Smelt. A fish of the salmon family often served tossed in flour and fried. Fresh from the water, they are said to smell like cucumber.
An elaborate hot brioche or puff pastry pie filled with layers of sturgeon, salmon, or sometimes chicken, rice, cream and buckwheat or semolina with dill, other herbs, hard boiled eggs and mushrooms. For authenticity this dish should contain vesiga, the dried spinal marrow of sturgeon.
Fly agaric. A type of mushroom, the classic red with white spots. Famous for its psychoactive hallucinogenic properties this is the magic mushroom and is actually poisonous to eat.
Lovage. A large unwieldy herb. Pick the stems off the leaves, tie them and hang them to dry for about 3 days. When crisp, crumble the leaves and store. Good in hotpots. Lovage seeds are used mainly in Indian cooking, and are from a plant of the caraway family. The greenish-brown seeds are a little larger than celery seeds and have a strong aroma of rather coarse thyme. Oregano can be substituted.
An elaborate hot brioche or puff pastry pie filled with layers of sturgeon, salmon, or sometimes chicken, rice, cream and buckwheat or semolina with herbs, hard boiled eggs and mushrooms or soft roes, brains; really any good and delicious ingredient that is available. For authenticity this dish should contain vesiga, the dried spinal columns, containing the marrow of sturgeon.
