Alex's Kitchen

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 mayo

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 mayo

cut bread rolls across

smear lower halves of rolls with ketchup and mayo

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