Guryevskaya porridge. Gurievskaya porridge - the history of occurrence and step-by-step recipes for cooking at home with a photo
Gurievskaya porridge is one of the most delicious dishes of traditional Russian cuisine. The basis of its preparation is ordinary semolina, but it must be boiled in milk (and with foam) and nuts are added to it (the most delicious is obtained with hazel or almonds, but ordinary walnuts are also suitable, and modern cooks even add peanuts) and jam ( or dried fruits - dried apricots, raisins and others).
This is not only a delicacy that can surprise guests at a meal (before, Guryev porridge was rarely used as everyday food), but also a very healthy and satisfying dish.
The history of the origin of Guryev porridge.
Porridge has been known since the beginning of the 19th century, although there is an opinion that it was cooked before. The name of the porridge comes from the name of the then Minister of Finance (and, accordingly, one of the most influential people in the Russian Empire) Count Dmitry Alexandrovich Guryev (1751 - 1825), but the inventor of the dish was the serf cook Zakhar Kuzmin, whom the count bought from his former owner, Major Georgy Yurisovsky (Moreover, it is believed that Kuzmin came up with a recipe for porridge when he worked for Yurisovsky).
As a result, porridge became popular with the Russian nobility and even in the imperial family (it is known that Alexander the Third loved it very much). It is worth noting that if the aristocrats served this porridge at gala dinners, then in the royal family, apparently, it was still included in the daily diet, since historians report that on the day of the train crash (1888), the waiter had to add to it cream at the request of the king.
Interestingly, semolina porridge with nuts and fruits gradually gained popularity not only in Russia, but also abroad. The first tasting of this delicacy in France took place in 1814, that is, when the Russian army not only drove the French troops out of their native country, but also took Paris.
How porridge was cooked in Rus'
Everyone knows the recipe for regular semolina porridge. In Rus', it was cooked in ovens and mixed with nuts (they should have been crushed and ignited a little beforehand). At the same time, it was necessary to heat the cream (rarely milk) so that a foam formed (in our time, a frying pan is used for this, and earlier the cream was placed in the oven in ordinary cast-iron or clay pots). It was also allowed to use kaymak - special thick cream. Then it was necessary to add milk / cream with foam or kaymak to the porridge and cook in the oven over low heat. The finished dish was decorated with dried fruits, and sometimes with jam.
Modern possibilities, of course, involve the use of ordinary cauldrons and pans instead of pots and an oven instead of a stove. By the way, in our time, cream is heated in a frying pan, and semolina itself is cooked in a saucepan. Deviations from the classic recipe are also possible (some cooks add eggs to the dish). Current housewives also put ordinary and / or vanilla sugar in porridge, but in the old days they limited themselves to a small amount of ordinary sugar.
In order for children to grow up healthy and strong, mothers have been trying to instill in them a love for cereals since childhood. They occupy a significant place in the daily diet, but not always kids are ready to eat this dish. The only exception can be the recipe for the classic Guryev porridge, since such a treat turns out to be so tasty that it’s hard to even answer: is this a second course or is it still a dessert?
Excursion into history
The history of Guryev porridge is so amazing that it seems incredible. Minister of Finance Guryev, a man who knows a lot about profitable investments, did not consider it wasteful to give a measure of gold (26 liters of gold coins, each weighing 3.39 g) for the cook Zakhar Kuzmin, who came up with the recipe for this dish, and his family.
It must be said that Count Guryev did not fail, since Alexander III, Count Witte and other representatives of the aristocracy liked the delicacy so much at the royal court that they soon began to call porridge "the queen of desserts."
The official presentation of Guryev porridge took place in 1814, when it was presented in Paris as a "Russian dessert". Since then, this dish has become a hallmark of Russian cuisine.
The classic recipe for Guryev porridge
Cooking semolina porridge according to this recipe is a rather long process. But as a result, a simple dish turns into an exquisite dessert.
Its ingredients are:
- 1300 ml of milk;
- 100 g of semolina;
- 100 g walnuts;
- 50 g raisins;
- 150 g sugar.
Cooking step by step:
- Preparing nuts. First, they should be poured with boiling water for three to four minutes so that the thin brown crust can be easily removed. Peeled fruits should be dried on a towel, then crushed into crumbs (for example, using a meat grinder), mixed with 50 g of sugar and baked in the oven for three minutes at 200 ° C.
- Raisins, like nuts, need to be poured with boiling water for ten minutes. When dry grapes are steamed, it's time to dry them with paper towels.
- Pour the milk into a heat-resistant bowl and put it in a hot oven, where it is simmered until a dense milky crust forms. It should be carefully removed and transferred to a separate plate. It is necessary to obtain five or six such films in the process of languishing.
- Pour the remaining milk into a saucepan, bring to a boil, pour semolina and 50 g of sugar into it. After that, semolina is boiled like regular semolina.
- Set aside a couple of tablespoons of baked nuts for decoration, mix the rest of the nuts and raisins with the finished porridge.
- Put 1/6 of the porridge in a beautiful deep and refractory bowl, cover with a film and repeat this way consistently with all the films. Sprinkle the top layer of porridge with the remaining 50 g of sugar and put in the oven for 10 minutes. The temperature is 200 degrees. Cook until nice caramelized.
The famous French writer and gourmet Alexandre Dumas once said that the merits of national cuisine are most apparent in desserts. Traditional Russian cuisine, although it cannot boast the same extensive range of sweet dishes as French, can rightly be proud of the few that are. These delicacies not only taste great, but also usually have an interesting origin story. Here, for example, is the famous Guryev porridge, so dearly loved by our ancestors.
How popular this sweet porridge was once, judge for yourself: even such a connoisseur of culinary and connoisseur of gourmet dishes as Count Sergei Witte, an outstanding statesman from the time of Emperor Nicholas II, called Gurievskaya "the queen of desserts."
After the revolution, this "bourgeois" delicacy was undeservedly forgotten, but time put everything in its place: now Guryev's porridge can be found on the menu of both democratic catering chains and fashionable restaurants. And abroad, this dish has never gone out of fashion: for 200 years now, it has enjoyed constant success among true connoisseurs of good food.
The famous porridge appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. The then Minister of Finance, member of the State Council, one of the most influential people of that time, Count Dmitry Alexandrovich Guryev once visited his old friend, retired major of the Orenburg Dragoon Regiment, Georgy Yurisovsky. The latter, wanting to surprise the count, epicurean and aesthete, ordered his serf chef Zakhar Kuzmin to create a dinner that would surpass any delights of the then fashionable French cuisine. There was a lot of food: goose liver, and grated grouse, and black caviar, but the main surprise was waiting for the count at the end.
For dessert, a dish specially invented for this occasion by Kuzmin was served - the most delicate porridge made from semolina in milk with the addition of nuts, creamy foams and dried fruits. As soon as he tasted this porridge, the count, according to legend, shed tears of emotion, ordered the cook to be called and kissed him three times.
Soon, having spent the amount for which in those years it was possible to purchase a decent estate, he bought Kuzmin along with his family and made him his personal chef. And the dessert invented by Zakhar, called "Guryev porridge", has become one of the most fashionable dishes of the capital's beau monde.
Soon, dessert porridge became an indispensable attribute of imperial dinners - Emperor Alexander II highly appreciated it, and his son, Alexander III, generally called it his favorite delicacy.
Ironically, a tragic episode from the life of the royal family is also connected with Guryev's porridge. In 1888, during a railway trip, Alexander III was served his favorite dessert. At that moment, when the king was pouring cream over the porridge, there was a terrible roar - the train derailed. Subsequently, the sovereign said that Guryev's porridge saved his life - the cars where the king's bedrooms and office were located were simply crushed, only the dining car, where he was, was not damaged!
Guryev porridge
It will take: 1.25 l of milk, 1/2 cup semolina, 500 g of nuts (hazelnuts, cedar and walnuts in equal proportions), 10 pcs. bitter almonds, 5 drops of almond essence, 1/2 cup sugar, half a glass of jam (pitted strawberry or cherry), 2 tbsp butter, 1 cardamom pod, 4 tsp. ground lemon zest, a little ground star anise.
Cooking: Peel nuts from shells, fill for 2 minutes. boiling water, peel, dry in a hot frying pan, crush in a mortar, adding 1 tsp. warm boiling water to each tablespoon of nuts. Then transfer to a separate bowl. Prepare milk foams (kaymak). Pour the milk into a cast-iron pan, place it in a preheated oven and remove the foams as they brown, putting them in a separate bowl. In total, up to 16 foams can be collected in this way. In the remaining milk, boil thick semolina porridge, making sure that there are no lumps in it. Place crushed nuts, sugar, butter, ground spices into the prepared semolina and mix thoroughly. In an enameled frying pan with high edges or a stewpan, pour semolina porridge with a layer of 1 cm, cover it with foam, pour the next layer of porridge, a quarter thinner, and again cover with foam, and so on. In the last layer of porridge, add jam and star anise. For 10 min. put in a preheated oven with low heat. Remove, grease with jam, add the remaining crushed nuts and serve on the table in the same bowl as cooked.
From time immemorial, porridge in Rus' has been considered a traditional dish that was loved by all segments of the population, regardless of class and financial status. For this reason, Russian national cuisine is replete with a huge number of various recipes for making porridges, but Guryev porridge, so named because, according to legend, was first cooked by Count Dmitry Guryev (Minister of Finance and member of the State Council of Russia).
However, Guryev porridge, the recipe for cooking, history ascribes to another person. There are stories that tell that it was cooked for the first time at the beginning of the 19th century by Zakhar Kuzmin, the serf cook of Georgy Yurisovsky. Somehow Guryev also visited him.
There he noticed a talented cook and bought him from the landowner, a retired major of the Orenburg Dragoon Regiment. This nugget became a full-time cook of the Guriev court. Which story is more truthful is up to biographers and historians to decide, but for us it is not so important. The main thing is that the recipe for porridge is now known to everyone.
Speaking about the peculiarities of cooking Guryev porridge, you can see that this recipe combines not only the traditions of Russian folk cuisine, and therefore Zakhar Kuzmin could hardly have come up with it. Apparently, along with the veneration of his native cuisine, Count Guryev was also a fan of French culinary art.
Therefore, the recipe for the porridge he invented is enriched with various additions that are not typical for Russian cuisine. One of these ingredients is dried apricots, from the processing of which, in fact, the preparation of Guryev porridge begins.
The processing is that the dried apricots must be sorted, thoroughly washed with cold water, and then poured with fresh boiling water and wrapped in this state. This is necessary so that the dried apricots soften, otherwise it will come across in the form of very hard pieces in the finished porridge.
While dried apricots are infused, you can start preparing other components of porridge - nuts. There is no specific variety of nuts, without which Guryev porridge would not be considered Guryev porridge. More often it is recommended to use hazelnuts, but you can replace it with almonds, or even walnuts. And if you wish, you can use a mixture of all three types.
If you decide to use almonds or hazelnuts, then their kernels must first be peeled, for which you will need to scald them with boiling water. Walnuts don't need it. Prepared nuts should be finely chopped and fried in a pan without adding oil.
Now let's move on to the next step. Pour 1.5 liters of cream into a flat dish, put them in an oven preheated to 200 degrees, where they will languish. At the same time, it is necessary to periodically remove the film from their surface and collect it in a separate bowl, since it will be needed in the future.
After some time, 300 g of semolina is added to the stewed cream, resulting in liquid semolina Guryev porridge, to which cooked nuts, salt and 100 g of sugar are added.
Do not forget to mix the resulting mass thoroughly, after which it will need to be decomposed into clay pots. In this case, it is necessary to alternate layers of manna-nut mixture with layers of well-squeezed dried apricots and creamy foams. For the sake of facilitating your task, you should not make too thick layers. The more layers you get, the more correct the porridge will be and, accordingly, tastier.
Moreover, you need to try to calculate the number and thickness of the layers in such a way that the top layer turned out to be cream foam, on top of which nuts are laid as a finishing touch, but not those that you finely chopped and fried at the very beginning. For the top layer, you will need to use whole or very coarsely chopped nut kernels.
Now you need to put the pots in the oven, heated to the same 200 degrees. You don't need lids, instead use pastry. It is rolled into thin sausages, which fit into the neck of the pots in the form of a ring adjacent to the walls of the pottery.
You need to keep the pots of porridge in the oven until the surface of the creamy foams with nuts becomes sufficiently ruddy. As soon as this happens, Guryev porridge can be considered ready, taken out of the oven and served, after decorating with whole berries or pieces of fruit.
In this matter, as well as with nuts, the cooking recipe does not give any specific recommendations, so you can choose fruits for decoration according to your own taste and focusing on seasonal availability. It is best to use fresh peaches, apricots, strawberries.
Count D.A. Guriev (1751-1825)
The authorship of this dish is attributed to the Minister of Finance of Russia, Count Dmitry Alexandrovich Guryev (1758-1825). “Guryev porridge! This is the pearl of all possible cereals, this is the whim of modern Lucullus ... ”, - an observer of Moscow culinary life in the middle of the 19th century enthusiastically wrote about her (Moscow at the Table // Magazine Moskvityanin. M. 1856, No. 5. P. 433.). The count himself left conflicting information about himself. However, contemporaries were sure of one thing - in his culinary talents:
These words, which belong to a historian of the middle of the 19th century, are also interesting in terms of dating the invention of that porridge. The article is about the times when Guryev still held the post of deputy (as this position was then called - “comrade”) of the Minister of Finance (Count A.I. Vasiliev). And this is the period from 1802 to 1807. And, as we can see, even then Guryev's culinary invention was very well known. Accordingly, it can be said with certainty that the time of the invention of this porridge is not the beginning of the 19th century (as it is commonly believed everywhere), but rather the 90s of the 18th century.
In this regard, the ubiquitous version of Pokhlebkin is somehow not confirmed by the sources. As you know, William Vasilievich noted that “according to one version, the count bought the serf cook Zakhar Kuzmin from the retired major Yurisovsky, having tasted the amazing porridge cooked by Kuzmin at the latter’s house. According to another version, the count himself invented this porridge in commemoration of the victory over Napoleon. And the pictures that walk through our culinary literature, as a veteran of the war with Napoleon, Major Yurisovsky, hosts a count on his estate, look completely comical. So maybe he accepted it. But this had nothing to do with the appearance of the recipe for Guryev porridge, since it was invented earlier.
In general, as it often happens, the version not supported by any references went for a walk in the press and the Internet, as a reliable fact.
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