Picture of the missus getting me a topup
Downloaded the music from Fiddler on the Roof
OK what bastard stole me skipping rope?
Dr Zhivago
Picture of me after my fifth vodka
Kalinka
Picture of my guests (the vicar is the second from the left) after their ninth vodka
and many many hours worth of Balalaika music.
Picture of the band I hired, playing their balalaikas. Note the dude at the front, who is playing a balalaika fashioned out of a Vulcan Bomber
We started with Russian Salad, on the basis that this could only be attempted on an empty stomach apart, that is, from a few shots of below-freezing vodka and the odd fistful of sour cream flavoured pretzels.
Here's the recipe I used:
Ingredients:
Potatoes diced and boiled
More Potatoes
Carrots diced and boiled
Diced Gherkins
Cooked Peas
Hard boiled eggs
More gherkins
Chopped onion
Yet more Potatoes
The meat off some boiled chicken
Chopped Parsley
More fecking gherkins
A generous amount of salt & pepper
An indecent amount of mayonnaise
Method
Mix it all up together in a cement mixer and upend it into a bowl of some robust construction (an Egyptian sarcophagus comes to mind)
I'm just about to fill the bowl with my Russian Salad
With the aid of a forklift truck, place bowl on a raised concrete plinth in the middle of your dining room.
HANDY TIP: Do make sure your House Insurance includes Russian Salad Subsidence Cover
We served it with thin slices of hot toasted rye bread, and I have to say, it was pretty damn good, although part of that might have been the vodka talking.
Next course: A soup made with spicy sausage, paprika, fried gherkins, roast peppers, sour cream, and fresh lemon slices. This was also pretty good.
Main course: BIG MISTAKE. A hefty beef, barley & gherkin soup that I made even heftier and turned into a stew, served with red cabbage, sour cream, and fresh dill.
Picture of me serving the stew. I haven't yet garnished the finished dish with dill, so it stills looks a little peasant-like
I think the Russian salad was catching up with us all by now, but we tried to stay ahead of it by upping our vodka intake. In my defence, can I just say that at the time, this made complete sense.
One of my more sober guests asking for another drop of vodka to wash down the stew
Dessert.
At about 11.30, I staggered over to the cooker and tried to make Syrniki: little pancakes made out of Russian curd cheese, flour, eggs, nutmeg and sugar. And also gherkins.
I made that last bit up.
This is what they are supposed to look like
"Use cottage cheese if you can't get Russian curd cheese" the recipe said cheerfully. It also said to roll the resultant dough into golf balls, flatten them, flour them and fry. However, as the dough I managed to make in my vodka, gherkin and Balalaika-induced haze was the consistency of lumpy sick, the rolling was a tad messy, and the frying set off the smoke alarm.
Result: some oddly shaped lumpy, greasy, burnt pancakey looking things, which I served with gherkins and vodka. No, sorry, that should read red fruit compote and cream.
This is what they actually looked like, although I have photoshopped the image a bit to make it look tastier
I now have a new respect for Russians, and realise why they always seem so tragic.
And if I ever hear another fucking balalaika I'll invade Ukraine
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