Happy Holidays! I’m away for the rest of the year, but I have my usual present for you! Here’s a selection of recipes from this year’s posts that are guaranteed to be hits at the holiday table:
- Start yourself off with a Karelian Balsam Cocktail. Riga Balsam is an acceptable substitute, and you can conjure up the power of The Internet to find some.
- If you want to continue with the Russian theme, check out Forshmak, the Improbable Soviet Jewish Dish for an elegant appetizer, then my Stroganoff Pie for some comfort food. Aren’t you glad you’re reading a Russian food blog?!
- I love duck. If you do too, try some Czech Smoked Duck Magret and Red Cabbage Cappuccino with Truffle Foam, followed by a Czech Roast Duck, Knedlík, and Quince Stew. This is also a Czech food blog.
- If you’d rather be transported to Montenegro for the space of a meal, consider this Montenegrin Cheese Mousse, Peach Sauce and Walnuts, and Njeguški Stek, Montenegro’s Unsung National Dish. This is a Montenegrin food blog too!
- For dessert, I strongly recommend my Siberian Bird Cherry Cake and Lingonberry-Dill Sundae – or, if you prefer, my Rigó Jancsi. After all, this is still a Hungarian food blog.
Then there are this year’s most popular posts, which rarely intersect with my personal holiday recommendations, but which I love just as much:
- My Somlói Galuska, Hungarian Dessert Dumplings, continues its irresistible ascension. It’s my most visited page this year! It’s no longer the top result when you google “somlói galuska,” since The Spruce Eats published their own recipe a few months ago, and obviously they have a lot more clout than me. But I’d still pick my recipe over theirs any day, and I’m 100% unbiased, of course.
- Bosanski Lonac, Bosnia’s National Dish, is a newcomer to this Top 5. Looking at the stats, it must have been mentioned somewhere online, and this brought me a ton of clicks. Hopefully, this will turn into a perennial trend.
- Bosnian Ćevapi with Kajmak, Ajvar, and Lepinja slips from last year’s second place. Yet I can’t tell you enough how great this recipe is. Between this and the lonac, I guess I can call Food Perestroika a Bosnian food blog now!
- Qurutob, Tajikistan’s National Dish, though no longer my top post, remains a solid contender. And how often do you get to try Tajik food?
- Pelmeni, Siberian Meat Dumplings, aren’t exactly the most exotic dish out there, but mine is an excellent recipe. Some days I wonder if I should publish a recipe for orange juice as my ticket to stardom…
And with that, I’ll see you in 2020. Next year will be Food Perestroika’s 10th birthday. How should I celebrate? Send me your suggestions!
Previous years:
Happy Holidays 2018
Happy Holidays 2017
Happy Holidays 2016
Happy Holidays 2015
Happy Holidays 2014
Happy Holidays 2013
Happy Holidays 2012
Happy Holidays 2011
(Photo credit for featured picture of Vlad: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, Viktor Zharkov, and Yevgeny Gorlov, research associates at the Zuyev Institute of Atmospheric Optics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, laureates of the Presidential Prize in science and innovation for young scientists, after an award ceremony at Moscow’s Kremlin. 02/07/2019. Mikhail Metzel/TASS.)