Simple Gifts

Prostye Veshchi (“Simple Things”) is a small café across from the Moscow Zoo that bills itself as a “gastropub,” a neighborhood gathering place with surprisingly sophisticated fare. The café underlines the “simple” of its name in all that it does, with charming results. The placemats are made of brown wrapping paper, and the window boxes are planted according to season. In the spring, they are filled with verdant grass to evoke Russia’s beautiful meadows. Strawberries replace the grass in mid-summer, and when fall arrives, the boxes sport pumpkins. 

Café manager Julia Lukashina notes that Prostye Veshchi is very much a group project. “One of the owners worked for restaurateur Arkady Novikov for a long time and wanted to open a place that would differ from Moscow’s typical expensive restaurants,” she explains. “Our focus is not prestige, but the atmosphere of a European neighborhood café, where regulars drop in to say hello and people come to catch up. The difference is that our neighborhood is the entire city.”

The café’s menu reminds overworked Muscovites who can’t manage a weekend visit to the dacha that there is no substitute for fresh garden produce in season — not to mention the berries and mushrooms that are foraged from meadows and woods.  During the summer, the menu often features sorrel, which is blended into the chef’s special soup (see featured recipe, opposite page). “Each season, we sit down together to put together a new menu,” Lukashina notes. “Our goal is to use the freshest available produce in season.” That’s why it’s not unusual to find the kitchen staff scouring farmers’ markets in search of luscious, ripe tomatoes, which can be a rarity in Moscow. Being simple is hard work. 

As part of its mission as a neighborhood center, Prostye Veshchi enjoys hosting special events. “We recently featured a ‘herring week,’ where we went beyond the ubi-quitous ‘herring in a fur coat’ that you find on every menu, and resurrected an old Russian dish of herring boiled in milk,” Luka-shina says. “Our chef likes to experiment with old Russian recipes to give them a new twist, such as the cream soup he makes by pureeing the classical vinegret potato salad. We’re lucky to have patrons who are curious about food and eager to try such things.”

{Moscow reporting 

by Maria Antonova}

Sorrel Soup

4 cups chicken stock (high-quality canned, or homemade – see Russian Life, May/June 2008)

1 parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped (optional)

½ cup chopped celery, including the leaves (optional)

2 small potatoes, coarsely chopped 

1 small onion, coarsely chopped 

1 medium carrot, coarsely chopped 

2 tbsp canola or olive oil

3 cups fresh sorrel

4 cups spinach

1 egg white

Salt, freshly ground pepper, to taste

Freshly squeezed lemon juice, to taste

1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped

snipped fresh dill or parsley

sour cream

If the chicken stock is not homemade, simmer it with the parsnip and/or celery for 30 minutes for richer flavor, then strain, reserving the clear broth. 

In a stockpot, bring the chicken stock to a simmer and add the potatoes.

Meanwhile, sauté the onions and carrots in the oil until just golden, about 5 minutes.

Wash the sorrel and spinach thoroughly, removing any stems and tough pieces. Chop coarsely and add to the chicken stock along with the carrots and onions. Simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. 

Remove from the heat. In a small bowl, stir the egg white briefly, then whisk in a little of the hot soup, stirring constantly, to heat the white without cooking it. Then stir the hot mixture back into the soup.  

Season to taste with salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice to heighten the flavor. The soup should be nicely tart. Garnish each portion with some hard-boiled egg, herbs, and a dollop of sour cream.

Serves 4.

Sorrel grows fast, like a weed, so be sure to gather or buy young leaves that are still tender—they’ll give the best taste. Typically, sorrel is the featured ingredient in one variety of summer shchi. Here, its tartness is balanced by an array of garden vegetables, yielding a soup that captures the simple glories of summer in a single bowl.