Saturday 28 February 2009

Russian cranberry kvas

Polish: żurawina
Mari: турнявӧчыж
Hungarian: tőzegáfonya
Inupiaq: qunmun asriaq
Lithuanian: Spanguolė
Ukrainian: журавлина
Karelian: karpalo
Vepsian: garbol
Estonian: jõhvikas
Frisian: feanbei

My today's hero is cranberry. This red small round fruit is actually even called a superfruit due to its nutrient content and antioxidant qualities. Three huge northern countries use this fruit in an interesting way. Canada and USA have their cranberry sauce, muffins, compotes, jellies, cakes and wine, while Russians... well I think I discovered only a low percent of Russian cranberry recipes, besides cranberry kissel all of them are exotic and worth trying, just imagine: cranberry-vegetables-fish cold soup, differrent vegetable salads with cranberries, fish or chicken baked with cranberies, cranberry-wheat drink, patties with cranberry filling, cranberry pancakes, cranberry meringue, cranberry infusion and so on... I will surely try some of them, especially because I adore cranberries but I usually only eat dried cranberries as a snack or buy cranberry ice cream, and because my first meeting with Russian cranberry recipes was successful. I made cranberry kvas (квас клюквенный).

1 kg (fresh, not dried!) cranberries
500 gr sugar
40 gr yeast
5 l water

Wash berries carefully, set in a saucepan and pour boiling water over them. Boil until berries break up. Separate friots from the water. Take 1 cup of cranberry water and mix with yeast to dissolve it. Add sugar and a cup with dissolved yeast to the rest of cranberry water. Set aside for several days until bubbles appear.



After that, pour kvas into bottles and store in a cool place few days before drinking.

8 comments:

Agata Chmielewska (Kurczak) said...

też bardzo lubię żurawinę, znaczy suszoną, bo świeżych owoców nie miałam okazji nigdy próbować
suszoną żurawinę dodaje do zapiekanki ryżowo-twarogowej (zamiast rodzynek), do ryżu z orzechami, zreszta do wielu dań z orzechami ;)

Tra La La Boom De Ay said...

Wonderful recipe. I would have never thought to use cranberries this way. My favorite cranberry recipe, made at Christmas is Cranberry nut loaf. It is soooo good!

Ewa said...

Aga-aa, zapiekanka ryżowo-twarogowa z żurawiną brzmi smakowicie! Czy przepis znajdę na Twoim blogu? A co do świeżej żurawiny, to na przełomie lata i jesieni jest tego zawsze sporo u mnie na bazarku osiedlowym, a powiem Ci, że nawet dziś jedna babka sprzedawała żurawinę! Czasem nawet można kupić świeżą żurawinę w marketach. Spróbuj poszukać!

Cherie, I had no idea what a cranberry nut loaf can be until I asked my friend google. It looks tasty, could you maybe recommend me a good recipe?

Anonymous said...

Wow So now, I'm COMPLETELY in love with your blog. This looks fantastic.

Ewa said...

Hello and welcome to my blog and I am so glad that you liked it :)

DSchwartz78 said...

This sounds like a Lithuanian Cranberry Cider recipe I have that i want to try out. But I have a question: what kind of yeast do you use for this? I made a bread cider recently and used the cultivated yeast from the stout dregs from my Girlfriend's brewing, and I got some very active yeast that blew half the contents of the bottle across the kitchen. So do you use just regular bread making yeast?

Meg Capalini said...

I lived in Siberia (Irkutsk oblst') much of the '90s and we went cranberry picking in the summer (as well as other berries and mushrooms), but I never heard of cranberry kvas. Where I was they had bread kvas and another kind made of some kind of mold/starter. I'll have to try this for sure!

Ewa said...

David, I use regular bread yeast, yes. I was making bread kvas and beet kvas too, everytime with simple bread yeast. My greatgrandmum was making it same way (using dried hops infusion, red beets, sugar beets, sugar and bread yeast... I'll have to try it and post the recipe!) In Poland and Russia this kind of drinks were made from everything, including carrots, rowan berries, honey, ginger, caraway...) I am so curious about your Lithuanian Cranberry Cider recipe! Please share it!

@Malyme, bread kvas is the most popular, other kvas are old-fashioned and rarely made today. If you try this one, please let me know, cause I absolutely loved its taste!