Eastern European

Quickly shallow-frying chicken halves locks in their juices and yields crispy, golden-brown skin. Serve them with garlicky potatoes, fried shallots, and dill.

This one-pot stew takes its cues from chicken paprikash. Cooking low and slow is the key to getting deep flavor—and ensuring the potatoes are creamy and the chicken is pull-apart tender.

Aranygaluska—also called golden dumpling cake, butter puffs, and monkey bread—has been extolled by Jewish immigrants from Hungary for years.

This late-night snack, popular in outdoor kiosks across Poland, is an Eastern European cousin to French-bread pizza, built on a savory base of sautéed mushrooms.

This classic Polish soup is the ultimate in summer refreshment.

These herbaceous pickles combine spicy ginger with bright dill. Although cucumbers are classic, cherry tomatoes or green beans would also work well in this brine.

Serve up the Polish pair as a hearty soup.

I originally designed this recipe for wild snow geese, and because many of California's snow geese spend their summers on Wrangel Island, near Siberia, it seemed fitting to give the stew a Russian feel. But of course the legs of any goose or duck, wild or domesticated, will work here. It's important to remove the meat from the bones before you serve this stew, otherwise everyone will be picking through their bowls for small, sharp objects. It takes only a few minutes, and your family and friends will thank you for it. This stew keeps well in the fridge for a week, though the grain in it will continue to swell over time, absorbing moisture and making this more like a French potage. It also freezes well.

Mom's Russian "Hamburgers" Kotleti for lunch, kotleti for dinner, kotleti of beef, of pork, of fish, of chicken—even kotleti of minced carrots or beets. The entire USSR pretty much lived on these cheap, delicious fried patties, and when comrades didn't make them from scratch, they bought them at stores. Back in Moscow, Mom and I harbored a secret passion for the proletarian, six-kopek variety produced by the meat-processing plant named after Stalin's food supply commissar, Anastas Mikoyan. Inspired by his 1936 trip to America, Mikoyan wanted to copy Yankee burgers in Russia, but somehow the bun got lost in the shuffle and the country got hooked on mass-produced kotleti instead. Deliciously greasy, petite, and with a heavy industrial breading that fried up to a wicked crunch, Mikoyan factory patties could be scarfed down by the dozen. Wild with nostalgia, Mom and I tried a million times to recreate them at home, but no luck: some manufactured treats just can't be duplicated. So we always reverted back to Mom's (far more noble) homemade version. Every ex-Soviet cook has a special trick for making juicy, savory patties. Some add crushed ice, others tuck in pats of butter or mix in a whipped egg white. My mother likes her kotleti Odessa-style (garlicky!), and adds mayo as binding instead of the usual egg, with delightful results. The same formula works with ground turkey or chicken or fish. Buckwheat kasha makes a nostalgic Russian accompaniment. Ditto thin potato batons slowly pan-fried with onions in lots of butter or oil. I love cold kotleti for lunch the next day, with some dense dark bread, hot mustard, and a good crunchy dill pickle.

Wiśniówka "Life is dandy, cherry brandy!" So goes a line from a poem by Russian writer Osip Mandelstam—meant to be ironic, of course, as he lived in the darkest days of Stalinism and died in the Gulag. Cherry brandy, cherry vodka, cherry liqueurs: These are the obvious consequence of Eastern Europe's famous and abundant cherry orchards, of which there are just as many in Poland as there are in provincial Russia. Do note that this recipe works for any kind of fruit that is not too sweet. In particular it is worth trying with black currants or Polish jagody—wild blueberries—if you can find them. The quantities given here are for a 34-oz/1-L jar, but do reduce them (or increase them!) in proportion to the bottle you are using.

Is it a dumpling or a noodle? Spaetzle, the beloved dish of Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, and the Swiss, is infinitely easier to make than it is to classify. While some spaetzle dishes are cheesy and rich, this version is lightened with fresh herbs—a lot of them.

During the late nineteenth century, as part of their Protestant beliefs, the Templers arrived in Jerusalem from Europe and established the German colony, a picturesque little neighborhood southwest of the Old City that to this day feels unusually central European. This is the "civilized" part of town, where you go for a coffee and a slice of Sacher torte if you wish to escape the harsh Levantine reality. Germanic influences on the city's food are evident in Christian contexts—the famous Austrian hospice at the heart of the Old City serves superb strudels and proper schnitzels—but Czech, Austrian, Hungarian, and German Jews arriving in the city from the 1930s have also managed to stamp their mark, opening cafés and bakeries serving many Austro-Hungarian classics. Duvshanyot, round iced cookies, made with honey and spices, typically for Rosh Hashanah, are possibly a result of this heritage; they are similar to Pfeffernüsse. These are very loosely inspired by duvshanyot, or Pfeffernüsse. They are actually more closely related to an Italian spice cookie and are hugely popular on the sweet counter at Ottolenghi over Easter and Christmas. The recipe was adapted from the excellent The International Cookie Cookbook by Nancy Baggett.

This appetizer is a total fake-out and a lot of fun to serve. Ellen and Portia absolutely loved these the first time I served them. They both had fond memories attached to caviar, and this recipe brought back those fun times without compromising their vegan diet. Serve these little morsels with a glass of Champagne and share them with some cool friends.

This dish calls for purple globe eggplants. Instead of cooking them over an open flame, you can use the oven: Place the eggplants on a shallow baking pan, and place under the broiler. Broil, turning the eggplants every 5 minutes, until the skin is blackened all over and the flesh is falling-apart tender, 20 to 30 minutes.

Richly colored with paprika, this traditional Hungarian entrée is full bodied and satisfying. It goes well with Balsamic-Marinated Vegetables (page 78).

An Old World comfort dish without the work, these pork chops pair nicely with whole-grain noodles and steamed brussels sprouts.

Tortes are common throughout central Europe, and Dobos is a popular one, named for the Hungarian chef who invented it in 1887.

Fresh sour cherries usually appear in farmers’ markets in early July, but the season is short—about three weeks. If you can’t find fresh sour cherries, substitute two pounds of frozen ones; defrost before using. To make the strudel, you’ll need a large, clean cloth and a work surface that you can easily walk around, such as an island or your kitchen table.

Fanciful peaks in a spectrum of shades crown cupcakes with a motif inspired by a vintage Russian cookbook. You could also opt to use just one color of frosting, or leave it untinted. White cupcakes, made with egg whites only (instead of whole eggs), are very light and delicate. For a stronger vanilla flavor, scrape the seeds of one vanilla bean (halved lengthwise) into the milk in step one, and omit vanilla extract.

By curious circumstance, I found myself in Vienna in 1968, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and just over a decade after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. I was there for the International Philosophical Congress, which didn’t hold my interest long. There was much more to see and experience outside the confines of academia. Aside from the eternal beauty of Vienna as a center for music, the fine arts, and fine pastries, the streets were filled with people—Czechs as well as Hungarians—who had taken refuge in the welcoming city following the invasion of their countries. The energizing buzz over the politics of the time was everywhere, expressed in Czech, Russian, Hungarian Magyar (a language unrelated to nearly all other European languages and incomprehensible to ears unfamiliar with it), and in other tongues as well. But, as always, the food served as a binding, cohesive force. The city’s dining establishments, casual bistros and more formal restaurants alike, were filled with east Europeans, Viennese locals, and tourists like me, all looking for something good to eat. In addition to the impossible-to-resist Viennese fare, there were many Hungarian dishes which had become a familiar part of Viennese cooking. That is when and where I discovered the essential tastes and food combinations of east European cuisine, and, more important, that no matter what, food of the homeland is never left behind.

The familiar Polish sausage known as kielbasa was introduced to American cuisine in the neighborhoods of Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, where many Polish immigrants settled during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nowadays, kielbasa is widely produced commercially and is marketed to food purveyors nationwide. It is usually smoked and sandwiched in a hot dog bun, tucked into a hearty cabbage borscht, or added to a robust sauerkraut dish (page 46). That is not the whole story, however. Kielbasa is actually the generic term for sausage in Polish and there are many versions. I prefer a fresh, not smoked, sausage, but with a hint of ham to suggest a smoky flavor.

These leaf-shaped chrusciki (khroost-CHEE-kee) are adapted from Martha’s mother’s classic Polish recipe. The dough is kneaded for a while, to incorporate lots of air into it and keep the finished cookies light and delicate. If you’re storing fried cookies, wait until just before serving to dust them with confectioners’ sugar.