) flavouring vegetables (onion, carrot, parsley, celery)
• pepper
• bay leaves
• salt

Directions:

• Choose meat from a young, relatively fatty piglet (knuckles and a piece of side or shoulder).
• Chop knuckles in half, cut up the side or shoulder.
• Wash all of the meat.
• Place in a saucepan and add cold water to cover meat.
• Cover saucepan and bring to the boil, skimming off any foam.
• Add peeled flavouring vegetables and salt, then simmer on low heat with the saucepan partly covered.
• Add pepper and bay leaves towards the end of cooking.
• Remove from flame when meat separates easily from the knuckles.
• Remove meat from broth, separate from bone and cut into cubes.
• Strain broth, let it settle, and skim fat from the top.
• Rinse bowls in cold water.
• If you wish for the aspic to have a garlic flavour, add a clove of minced garlic to each bowl.
• Arrange boiled carrot and parsley in the bowls.
• Add meat and pour over broth.
• Place in a cool room to set.
• Before serving, upturn the pork in aspic on a shallow dish.
• Serve with vinegar, mustard and horseradish.
• Veal in aspic is prepared in the same way.

Sorrel Soup

http://www.li.lv/index.php?Itemid=487&id=80&option=com_content&task=view

Ingredients:

• 250g (8.75oz) pork
• 800g (28oz) water
• 300g (10.5oz) sorrel
• 30g (1.05oz) carrot
• 20g (0.7oz) onion
• 10g (0.35oz) parsley
• 20g (0.7 oz)fat
• 20g (0.7oz) pearl barley
• 1-2 eggs
• salt
• sour cream
• dill
• parsley

Directions:

• Soak pearl barley for 6-8 hours in cold water.
• Dice pork.
• Put pork and grits in a saucepan, add water to cover and cook until the meat is almost tender.
• Chop sorrel, onions and carrots and sauté in butter.
• Add sautéed vegetables, parsley and salt to the saucepan, and continue cooking until meat is tender.
• Before serving, sprinkle with chopped dill or parsley and add sour cream.
• You may substitute 200g (7 oz) of diced potato instead of pearl barley.
• Boil potatoes with the meat.
• Steam sorrel separately and add it to the soup when the meat and potatoes are tender.
• Decorate with a boiled egg.

Note:

The dark green sorrel leaf resembles spinach in look and taste. However, sorrel has a lovely tart flavour that can't be replaced in this recipe.

Baked Pork Ribs (With Sautéed Sauerkraut And Boiled Potatoes)

http://www.li.lv/index.php?Itemid=487&id=80&option=com_content&task=view

For 10 people.

Ingredients:

• 1,5-2kg (3.2-4.3lb.) pork (the side, with ribs)
• 50g (1.75oz) onion
• 50g (1.75oz) carrot
• 25g (0.875oz) parsley
• salt
• ground pepper

Directions:

• Make a series of 6-7 cm long cuts diagonally across ribs or cut membrane across each of the ribs, so that meat can be easily divided after roasting.
• Rub with salt and pepper and bake for 1 hour as you would a pork roast.
• If meat is fatty, remove skin and layer of fat.
• After baking, divide into portions (two ribs to each serve), place in a serving bowl, pour over the pan juices and serve with boiled potatoes.

Fish Cooked In Milk (With Boiled Potatoes)

http://www.li.lv/index.php?Itemid=487&id=80&option=com_content&task=view

Ingredients:

• 500g (17.5oz) fish (mackerel, perch, pilchards, etc.)
• 140g (4.9oz) flavouring vegetables (onion, parsley, carrot)
• 260g (9.1oz) milk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• chopped parsley or dill
• salt
• pepper
• bay leaves

Directions:

• Cut fish into pieces, cut onion into rings, coarsely grate carrot, chop parsley.
• Layer fish pieces with vegetables in a saucepan, sprinkling each layer with vegetable oil, salt and pepper.
• Pour over hot milk, add bay leaf and simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Add sour cream at the end of cooking.
• Serve fish with the cooking liquid and boiled potatoes.
• Sprinkle with chopped herbs before serving.

Pea Pats

http://www.eat-online.net/english/cookbook/latvia/pea_pats.htm

Ingredients:

• 200g gray peas
• 100g potatoes
• 1 onion
• 25g smoked bacon
• 50g hemp
• Salt
  

Method:

• Boil soaked peas until they are soft.
• Then mince peas together boiled potatoes.
• Cut smoked bacon in cubes and fry them together with chopped onion.
• Add some salt to the minced peas and prepare smoked bacon and hemp.
• Knead and roll round balls with your hands.
• Dry them up and put in a pottery.
• You can serve them with kefir or buttermilk.

Skābu Kāpostu Zupa (Sauerkraut Soup)

http://www.eat-online.net/english/cookbook/latvia/skabu_kapostu_zupa.htm

This is an ancient latvian food, which is popular today, too.

Ingredients:

• 500g water
• 150g bacon
• 175g sauerkraut
• 15g onions
• 10g carrots
• 5g wheat flour
• 15g tomato mash
• 10g fat
• 15g sour cream
• salt
• greens

Method:

• Put sauercraut in a saucepan, pour a necessary amount of water and boil until it is half-ready.
• Than add chopped pork, fried culinary roots, tomato mash, a little salt and boil until sauerkraut and meet are soft.
• After that add heated up, diluted wheat flour and boil.
• Add some sour cream and chopped greens before severing.

Potato and Wild Mushroom Soup

http://www.europeancuisines.com/Latvia-Latvian-Kartofelny-Sup-s-Gribami-Potato-And-Wild-Mushroom-Soup-Recipe

This soup has one of the most divine aromas while cooking that anyone could wish for. It's also very tweakable: you can substitute whatever kind of wild mushroom suits you best. (We suggest using wild ones, dry or fresh, rather than the plain cultured field or button mushroom: the flavor will suffer if you use the plainer kind.)

Use the best paprika you can find -- Hungarian, preferably, rather than the cheaper Spanish kind -- and a good smoky bacon.

Ingredients:

• 1 ounce imported dried mushrooms (porcini, ceps, etc. Morels would also work, but if using morels alone, use only 1/2 ounce, as their flavor is strong enough to dominate the soup.)
• 5 1/2 cups water
• Salt to taste
• 6 medium-sized Russet potatoes, peeled and cubed (In Europe, go for a floury potato such as a Rooster or Kerr's Pink, rather than a waxy salad variety like Nicola)
• 4 slices bacon, finely diced
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup heavy or whipping cream
• Sweet Hungarian paprika, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Chopped fresh dill for garnish

Directions:

• Soak the mushrooms in 1 cup of the water for 2 hours. Drain the mushrooms: strain their soaking water through a coffee filter and reserve.
• In a large pot, bring the mushrooms, their soaking water, and the remaining water to a boil. Add salt. Reduce to a low heat: cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
• Add the potatoes. Increase heat to medium low: cook until potatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes.
• Remove from the heat. With a slotted spoon, remove the mushrooms. When they are cool enough, chop them very fine. (If you started out with chopped dried mushrooms, obviously this step isn't one you have to worry about.)
• Using the slotted spoon, transfer the potatoes to a food processor. Add a cup of the cooking liquid and puree them. (Or alternately, put them through a food mill, or push them through a sieve with a wooden spoon.)
• Whisk the potatoes back into the cooking liquid in the pot, whisking very thoroughly until no lumps remain. Reduce the heat under the soup to very low.
• In a small skillet, sauté the bacon until the fat runs. Drain off all but a tablespoon of the fat: add the onions and mushrooms and sauté slowly, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is well browned. Just before finishing this process, add the paprika. (This takes off the slightly raw edge that the paprika flavor can have if it's not cooked enough.)
• Turn up the heat under the soup a little. Add the cream and simmer gently for two minutes or so. Do not let the soup boil: you risk the cream "breaking" and curdling. After two minutes, stir in the mushroom, onion and bacon mixture. Season with salt and pepper: simmer for another few minutes.
• Ladle out into bowls, garnish with the fresh dill, and serve with a good wholegrain or rye bread.