Latvian Meat Patties: Kotletes

There are lots of recipes for meat patties in Latvia, as they are quite popular there, and this is my version. Mushrooms and sour cream are certainly used in the cuisines of numerous countries, and these two food products are often used in eastern Europe, including in Latvia.

With 2 pounds of meat, I got 12 patties; of course, you can make larger patties.

 

Serve with boiled potatoes and dark brown rye bread, if you can find Latvian rye bread, go for it! You can also do a little salad, see further below.

 

Ingredients:

 

For the patties:

 

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1 cup chopped onion, small chop

3 cloves garlic, minced

oil for frying, divided use (to saute onions and garlic, then for the meatballs/patties)

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

breadcrumbs for coating the patties

For the sauce/gravy:

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup beef stock

1/3 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons flour

2 cups chopped mushrooms, small chop

2 tablespoons chopped dill

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

salt (if your beef stock has a lot of salt, you can skip adding salt, or use a small amount)

 

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until the onion begins to soften, then add the garlic and saute another 1 minute, reduce heat to low and saute a further 1 minute then remove the skillet from the heat and let the onion/garlic mix cool down a bit (it doesn't have to be completely cooled). Add the ground pork and ground beef to a bowl, then add the cooled onion and garlic, ground black pepper and salt and mix everything together (best to use your hands). Add the egg and knead it into the meat mixture. Put some breadcrumbs on a plate, take enough meat to roll into the size of a golf ball, then roll it in the breadcrumbs to coat it. Continue this until all of the meat is used. Keep the meatballs on a plate, then heat 2 tablespoons of oil in the skillet over medium heat. Add some of the rolled meat to the skillet, allowing some space between them, then gently press down on each with a spoon or spatula to just slightly flatten them into something more of meat patties, rather than meatballs. Fry until browned on each side and cooked through. Remove the fried patties to a plate. Drain the oil from the skillet and use a paper towel to wipe any meat bits from the skillet. Over low heat, melt the butter, add the chopped mushrooms to the skillet and saute until softened. Sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms and mix it into the butter. Cook for about 2 minutes to remove the raw flour taste, then stir in the beef stock and increase the heat to medium until the mixture comes to a simmer. Stir in the black pepper (and salt, if using) and continue to simmer the gravy until it thickens. Reduce the heat to low again and stir in the sour cream until it is well mixed in. Add the dill and stir for about 1 minute, remove from the heat. Serve the patties with some gravy spooned over them and some boiled potatoes. 

For a nice little salad addition: some chopped or torn lettuce leaves, chopped cucumber and chopped tomato with sour cream dressing of 3 parts sour cream to 1 part buttermilk, some minced garlic, some dill and parsley, ground black pepper and salt 

 

 

 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Junior-This word is related to "juvenile" and to the main part of "rejuvenate," both borrowed by English from Latin, and it is distantly related to "young," a word from the Germanic roots of English. "Junior" goes back to the Indo European root "yeu," which had the notion of "vigor, vitality." This gave Old Italic "juvenis," meaning "young," and this passed to its Latin offspring as the adjective "iuvenis," meaning "young" (same noun form seemingly meant "young man"), and the comparative form was "iuvenior," meaning "younger," and it was then contracted to "iunior," and English borrowed the word as "junior" in the last part of the 1200s, meaning "less in age than someone else," often included after a son's name when the son carried the same name as the father, but the abbreviated form "Jr" did not come into usage until the first couple of decades of the 1600s. The noun form was derived from the adjective in the early 1500s meaning, "a son, a younger male in a household," then also, "a common nickname for a son of the same name as his father." Both the adjective and the noun picked up the additional "a person of smaller size," and then a bit later also used for "clothing designed for smaller people, mainly those less than adult age." The late 1800s saw the use of the noun for "the third year of college," followed not long thereafter by its use for students in high school. "Junior high school" seems to be from circa 1910.     

Latvian Alexander Cake

Latvia is one of the Baltic States. Latvian, the language, is from the Baltic branch of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo European languages. Its cousin, Lithuanian, resides next door, but the other relatives of these two languages have died out, including Prussian. *

Popular recipes can be shrouded in legend, and so it may be with this cake, which is a type of shortcake, with variations in the overall recipe, although the basic premise is the same: a kind of shortcake made in two layers with some fruit preserves or jam in between the layers. The cake is cut into squares, or other shapes for serving. I read many articles about this cake, and most mention it being made originally for Tsar Alexander upon a visit he made to Latvia, which was long part of the Russian Empire. The thing is, there were THREE Tsar Alexanders in Russian history, but only one history mentioned the cake being made for Tsar Alexander I, who ruled from 1801 until 1825, while another article mentioned the cake was made in honor of Tsar Alexander III, who ruled from 1881 to 1894. The cake's popularity spread throughout northeastern Europe, with versions in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and northeastern Germany (then known as the German state of Prussia). 

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
2 sticks of butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 tablespoons sour cream 
1/2 teaspoon salt ONLY if you use unsalted butter
1/2 cup raspberry preserves (seedless is fine)
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Beat the sugar and butter together with a mixer. Add and mix in the vanilla, salt (if using), sour cream and baking powder. Gradually mix in the flour to form the dough. Gather dough into a ball, cover  and let sit in refrigerator for about 30 to 45 minutes. Heat oven to 325 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Divide the dough in two. Press one half the dough into a thin square layer on one part of the baking sheet; then repeat with the other half of the dough, making sure the two squares are close to the same size. Bake for 20 to minutes, or until just barely browning on top. Remove from the oven and let cool. Make sure the two parts are not stuck to the parchment paper. While the cake is cooling, in a bowl, mix together the lemon juice, the grated lemon peel and the confectioner's sugar until smooth; set aside. Smear a layer of the raspberry preserves onto one half of the cake, leaving just a small margin around the edge. Use a large spatula to carefully lift the other half of the cake onto the top of the first (the top of the second layer will now by the top of the cake). Press down gently just to the point where the raspberry preserves come to the edge of the cake (that's why you need to leave that margin I mentioned above). Spread the icing over the top of the cake. Carefully cut the cake into squares for serving.  

* "Prussian" is a term that came to be associated with Germans living in the territory of "Prussia," in northeastern Europe. That territory had been occupied by Baltic language speaking Prussians, who were gradually absorbed into the German population which settled there. The confusing thing was, the name "Prussia" not only remained as the name of the region, but it became famous as a German province and state, which became the entity ruled by the Hohenzollern German noble family. 

WORD HISTORY:
Scribe-This word, related to "scribble," goes back to the Indo European root "sker," which had the notion "to cut, to scrape." This gave Latin "scribere," which meant "to scratch, to carve, to write," which then produced the noun "scriba," which meant "writer of religious or official documents." This was borrowed by English from Latin in the 1300s.^ The verb form, "(to) scribe" (to write), has the same basic history, but the word itself tends to be used more in various compounds like, "describe," "inscribe," "prescribe." Modern German still uses "schreiben" as its verb form for "to write," Low German uses "schrieven," Dutch uses "schrijven" and West Frisian uses "skriuve."

^ Old English had "scrifan" from the same Latin source, but it was often used in the religious context of "hear confession, impose penance;" and it has evolved into modern English as "shrive;" thus, while its very initial meaning likely was "to write," that meaning died out having been overtaken by the religious meaning above, and by English use of it own Germanic word that is "write" in modern times.