The wood-fired oven has played a key role in Russian culinary culture for centuries, but nowadays it has long been associated by most people with archaic village life. However, in recent years, this ancient cooking technology has experienced an unexpected renaissance and is increasingly being used by restaurateurs. "Izvestia" analyzed why the use of ovens has become a new gastronomic trend and what are good dishes cooked with them.
Why wood-fired ovens are appearing in restaurants
Oven-cooked dishes have a characteristic soft, stewed texture with pleasant smoky notes. The flavors are more intense because this technology gives the food time to develop, an effect that cannot be achieved on a stove or in an oven. But the oven, unlike an electric combi oven, has no precise temperature settings, so you need not only experience and skills, but also good intuition to work with it.
- The oven is practically a living organism, you need to learn to feel it and catch the moment when you should add more wood or, conversely, reduce the fire, - told "Izvestia" brand-chef of the Russian cuisine restaurant "Zakroma" (Yaroslavl) Pavel Trifonov. - Besides, the oven is an important part of our tradition, our heritage. Many people probably remember how their grandmothers and great-grandmothers used to cook something in the oven in the villages: bread, flatbread, porridge, meat. This is an element of our DNA.
Oven soup with stewed ox neck.
Wood-fired ovens in restaurants are not just a tribute to fashion, but a return to something cozy and tasty, Viktor Shaydetsky, head chef of the modern Siberian cuisine restaurant Manul (Moscow), is sure. In gastronomy today there is a demand for "comfort food", which should be understandable and familiar to guests from childhood. In many respects, this is the reason for the return to archaic cooking technologies. Thanks to the high temperature in the oven, food is cooked quickly and remains juicy. And the use of wood from different species of trees (alder, oak, birch, fruit) gives the dishes their own shades of flavors.
Beets with bermont sauce and black caviar
- People like to come to a restaurant with an open oven, because fire is not only a tradition, but also a real gastronomic show, - Evgeny Tsyganov, brand-chef of Folk Team (Moscow restaurants Folk, Amber, ENO bistro, Padron) shares his opinion. - When you just have tables, it looks dead. And an open fire gives a feeling of warmth. Guests like to watch the process - after all, to see your food being cooked is always pleasant and inspires confidence.
What dishes of the peoples of Russia are cooked in the oven
The appearance of ovens in restaurants is largely due to the rapid growth of interest in modern Russian cuisine, as well as other national culinary traditions within our country.
- If a restaurant's cuisine is based on Russian tradition, then an oven will definitely give guests the opportunity to enjoy more interesting flavors of familiar dishes and allow them to work with products in a new way," says Yaroslavl brand-chef Trifonov. - In our region, the oven has traditionally been used to cook soup very often. In my childhood, my grandmother in the village also made this dish before every time we came from the city. I still remember the thick, deep aroma of stewed pork and sauerkraut that filled her house.
Daily bread
Today, our interlocutor prepares grandmother's sauerkraut with two kinds of sauerkraut and ox neck in her restaurant. The dish, which is stewed for 12 hours in the oven, turns out sour, concentrated and vitamin-rich. Another family dish from the oven, which is on the menu of Zakroma restaurant, is kartovnitsa. It is made of potatoes, which are first boiled in the skin in the oven at high temperature. Then the hot flesh is mashed with a fork, adding egg, salt, milk, melted butter, and mixed well. The resulting mass is transferred to a large bowl and sent to stew in the already cooling oven without fire for about an hour.
Duck from the oven with apples and prunes
- In Siberia, settled peoples have traditionally used the oven for baking bread, stewing soup, baking pies," Chef Shaydetsky explained to our publication. - In some Siberian regions, meat was baked in clay, creating the effect of an oven. Or they smoked fish in closed boxes - and this is already close to the technology of hot smoking in an oven.
Kartovnitsa
According to our expert, in the Russian oven after the wood burns out there is a mild heat, which lasts for a day and is ideal for long cooking of daily soups, beef stew, baked vegetables. If you throw a whole cabbage into a hot oven and leave it there until morning, it will be charred on the outside, but inside it will turn out soft, sweet and with a pleasant smoked color. This cabbage is then used in restaurants to make sorbet for vinaigrettes or pie filling. Another interesting variation of Siberian oven dish from Chef Shaydetsky is Yakut flatbread. A filling of dried reindeer and fried mushrooms is laid out on a rolled out circle of dough. The flatbread is baked in the oven until crispy and impregnated with a light aroma of smoke.
Ovens were widely used for cooking traditional Tatar dishes. Their design differs from the Russian one only by a small annex where a cauldron is placed.
Empanada with crab and black cod, with hollandaise sauce
- Echpochmaki, zur-belish, yuka, koimak fritters, goose with apples, fish in a clay cocoon and even melted milk- all these dishes used to be cooked in the oven, and now we are trying to preserve all the heritage and pass it on to the next generation," Rustam Rakhimov, brand-chef of the Tatar cuisine restaurant "Umai" (Kazan), shares his experience. - There are guys in my team whose grandmothers have kept the oven and still cook in it.
According to our expert, real koimak fritters cannot be cooked in a combi steamer or oven. These devices do not give the necessary high temperature and special flavor. In the oven they are cooked at a temperature of 450 °C and they are not turned during the process, so the dough is cooked on all sides and gets very brown. This effect cannot be achieved with other equipment.
Duck and spelt porridge with smoked pear and dried yolk
One of the most popular dishes at the restaurant "Umai" is spelt porridge with stewed duck. The bird is initially soaked in a salty solution, after which it is stewed overnight together with dried fruits (prunes, dried apple and smoked pear), and in the morning it is cleaned from bones, skin and cartilage. Soaked spelt is fried in melted butter and combined with meat and juice extracted during stewing. At the very end, homemade cream (kaimak) is added, which tightens the porridge. When serving, the dish is sprinkled with grated dried yolk from a duck egg.
How cooking in the oven is done in European countries
At the mention of a wood-fired oven in an Italian restaurant, the first thing that comes to mind is pizza, but this is by no means the only dish that is cooked in the Apennines with the help of this technology.
- Game, hunting dishes cacciatore, lasagna and, of course, stewed beef osobucco are usually cooked in the oven, - Oleg Kolisnichenko, brand-chef of the Italian restaurant Pinci (Nizhny Novgorod), listed. - Or eggplant a la parmigiano, a well-known eggplant pie. If we cook it in a wood-fired oven, the result will be much tastier than a casserole in a mold from the oven.
Reindeer stew and topinambour flatbread
As a vivid example of a dish from the oven, which is prepared at Kolisnichenko's restaurant, we can cite a lamb pie. For the stuffing it uses the animal's shoulder, which is pre-marinated in maple syrup with vegetable oil smoked on the coals. The meat is roasted in aromatic oil with rosemary and garlic, then it is stewed for seven hours at 89 °C and baked without bones until crusty in the oven. Large pieces of lamb with butter and demiglace are wrapped in puff pastry, smeared with egg yolk, seasoned with thyme and baked for 15 minutes at 180 °C. These cooking techniques give the filling a spicy, savory and southern flavor. The pie is served cut open and served with a spicy puree of baked apples.
Pie with stewed lamb shoulder with baked apple puree
- Wood-fired ovens are the basis of Padron's cuisine," explained brand-chef Tsyganov. - We have combined two culinary traditions: Spanish with its asadores, where meat is cooked over a live fire, and Portuguese, where ovens play a key role. This is our way of expressing our respect for the culture and history of these countries.
Our interlocutor also explained that in addition to meat, fish and seafood, the ovens are great for cooking vegetables, such as baking potatoes to mashed potato. The root vegetables are thrown into the fire, where they are charred there until black, and then the pulp is taken out of their middle. In this way, preparations can be made for more complex items and used to add the extra flavor of the fire to dishes.
Shrimp and langoustines piel piel
- When restaurateurs and chefs come to us, they immediately have a desire to have a similar oven in their establishment," admits the expert. - And this is not just a trend, it is part of the general gastronomic culture that started it all.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
