Russian Buttermilk Pancakes -- Oladi

I made these a while ago and didn't get to posting them until now. I found the recipe while I was looking for Russian recipes, and could not resist giving these pancakes a try. They feature buttermilk which gives them a creamy texture and great tangy flavor. I served these with butter, sugared lingonberries, sour cream, and drizzled with honey. They make a great breakfast or brunch dish that is quite different from regular pancakes.

Oladi -- Russian Buttermilk Pancakes
recipe from Russian Food for Kiwis

• 4 cups buttermilk
• 10oz/20 tbsp flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Beat the eggs together then whisk in the buttermilk.

In a separate mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, sugar and salt.

Gradually add the flour mixture into the egg and buttermilk and mix well.

Put the mixture through a sieve to remove any lumps. The batter should be dense but liquid.

Heat a flat bottomed pan and melt a little butter or oil to prevent sticking. Slowly pour 5-6 small rounds into the pan. Cook until bubbles start to form on the top of the uncooked side. Flip and cook on the other side until golden, approximately 2 minutes per side.

Put in a tea towel to keep warm until ready to serve.

Oladi are great on their own or with a sweet topping, like jam or honey. For a special treat top with sour cream and caviar. -- end of recipe --


These were delicious and I think they definitely needed the toppings, their texture is new and unexpected in a pancake, they were almost souffle like. The kids enjoyed these with the toppings pictured and also with maple syrup.

If you give these a try I hope you like them! The kids and I always have fun trying new recipes from other countries and I was pleasantly surprised with how much my kids enjoyed these since they kind of look like a typical pancake but taste quite different. I would make these again, especially if we have some buttermilk to use up, which happens somewhat frequently around here :)

Homemade Russian Noodles -- Lapsha

I just had to try this recipe for homemade Russian noodles called lapsha. I love making pasta and dumplings and have never made a noddle like this before. To me they are almost exactly like those frozen Reames Egg Noodles, which I had often growing up. I even froze a couple of freezer bags full of these noodles, uncooked, and then was able to successfully cook them from frozen! What a great item to have on hand in the freezer for those days where you crave a comforting noodle dish.

I had not heard of lapsha before this recipe and did some looking around online trying to figure out what they were supposed to look like and to compare recipes. Some people refer to lapsha as a simple noodle and broth soup, while others specifically called the noodles themselves lapsha. I think that traditional lapsha are thinner, but I just was not able to get those super thin noodles by hand. I even hauled out the pasta roller, but this dough would not cooperate with that at all. Back to the rolling pin, I figured I'd just roll them as thin as I could and cut them with a pizza cutter into rough rustic pasta shapes, and even if they weren't technically perfect lapsha, I tried my best :)

Here are the lapsha ingredients as listed in the recipe:

1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 large eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour (I probably used 6 1/2 - 7 cups of flour total)

Here are the base directions from the recipe:

To a large saucepan, add water and bring to boil.
Add butter to boiled water and let dissolve, whisk well to blend; let cool to warm.
In a large mixing bowl, add salt, eggs and beat well.
Gradually add water/butter mixture to eggs and whisk well to blend.
Add flour to egg mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes.
Cut dough into pieces to form dough balls the size of a medium orange.
Cover dough balls with a damp cloth while rolling out dough.
Using a wooden rolling pin, roll each dough ball until paper thin or as thin as possible.

*I bet you could do the kneading in a large food processor (14 cup), with a stand mixer dough hook, or in the bread machine pan just on the knead cycle -- which is what I did and it worked out well, that way I could keep watching it and adding more flour as needed to get to the right pasta consistency.

I got it a bit thinner than the above photo, below are my rustic lapsha pasta shapes...

After all of the dough was done (this is a big project, you need at least two hours) I knew I wanted cook a small batch of the noodles for lunch but was unsure of what to do with the other noodles, do I dry them? I was a little nervous about drying them with so many eggs in the dough so I decided to dust them very gently with flour and portion them out into ziplock freezer bags.

The noodles we had for lunch were simply amazing, I served them Russian style with butter and sour cream. They had a nice texture and chew to them and were just delicious. I did try a frozen bag of noodles, and much to my surprise they were just as delicious as the ones I cooked fresh, just needed a few extra minutes of cooking time (I'd say about 15 minutes total). I am so happy to have tried these and have a feeling I will be making them again as soon as we run out of the freezer stash. These delicious noodles were my pick for My Kitchen My World -- Russia, if you like trying your hand at new cuisines, come cook along!