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Russian Black Bread Borodinsky Style

Growing up, Russian Black Bread was something that my mom served. I gerw up enjoying eastern Euorpean fare and black bread with borscht, for example, was sometimes on the menu. It’s funny, but its been in the back of my mind to make a russiand black bread since I started making bread regularly. The recipe is very different from regular bread making. It’s a no kneed bread with a very wet flour. Russian black bread is deep, slightly sour, mildly sweet, and intensely rye-flavored. The classic version is Borodinsky bread, made mostly with rye flour, molasses, and coriander seeds. Since I’ve been working with sourdough,I chose to make a naturally fermented version, which is closest to the real thing.

Ingredients

Rye Sour Build (8–12 hrs before)

  • 50 g sourdough starter
  • 100 g dark rye flour
  • 100 g warm water

Mix and let ferment overnight.

Dough

  • All of the rye sour
  • 300 g dark rye flour
  • 50 g bread flour (optional but helps structure)
  • 280 g warm water
  • 2 tbsp molasses
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 tbsp cocoa powder (traditional for color, not chocolate flavor)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp ground coriander
  • 1 tbsp whole coriander seeds (for topping)
  • 1 tsp instant yeast (optional but traditional for lift)

Instructions

1. Mix

Combine everything except the topping seeds.

Important:
Rye dough will feel more like thick batter than wheat dough. That’s normal.

No kneading required.

2. First Rise

Cover and ferment:

  • 2–3 hours at ~75°F

It will rise some but not double.

3. Pan It

This bread must be baked in a loaf pan.

  • Grease a pan
  • Scrape dough in
  • Smooth top with wet spatula
  • Sprinkle whole coriander seeds

4. Final Proof

Let rise until slightly puffy:

45–60 minutes

5. Bake

Bake at:

375°F / 190°C

For 45–55 minutes

Internal temp should reach about 205°F.

6. The Hard Part: Wait 😄

Wrap the bread in a towel and let it rest 12–24 hours before slicing.

This allows the crumb to set properly, otherwise it can be gummy.

It turned out perfectly. It was deliciously sour and has that beautiful fragrance of teh coriander and lovely rye flavor. Heather when tasting it said, “THAT is Russian Black Bread.”

Tiramasu

Whenver I go out for dessert, my go to is to order tiramasu becuase it’s not too sweet. I am not a sweet dessert guy at all. That said, I LOVE tiramasu. I made the decision to make it since it is one of my favorite desserts and after I made the Death by Chocololate cake for Heather, I felt that she needed a new cake to enjoy. It s urprisingly easy thing to make. It’s basically an egg whipping thing. You do need top quiality lady fingers, so I picked up a sleeve of Bonobi Italian lady fingers and I was off.

It’s really pretty easy to make, taking no more than about 45 minutes. The time after it’s built is all waiting till you finish with the chocolate just before serving.

Ingredients (8–10 servings)

Mascarpone cream

  • 6 large egg yolks
  • ¾ cup sugar (150 g)
  • 1½ cups mascarpone (340 g), cold
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • pinch salt
  • 4 egg whites
  • 2 tbsp sugar (extra)

Soaking mixture

  • 1½ cups strong espresso (cooled)
  • 3 tbsp dark rum or Marsala (optional but recommended)

Structure

  • 2 packages savoiardi (ladyfingers)

Finish

  • high-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
  • optional: shaved dark chocolate

Whisk together:

  • egg yolks
  • ¾ cup sugar

Place over a barely simmering double boiler.

Whisk constantly 6–8 minutes until:

  • pale
  • thick
  • tripled in volume
  • leaves ribbons when lifted

Remove from heat and cool slightly.

Whisk in:

  • vanilla
  • salt
  • mascarpone (one spoonful at a time)

Result: smooth, glossy cream.

Step 2 — Whip the Egg Whites

Whip whites to soft peaks.

Add remaining 2 tbsp sugar gradually.

Whip to medium peaks (not stiff).

Fold gently into mascarpone mixture.

Now you have the classic airy tiramisu cream.

Step 3 — Prepare the Espresso Dip

Combine:

  • espresso
  • rum or Marsala

Dip each ladyfinger 1 second per side only

They should soften—but hold shape.

Step 4 — Assemble the Layers

In order:

Layer 1: soaked ladyfingers
Layer 2: mascarpone cream
Repeat once more

Smooth top layer carefully.

Cover and refrigerate minimum 6 hours
(best overnight)

This rest time is what transforms good tiramisu into unforgettable tiramisu.

to make it look like world class tiramisu I froze it for 75 min before cutting with a hot knife to serve.

Pesto Chicken Fettuccine 

When I mastered pasta, I felt like my fettuccine was perfection. Then I learned about Hayden Flour Mills and their Pasta Flour. the bite is perfection. I use one whole egg and 3 egg yolks to make the pasta in about a cup of flour. After it rests in the fridge for about a half hour, I run it through the press to the 4th press which gives the best bite for my taste. To prepare the chicken, I use a technique that I saw on Chopped, when a Chinese chef boiled the breast to keep it moist, and once I mastered it, it totally works. I put the chicken in the water till the exterior is fully cooked, then I slice it across the grain, drop it into the water and as soon as it is cooked take it out. It really does make a beautifully moist breast.

The ingredients i use are:

  • Chopped shallot
  • Several cloves of finely chopped garlic
  • A good pinch of red pepper flakes
  • an inch of finely chopped ginger (optional)
  • A tub of gfresh pesto.
  • The zest of one lemon

The process is to cook the shallots and red pepper flakes till they are soft, add the garlic and ginger and a ladel of pasta water when its ready. the pasta needs to be cooking at this time because the pesto does not like heat that much. Get the pesto mixed to a nice consitency, then drop the chicken into the pan making sure the pesto covers it. Add the pasta into the pan once it has boiled for a minute. You need to judge if you ened another ladel of pasta water do get it nice and glossy. Mix the zest and serve onto warm plates. It is a fantastic dish. Very moreish.

Brolloli Gruyere Soup

When I got the Modernest Cuisine At Home cookbook, I was overwhelmed. Bringing science into the kitchen was very exciting to me. I grew up with pressure cookers, so that was not a big reach for me as a tool, but I never had access to a chinois, using a fine sieve instead. We recently got a chiniois, and I have to say, it is a game changer. If you like smooth sauces and soups, get one immediately because it will change your life.

There are a few steps to making this dish, which will absolutely blow your mind.

First, you need broccoli. Trimmed, you need 500g, I find its about 3 heads of broccoli. You need to trim the brocolii down to floweretts, making sure to set a fair number of them to one side for later.

Then you need gruiyere cheese grated, in this recipe you need 40 grams. It’s not a good idea to overdo the cheese.

You need chicken stock, or my preference is chicken bone stock, but you priobably need about 2 cups worth to get the soup the texture you like.

The magic happens in the pressure cooker

To begin, you need a half cup of unsalted butter, 30 grams of water, 5 grams of salt and 2.5 g of baking soda.

Melt the butter in the pressure cooker, add the water, baking soda and salt that you have mixed, then add the brocoli, other than the floweretts you saved, put the lid on, and bring it to 1 bar of pressure for 20 minutes. When its cooked, cool it and take the lid off.

While its cooking you need to fry the saved flwoeretts till they are bright green. It works great when the oil temperature is around 200 F. They get bright green quickly so pay attention then let them drain on a paper towel.

You also need to roast and chop hazelnuts and strip the leaves off of thyme stalks.

Back to the pressure cooker.

Use and immersion blender, and blend the cooked broccoli. This works with just 30g of water because the water content of the broccoli allows it to cook correctly.

Add chicken stock till you are satisfied with the consitency.

Then run it all through the chenois.

Bring it to a good simmer adding the cheese and chicken stock as needed till you are happy with the consistency.

Serve it with the broccoli, hazelnuts and trhyme leaves as illustrated. We also make garlic bread out of toasted bagettes that I rub a clove of garlic over.

It is an absolutely the best dish of soup I have ever had in my 67 years on the planet.

Fresh Artichoke Salad

One of my favorite movies is Chef, now there is a show on Netflix by the same title, where they do the thing they did in the movie to show how great food is made. In one episode, the made a fresh artichoke salad. I love artichokes, so this got my attention.

Basically, you strip artichokes to the heart, we used 3, then slice them extremely thinly, and drop them into lemon water. After that, you make a lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and fresh parmegan dressing and let it sit in the dressing ager its been tossed for about 5 minutes before eating. It is the perfect accompiament to our Pesto Chickenn Fettucine dinner.

Chicken Vindaloo

vindaloo is a bold, authentic Goan-style spicy curry—tangy from vinegar, deep with garlic and spices, and properly hot (but adjustable). This version stays true to its Portuguese-Goan roots: no tomatoes, no cream, no sugar unless you intentionally balance heat at the end.

It begins with the marinade. First using these ingredients:

For the Vindaloo Paste

  • 8 dried Kashmiri chilies (or 4 Kashmiri + 2–4 Thai chilies for extra heat) 🌶️
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 1 tbsp fresh ginger
  • 1½ tsp cumin seeds
  • 1 tsp coriander seeds
  • 6 black peppercorns
  • 4 cloves
  • 1-inch cinnamon stick
  • ½ tsp turmeric
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar

They all go into the food processor and make a thick paste that you marinate the chicken in. I prefer bone in thighs, so I skinned them, cleaned the fat off and chopped them into pieces before applying the marinade. They sat in the marinade in the fridge overnight. Thats the best way! Then in the morning, I chopped a big onion and caramlized it before adding just half of a roma tomato chopped to help build the sauce. I added the chicken and browned it a little before adding some broth and half a bottle of spicy vondaloo sauce before letting the whole lot simmer on a very low heat all day.

What happens is that the first flavor you smell is the vinegar. The vinegar-forward aroma is exactly what you want at this early stage. It means the dish is still in its early vindaloo phase—sharp, bright, and angular. Over the next few hours it will round out as:

  • garlic sweetens
  • onions dissolve into the sauce
  • chili deepens
  • fat emulsifies
  • acidity integrates

Vindaloo almost always smells too sharp midway through a long cook—and then turns magical later. Its pretty hot and so that will be the thing I watch. We like it hot, bet too hot is not good either.

Naturally, when you make curry, you make smosas. These are potato and peas with chicken vindaloo

Classic Spaghetti Bolognese (Ragù alla Bolognese)

Spaghetti Bolognese is a comfort dish for me. It’s pretty easy, uses a few ingredients and tastes delicious. It’s very moreish. To make classic spaghetti bologneses, you use:

Soffritto base

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 1 medium onion, finely diced
  • 6 cloves of galric finely chopped
  • 1 carrot, finely diced
  • 1 celery stalk, finely diced

Meat layer

  • 1 lb ground beef (80/20 ideal)
  • 4 oz pancetta (finely chopped)

Liquids & body

  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 can crushed tomatoes

Flavor depth

  • Salt
  • Black pepper
  • Pinch nutmeg
  • 1 bay leaf
  • Pinch of red pepper flakes

To finish

  • 1 lb spaghetti
  • Fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano
  • Extra butter (magical)

Method (the secret is patience)

1. Build the soffritto

Cook onion, carrot, celery in olive oil + butter over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes.

They should soften—not brown.

This creates the signature sweetness of real ragù.

Add the red pepper flakes here.

2. Add pancetta, then beef

Cook pancetta 2–3 minutes.

Add beef, break it up finely, cook until just browned.

Season lightly with salt and pepper.

3. Deglaze with wine

Add white wine.

Simmer until almost completely evaporated.

This removes harshness and adds aroma.

4. Add milk

Pour in milk and simmer gently until mostly absorbed.

This step makes the sauce silky and mellow, not acidic.

Add a pinch of nutmeg here.

5. Add tomatoes

Stir in crushed tomatoes and bay leaf.

Reduce heat to very low.

Simmer uncovered 1½–2½ hours.

Stir occasionally.

If it dries out, add a splash of water or stock.

6. Cook pasta + finish

Boil spaghetti in salted water.

Reserve ½ cup pasta water.

Toss pasta with sauce and a knob of butter.

Add pasta water if needed for gloss.

Finish with Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Magic on a plate

Focaccia

I have been wanting to make Focaccia for a whlie now. Watching the 2019 series of the Great British Baking Show inspired me. Giuseppe Dell’Anno, who won the show, made a fantastic focaccia and that is what got me going. To make my first focaccia, I used

  • 500 g of bread flour
  • 320–340ml warm water (increase slightly)
  • 50ml warm milk
  • 7g instant yeast
  • 4g sugar
  • 10g salt
  • 40 g olive oil

Its a wet dough, so it rests for 45 min, then I stretch and fold, and repeat that several times (30-45 min rests) then it goes into the oiled pan and into the fridge covered for about 7 hours. After that, it comes out for an hour before it gets dimpled and topped, in this case with kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and garlic with a litle rosemary and flake salt for seasoning

This was a home run!

Samosa

When I was a kid, I loved when we had samousas. Since we have all these Indian stores in our neighborhood, we have access to any ingredient needed in that realm. One day, I went to the local grocery store and in their delly they had samousas, so I tried one. It wasn’t bad at all, but it was not quite the taste I was used to. So, I set about making samousas!

I started with making a ground beef stuffing with peas, garlic, ginger and onion. The spice I mainly used was garum masala and some red chili powder along with cumin and cardemom. I also used cumin seeds along with cilantro, lemon juice and jalapeno peppers. After I cooked that up, I put it in the fridge to cool, then set about learning how to make the dough to make Samousa.

It’s an enriched dough made with peanut oil and the secret ingredient are the Ajwin seeds.

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt 1–2 tbsp oil (or melted ghee) ~
  • ¾ cup water (as needed)
  • Extra flour for dusting
  • 1/4 tea spoon of Ajwain seeds.

The secret to this dough is to get it together, let it rest a while then divide it into seperate balls, (I used 50 g), keep them coivered, then roll each one out as thin as possible, around a 1mm thickness. Once rolled, it gets dropped on the hot plate for 15 sec a side then layed out under a cuver to keep it moist.

Once rolled out and cooked briefly on each side, you use the pizza cutter to cut rectangles. Then, make a four paste for glueing the sides before folding. To fold, make a pocket. Fill without over filling, seal the pocket and set aside, covered.WHen all the samousa are made, they go in the freezer till its time to fry.

Nest is the oil. I used peanut oil and tried the first batch in the wok, which got too hot. They tasted great, but I needed to get better control of the heat. So, I went to a sauce pan with a candy thermometer, and did these at 350.

They really need to be at 300 first then finished at 350

These are MUCH better, also delicious, but I still do not have the blistering I am looking for. Next time!

Here are the potato and peas with chicken vindaloo version

Bonsai Burgers

It starts with the sauce.

Classic Teriyaki Sauce (Restaurant-Style)

Ingredients

  • ½ cup soy sauce
  • ¼ cup mirin (or substitute below)
  • ¼ cup sake (or water/stock)
  • 2–3 tbsp sugar (adjust to taste)
  • 1–2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp fresh ginger, grated

Instructions

  1. Add everything to a small saucepan.
  2. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat.
  3. Stir until sugar dissolves.
  4. Let it simmer 5–8 minutes until slightly reduced.
  5. For a thicker glaze: mix 1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp water, stir in, and simmer another minute.

Dial it in like a pro:

1. The Patty

  • Salt & pepper right before cooking (not too early)
  • Cook hot → get that crust
  • Brush with your teriyaki sauce in the last minute so it caramelizes

2. The Pineapple (this is clutch)

  • Grill or pan-sear until caramelized
  • Light brush of teriyaki while cooking = 🔥
  • You want edges slightly charred, not just warm

3. The Cheese Move

  • Cheddar works great, but melt it after glazing the burger
    → gives you that sticky, glossy, lava situation

4. The Bun (don’t skip this)

  • Toast your brioche in butter
  • Light swipe of teriyaki on the bottom bun for flavor layering or
  • Add a thin smear of mayo + a touch of teriyaki + lime juice