Lara Vapnyar - Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love

They didn’t answer; perhaps they were perfectly satisfied with crouton meatballs. But I wasn’t. Now and then, at some family dinner or at a restaurant, I would happen upon a real meatball — large and juicy and perfect.

Russian meatballs are very different from what Americans call meatballs. First of all, they are not shaped like balls; they are shaped like a flattened egg, and they are never buried under spaghetti or smothered in tomato sauce but are usually served hot and crispy with mashed potatoes.

I like Russian meatballs so much that I always thought if I ever wrote a story about two women trying to seduce a man with a certain dish, meatballs would be the dish. But where would I find a perfect recipe? Now I have actually written a story about two women trying to seduce a man with Russian meatballs. Neither of my characters is a professional chef, so I searched among families and family recipes. I managed to collect countless versions, but none of them satisfied me. They were all too complicated, too fussy. Meatballs is a very simple dish. I simply couldn’t trust a recipe that required more than twenty ingredients.

And then suddenly found the right one. I knew it was the right one the second I heard it (actually, I read it in a friend’s e-mail). Surprisingly, this recipe came not from a seasoned grandma but from a single father who didn’t know how to cook and who learned to cook meatballs so he could feed his daughter. This is his recipe:

“Take a pound of regular ground turkey, put it in a bowl, add one egg, some bread soaked in milk (three or four thick slices of white bread, half a cup of milk), lots of garlic and salt and pepper, and mix it. Then pour a little olive oil onto a hot skillet and do this: form the meatball-shaped thing with your hands and throw it onto the skillet, keep the water running, rinse your hands from time to time. [I think it’s better to keep a basin of water nearby, so as not to waste water.] Fry meatballs five minutes on each side.”

I tried it and it worked. The meatballs came out crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. The only problem was that they weren’t ruinous enough for one’s health, and I needed a killer recipe. After some consideration, I simply took my friend’s recipe, substituted extravagant red meat for mild ground turkey, and added mind-blowing amounts of fat. Actually, the character in “Luda and Milena” dies after eating these meatballs, but not as a result of eating them. I can’t guarantee that meatballs based on the recipe I used in the story can actually kill a person. The recipe has never been properly tested to determine that. However, it contains such an extravagant quantity of red meat and fat, most doctors I know swear that consistent consumption of this dish will cause if not immediate death than eventual clogging of the arteries. So if you need to kill yourself or another person and don’t mind that the process will be slow and painful, here is the recipe.

1/2 pound fat ground lamb

1/2 pound fat ground beef

1 cup white bread soaked in heavy cream

1 finely grated medium onion

2 or 3 finely chopped garlic cloves

1 egg

1/4 pound butter, lard, bacon, or any other spectacular animal-fat product to use for frying

4. COLD BORSCHT

I’m sitting on the deck, leaning against the wall of the trailer we rent in Moscow, Pennsylvania. My kids are splashing in the lake, and I feel so jealous. It’s 88 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and about 130 inside. Plus there’s the smell of fried lard and garlic. I’ve just cooked several batches of meatballs to make sure I got the recipe right. I did get it right, by the way — it’s a killer recipe. You can easily have a heart attack simply by cooking those meatballs; you don’t even have to eat them.

The last thing I want to do right now is to think about borscht.

The characters in my story are eating rich, hot borscht, which is a wonderful dish when there is a February snowstorm outside, or at least a chilly November rain. But right now, what I really want to eat is cold borscht. It is probably my favorite summer food, being that rare combination of very healthy, cheap, extremely easy to make, and amazingly delicious. Here is the recipe.

One 24 oz. jar of borscht from the Jewish section of a supermarket (in Moscow, Pennsylvania, it’s right next to the Mexican and Italian foods)

3 hard-boiled eggs (or just egg whites)

1 medium seedless cucumber, or three or four kirbys, peeled

1 scallion

Half a bunch of fresh dill (or a pinch of dry dill)

Sour cream

Lemon slices

Dijon mustard (optional)

What you do is this: Let the jar of borscht chill in the fridge for at least an hour before opening it. The soup is best when it is very cold. Finely chop the eggs, cucumber (chopped cucumber smells amazing!), scallions, and dill, put them in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and let them stay in the fridge for half an hour, so they can both chill and adjust to one another’s company. Then divide them between four bowls (this recipe should yield four portions, although I could easily eat it all alone), and pour the borscht over, shaking the jar before pouring, to lift the beet slices off the bottom. Sometimes I add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard; I mix it with a little borscht liquid, pour it back in the jar, and shake it well.

Serve with sour cream and slices of lemon; I like to squeeze my lemon slice with a spoon to add a tangy taste to the soup.

5. HOT BORSCHT

Today, it’s a different picture. It’s been raining nonstop, and it’s suddenly cold outside. I’m wearing jeans and a sweater and my husband’s thick socks — I can’t believe I was sweating in a tank top and shorts just a few days ago. The gas heater in our trailer has been broken for years, and the owners won’t bother fixing it. They never live here themselves, and summer renters apparently don’t need heat. “It’s a rundown trailer,” my husband says. “What do you expect?” We rent it for seven weeks for the price of what you’d typically pay for two, and I’m usually happy with the bargain. Not on a day like today, though. We tried an electric heater, but it was expensive and seemed to warm only the ten-inch area around it. What we do is this: We turn all four stove burners on and put four large pots of water on to boil. (We could try baking pies, but there are mice living in the oven, and I really don’t want to go there.) While the water is boiling on the stove, we cuddle with the kids under a huge blanket that the neighbors lent us and watch Young Frankenstein on my computer. (We never get tired of watching Young Frankenstein. ) Well, I think, since we need to keep four large pots on the stove, why not cook borscht in one of them? I can cook and still keep an eye on Young Frankenstein.

3 or 4 fresh beets

3 or 4 potatoes

1 medium carrot

1 medium onion

3 stalks of celery

Olive oil

2 tablespoons tomato sauce

2 quarts beef broth

Salt and pepper

1 or 2 bay leaves

1 tablespoon white vinegar

Sour cream

Chopped parsley and garlic (optional)

Chop vegetables and sauté them right in the soup pot, in a little olive oil and the tomato sauce, for 15 to 20 minutes. Pour the store-brought beef broth over the mixture. When it starts to boil, add salt, pepper, a bay leaf or two, and vinegar, and let the soup simmer until everything is tender, which sometimes takes so long that Young Frankenstein ends before my borscht is ready.

Hot borscht is served with sour cream just like cold borscht. I like to chop some parsley and garlic, smash the two together with a pinch of salt, and sprinkle this over a little island of sour cream in the bowls.