[0:00] Today I'm going to be eating like 
Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia,
[0:04] a man of vast power, rather 
incompetent leadership skills,  
[0:07] and a surprisingly simple taste 
in food. Rather than the opulent  
[0:10] French cuisine of the imperial court, 
he preferred traditional Russian dishes
[0:14] like these Siberian pelmeni or beef dumplings.
[0:17] So, thank you to Wildgrain for sponsoring this 
video as we dine like the last of the Romanovs
[0:22] this time on Tasting History.
[0:29] Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, 
known in English as Nicholas II,
[0:34] was the last Russian ruler 
before the Russian Revolution.
[0:37] He took the throne in 1894 and 
oversaw the empire's participation  
[0:41] in both the Russo-Japanese War and World War I,
[0:44] neither of which went well for Russia.
[0:46] This in conjunction with 
his insistence on remaining  
[0:48] an absolute autocrat led to civil unrest,
[0:51] his abdication and eventually the murder 
of him and his entire family in 1918.
[0:57] Now when Nicholas came to power, the cuisine at  
[0:59] the Imperial Russian court was 
less Russian and more French.
[1:04] Many of the menus were printed in French. Most of  
[1:06] the cuisine was French. Most of 
the cooks were trained in France.
[1:10] And the head chef was a 
Frenchman named Pierre Cubat.
[1:13] But while the big feasts may have mostly been 
French food, even during the reign of Nicholas II,
[1:19] when they were having smaller dinners 
at home, just him and the family
[1:23] they actually preferred to 
have simpler traditional  
[1:26] Russian cuisine, things like pirozhki and pilmeni.
[1:29] And since I already made pirozhki for the 
first Tsar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible,
[1:33] I figured I would bookend Tsarist rule by making  
[1:35] a recipe for Siberian Pelmeni from 
the 1861 cookbook by Elena Molokhovets
[1:41] 'Podarok molodym khozyaykam' or 'A Gift 
to Young Housewives'. "Using a knife,  
[1:46] scrape 1 and 1/2 pounds first 
quality beef from the short loin.
[1:49] Add one finely chopped and squeezed out 
raw onion, sieved black pepper, and salt.
[1:54] Use this filling to make pelmeni... If the beef is  
[1:57] lean, use 1 pound beef and half 
pound finely chopped kidney suet.
[2:01] Boil the pelmeni in salted water or 
in bullion in a separate saucepan...
[2:05] These pelmeni are best made the size 
of kolduny or shaped like small ears...
[2:10] Siberians prepare pelmeni 
for several occasions at once,  
[2:13] sprinkling them lightly with flour 
so they do not stick together.
[2:16] They are frozen and boiled in 
salted boiling water as needed."
[2:19] Molokhovets gives this recipe for pelmeni 
and right before it she gives an exact recipe
[2:25] on how to make the dough with exact 
measurements. Very rare for this time  
[2:29] period. So that's pretty cool. What 
she says is you need 1 pounds or 450  
[2:33] grams of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 
eggs, and 1/2 cup or 120 ml of water.
[2:39] She actually says that you'll probably need 
a little bit less than that 1/2 cup.
[2:42] So we'll just keep that in mind as we make them.
[2:44] So start by mixing the salt into 
the flour and then add the two eggs.
[2:48] Start to mix those into the dough as if you were 
making pasta because well, you are making pasta.
[2:53] But this really isn't enough egg to fully  
[2:55] incorporate all the flour. So add 
about half of the water or 1/4 cup
[2:59] to start to make it come together 
as a dough. And once that's added,  
[3:03] you can go ahead and add more water as 
you need. You may not need all of it.
[3:07] What you're looking for is a relatively 
dry dough. You want it to just have enough  
[3:12] moisture that it comes together. Then 
once it does, you can turn it out onto  
[3:15] the counter and begin to knead. And you 
need to knead it for about 10 minutes  
[3:20] or until it's nice and smooth. It'll be about 
half this time if you do it in a stand mixer.
[3:25] After about 10 minutes of kneading it by hand,  
[3:27] you should have a nice smooth ball of 
dough which you can wrap in plastic
[3:30] to let it rest for at least 20 minutes.
[3:33] Also, you can make it a day ahead 
and put it in the fridge if you want  
[3:35] to. Or if you make a big batch, you 
can actually freeze it and then you  
[3:39] can just take some out so you'll always 
have some fresh pasta dough to work with.
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[4:45] And now it is back to our pasta which 
you have had to make from scratch.
[4:49] So once it's rested for 20 minutes,  
[4:51] you can make the filling. And the filling 
obviously starts with meat which she says
[4:54] you can scrape right off the bone and then mince.  
[4:57] It is really hard to get it as small 
as it really needs to be by hand.
[5:02] So I'm going to go with ground beef. You 
need 1 and a 1/2 pounds or 680 grams of it.
[5:08] Now she does say that this needs to be fatty or 
else you need to add suet. So, I would go with the
[5:13] 20% or even 30% fat content because if you get 
it too lean, it just doesn't hold together.
[5:20] Then 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of 
black pepper, and 1 cup of diced onion.
[5:25] So, just add the salt and the pepper to the meat 
and work it in. And then start adding the onions.
[5:30] Also, make sure that they're actually 
onions. See, halfway through,
[5:35] I realized that I also had some 
chopped onions and celery that  
[5:39] I'm using for something else, and I grabbed that.
[5:41] So, halfway through, here I am having 
to pick out celery from the meat.
[5:46] And I felt like Cinderella when 
she was picking out the lentils  
[5:49] from the fireplace. Not great. Just onions.
[5:52] Once it's all mixed together, you can go  
[5:54] ahead and form the pelmeni. And 
there are several ways to do it.
[5:57] You can actually roll the dough out and then 
cut out the pelmeni, about 3 inch wide circles.
[6:04] Or another way that she explains, 
that I think is kind of easier,  
[6:08] is to divide the dough into four pieces
[6:10] and then take one piece and 
roll it into a little log.
[6:14] And make sure you cover the other pieces 
in plastic wrap so they don't dry out.
[6:17] Once you have a uniform log of dough, you 
want to divide that up into 10 pieces.  
[6:21] And she is very specific about 
how many pelmeni many this recipe  
[6:24] will make. She says it will make 40. So 
that dictates the size of our pelmeni.
[6:29] Then kind of squeeze the dough into circles 
with the cut side up and with a rolling pin,
[6:34] roll one of the pieces of dough out 
into a circle about 3 inches across.
[6:38] Now you don't want the dough 
to be too thin or they might  
[6:41] bust when cooking. Several of mine 
actually did that and it's not great.
[6:45] Then set about a tablespoon of the filling into  
[6:47] the center and fold the dough over 
and pinch it all around to seal it.
[6:52] You don't need any water to make 
this seal. It will do it on its own.
[6:55] Then take the two ends and wrap them over 
each other and pinch them together.
[7:00] This is the traditional shape which 
the author says looks like an ear.
[7:04] Also, if your ear looks 
like this, go see a doctor.
[7:07] Then continue the process 
until all 40 pelmeni are made.
[7:11] Also, I do think these pelmeni end up 
being a little bigger than I would want.
[7:16] They're kind of two bite pelmeni, and I 
would rather have them just single bite.
[7:19] So if you wanted to make 60 
smaller ones, you can do that.
[7:23] Very often when you buy them like 
frozen from the store, they're really,  
[7:26] really small, and you could probably 
get like a hundred out of this order.
[7:29] Whatever size you do make them,  
[7:30] it says to boil them in either 
clear bouillon or some salted water.
[7:34] So you can either get some clear 
chicken stock or something like that or
[7:38] just boil some salted water and then 
add the pelmeni about 6 to 8 at a time,
[7:43] and give them a stir so they don't stick to the  
[7:45] bottom and then let them boil 
until they rise to the top.
[7:48] This takes 3 to 5 minutes. Then 
continue to boil for another 3  
[7:52] minutes or until the meat is cooked inside.
[7:55] Obviously you're going to have to take one 
out and test it to see if it's cooked inside.
[7:59] But if you end up doing it for like 6 or 7 minutes 
at least total, there it's going to be cooked.
[8:04] Then remove them from the pot and 
let them dry out just a little bit  
[8:07] while you boil the rest of your 
pelmeni. And while I tell you a  
[8:10] bit more about what it was like to 
dine with the last tsar of Russia.
[8:18] Tsar Nicholas II is one of those characters 
from history that is really kind of hard to  
[8:23] figure out because he was caricatured and so it's 
hard to know exactly what's true and what's not.
[8:31] I mean it's definite that he was 
not a great military commander  
[8:34] and he was completely out of step with his people,
[8:37] but exactly what degree he should be 
demonized or lionized is a question.
[8:43] And I say lionize because many of his friends 
tried to rehabilitate his character after he  
[8:50] died. And maybe it's all true, but maybe 
it's not. It's hard to know because they  
[8:55] were his friends. What is clear is that 
Nicholas II came to power at a particularly  
[9:00] difficult moment. Russia was already ripe for 
revolution before he even sat on the throne,
[9:05] and his poor military decisions and  
[9:07] refusal to relinquish absolute 
power just hastened things along.
[9:11] It was only after the revolution of 1905, which 
was a wave of worker strikes, peasant uprisings,  
[9:17] and military mutinies, that he was 
forced to establish the state Duma,  
[9:21] a legislative assembly, and granted 
limited rights to his people,
[9:25] which he then went on to pretty much 
ignore completely and undermine.
[9:30] So yeah, basically at the heart 
of the issue was that he was
[9:35] just unwilling to give up the tradition of 
complete autocratic rule that Russia had had for  
[9:42] the last 300 years. Most of Europe was beginning 
to modernize and he just was not interested.
[9:50] And to say he was out of touch would 
be a massive understatement.
[9:54] But by many accounts, it wasn't that he was 
being malicious. It was more that he was just  
[9:58] completely oblivious to what was going on 
outside of his palace most of the time.
[10:04] And it's interesting because he did try to 
make an effort to kind of be one of the people.
[10:11] And one of the ways he did that was in how he ate.
[10:15] When he would visit his soldiers during World 
War I, he would eat the same porridge, rye bread,
[10:20] and shchi or cabbage soup that his soldiers did.
[10:23] Even at home, his daily breakfast was simply 
rye bread with butter, some boiled eggs and ham.
[10:28] Lunch was often boiled beets and potatoes 
with slices of roast pork and horseradish.
[10:33] And one of his wife's ladies in waiting 
recalled "The sovereign preferred simple dishes,
[10:38] simple roasts and chicken."
[10:40] In general, he either liked to eat alone or 
with his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna,
[10:45] and she too had simple 
tastes when it came to food.
[10:48] For most of her adult life, she was all but 
vegetarian, rarely eating any meat or fish,
[10:52] and instead preferred 
vegetables, eggs, cheese, and butter.
[10:56] But like me, she had a weakness 
for all things sweet and baked.
[11:00] In fact the head baker at the palace once 
recalled that they prepared plenty of
[11:05] "Superb cookies, small - the 
size of a little kopeck coin -
[11:09] kalaches, milky kaiser rolls, amazing 
puff-pastry buns and twisted salty loaves."
[11:14] It was probably her love of baked goods 
that led her to occasionally complain  
[11:18] about how they did afternoon tea 
at the Russian court. Because
[11:22] even though she was the tsarina or empress 
of Russia, she was not born in Russia, 
[11:26] but rather in Darmstadt, Germany. Then  
[11:29] she spent much of her formative 
years actually living in England
[11:32] with her grandmother, Queen Victoria. 
So she was used to the grand afternoon  
[11:37] tea, which had become popular there in 
the latter half of the 19th century.
[11:40] Russia, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have 
got the memo about the fancy afternoon tea.
[11:45] And so, according to her friend, 
Alexandra would often complain  
[11:48] that "Tea was a meal in which there 
was never the slightest variation.
[11:53] Always appeared the same little white-draped  
[11:55] table with its silver service, the 
glasses in their silver standards,
[11:58] and for the rest simply plates of hot bread 
and butter and a few English biscuits.
[12:03] Never anything new, never any surprises in 
the way of cakes or sweetmeats...
[12:07] The Empress often used gently to complain, saying 
that other people had much more interesting teas,
[12:13] but she who was supposed to have almost unlimited 
power, was in reality quite unable to change a  
[12:18] single detail of the routine of the Russian 
Court..." And she says this actually kind  
[12:22] of went for everything. They used the same 
incense that they had for hundreds of years,
[12:28] the same furniture was there 
for the last two centuries,
[12:32] the same outfits for the messengers that they 
had been wearing since the early 18th century.
[12:37] "For all I know the same plates for hot 
bread and butter on the same tea table,
[12:40] were traditions going back to Catherine the 
Great, or Peter or farther still perhaps."
[12:45] And I love this little anecdote 
because on the face of it, it's  
[12:49] all about how the imperial family used to 
have tea and would never change anything.
[12:54] Haha, simple enough. But it is a 
bit of a microcosm, a metaphor for
[12:59] how they also lived all of their life and 
the political situation in Russia.
[13:05] A complete inability to change tradition. 
Even if better alternatives came along,
[13:12] even if everyone around them wanted to 
change, they refused to change at all
[13:18] And when it came to tea, this simply 
ended in the tsarina being rather irked.
[13:24] When it came to politics, this led 
to the entire family being killed.
[13:29] Now, while tea and breakfast and 
lunch and really any meal where it  
[13:33] was just the family remained 
relatively simple affairs,
[13:37] many meals had to have invited guests. 
And so, tradition came along with that.
[13:44] Menus from those lunches and dinners, which 
often had a dozen or even a hundred guests,
[13:48] shows a cuisine that you would 
expect when visiting a palace.
[13:52] "Lunch [at the Livadia Summer Palace in Crimea] 
began with a soup with small vol-au-vents,
[13:56] savory pastries, and small 
cheese toasts. Importantly,  
[14:00] vol-au-vents were served together with the soup
[14:02] rather than as a separate dish as they are abroad.
[14:05] The soup was followed by fish, a (chicken) 
casserole, vegetables, sweets, fruit...
[14:09] To drink, there were madeira, white and red 
wines for breakfast (or beer as an option)
[14:14] and different wines served at lunch, as is the 
custom everywhere else in the civilized world.
[14:19] And liqueurs with coffee..."
[14:21] Lunch on the Standart, the imperial yacht, were 
similar affairs if a little less elaborate.
[14:26] Menus from these meals include cream 
soups, small hand pies or pirozhki,
[14:31] salmon mayonnaise, filet of beef, 
lobster, wild goat or venison,  
[14:35] pears and cherry, peaches 
glacé, and lingonberry pie.
[14:39] But again, many of these meals would have guests 
who would also feast on copious amounts of caviar. 
[14:45] Something that actually Nicholas 
himself did not care for.
[14:48] One of the officers on the 
royal yacht recalled that
[14:52] "The sovereign really liked appetizers apart from 
caviar, Atlantic salmon, and salted fish overall."
[14:58] Supposedly, he actually liked those things when he  
[15:00] was younger. But on a trip that he 
took from the east through Siberia,  
[15:04] he took a train. And at every single station, 
he would be greeted with fanfare and gifts
[15:09] of salted fish and caviar,  
[15:11] which he ate and got sick of and just 
after that trip never wanted it again.
[15:16] Now, when they weren't at their summer home 
in Crimea or gallivanting on their yacht,
[15:20] Nicholas and his family preferred 
the Alexander Palace outside of  
[15:23] St. Petersburg over any of their other 
palaces. What's interesting is that while  
[15:27] it is a smaller palace in comparison with 
something like the Grand Catherine Palace,
[15:32] it's still a palace. And so, you would expect 
there to be at least one room dedicated as a  
[15:37] dining room. But there wasn't. There 
was no single room meant to eat in.
[15:42] So just depending on the meal, 
they would eat all over the place.
[15:46] If the couple were dining alone, they would 
usually eat in the empress's reception room.
[15:51] For family dinners, it was the 
rosewood paneled Pallisander drawing room.
[15:55] Then if they were having a larger affair,  
[15:57] say 30 to 100 people, they would 
open up the semic-ircular hall.
[16:01] Though if they had a bigger group, anything 
over a 100, they would actually have to  
[16:04] go to a different palace just ;cus 
there wasn't any space in the small 
[16:08] petite Alexander Palace to host that many people.  
[16:11] But when they were having dinner, 
big dinner at the semi-circular hall
[16:15] of the Alexander Palace, they had 
two ways of setting up the tables.
[16:19] One was to have round tables that could hold 10 
or 11 people. This allowed for more conversation
[16:26] and it was how they would set it up if the 
tsar actually liked the people that were eating 
[16:32] because he would go from table 
to table with each course so  
[16:35] that he could talk to everyone 
and so that everyone could say
[16:38] that they had had dinner with the tsar.
[16:42] If he didn't really like the people that were 
there, or if it was a more formal affair,  
[16:46] then they would set up a massive U-shaped table
[16:49] that he would sit at one end of and only then 
have to talk to the people on either side of him.
[16:55] These dinners were the kinds of dinners with 
a lot of the fancy French food that Nicky,  
[17:01] which is what they called him, 
didn't really care for.
[17:04] So, he would actually fill up usually on the hors 
d’oeuvres, which were kept in a separate room.
[17:09] The hors d’oeuvres were brought out and 
put on a banquet table or a buffet and  
[17:12] then everybody would eat standing up 
while they would drink some vodka.
[17:17] Only after a couple shots of vodka would 
they go into the main hall for dinner.
[17:22] That is when the hot food would come out. 
And I say "hot food" with air quotes
[17:28] because it was notorious for always kind of 
being cold because the kitchens were rather  
[17:33] far away from the palace. When they were made back 
in the 1790s, they were made far away. One so that  
[17:41] the noise and the odors wouldn't make it into the 
palace and also to protect the palace from fire.
[17:48] So, the food though would 
have to go on a trolley for  
[17:51] over 500 ft outside before it got to the palace
[17:56] no matter what time of year. And St. Petersburg 
can get pretty cold, and so so did the food.
[18:01] It wasn't until 1902 that they 
finally built an underground tunnel.
[18:06] It was still a long way to go, but at least now 
the food would arrive lukewarm. Those serving  
[18:12] this lukewarm food were the footmen, and they 
were chosen from the ranks of the Imperial Army,
[18:18] and they were chosen because of their 
height and their bearing and their handsomeness.
[18:24] So you had a bunch of tall, good-looking, 
kind of overbearing waiters behind you,
[18:30] and you never knew if they were there because  
[18:32] while they dressed in white 
tie and wore white gloves,
[18:36] they also wore these soft black shoes that 
basically let them sneak around unheard,
[18:42] which made it so that they knew all of the gossip  
[18:45] because people would just talk 
like they weren't even there.
[18:47] One guest recalled that "Every time we were 
at the Palace, we had lunch or dinner there,
[18:51] and the footmen would whisper to us bits of 
news from the scandalous chronicle of the place,
[18:56] whether we cared for it or 
not. They knew everything."
[18:59] Being one of those footmen was 
a bit of a place of honor. So,  
[19:03] people held on to the position 
as long as they could.
[19:06] And basically the more senior you 
were, the better position you got.
[19:12] So, the tsar's footman was 
also the oldest one there.
[19:15] He had actually been his father's footman 
and he was so old that he was going blind  
[19:20] and had trouble holding things. So 
the tsar would often have to hold  
[19:25] his arm while he poured the wine.
The footmen were also involved in  
[19:30] the ceremony of toasts that would 
take place at every large banquet.
[19:34] "At all the great banquets, a Court official stood  
[19:37] behind the chair of every royal guest 
to hand the champagne for the toasts.
[19:41] This was a matter of solemn ritual. The 
wine was first poured out by a footman,
[19:46] then it had to be passed to a page 
who, in turn passed it to the hander."
[19:50] These handers also were a prestigious position and  
[19:54] also were held by the oldest 
people who were working there.
[19:59] And so some of them had trouble 
actually doing their job.
[20:04] Prince Christopher of Greece once recalled that 
"I can still remember my sister's distress when  
[20:10] her favorite pale blue velvet Court dress turned 
a vivid green in patches after her hander had  
[20:16] spilled six glasses of champagne over it." But 
provided you didn't get champagne all over you,  
[20:21] it was time to eat. And the meal 
usually started out with a consommé.
[20:25] This is after the order, a consommé at the 
table and then very often another soup,  
[20:31] something heavier like a cream soup 
that would be served with pirozhki.
[20:34] Then came the Yaroslavl style grouse 
or the famed steamed Gatchina trout  
[20:38] which came from the Partitsa stream that ran 
through the imperial estates south of Saint 
[20:43] Petersburg.
[20:44] Then a saddle of wild goat, chicken fillet with 
truffles or cold lobster, roast duck, a salad,  
[20:49] artichokes with mushrooms, asparagus. 
And then there were sweets like souffles,  
[20:54] baked apples, fritters, puddings, and pancakes.
[20:58] Then a course of ice cream followed by 
another course simply titled dessert,
[21:03] which was usually an assortment of 
fresh fruit, berries, and light cakes.
[21:07] The ice cream course was actually a particular  
[21:10] specialty of the Russian court. 
Nicholas ate a lot of ice cream.
[21:16] Alexandria, his wife, also did.
[21:18] And Maria, who was the daughter of Grigori 
Rasputin, even called it out in her memoir.
[21:24] "I remember ice cream the like of which 
I have never eaten anywhere else."
[21:28] And what was interesting to many people was that  
[21:31] the courses were served à la 
russe or in the Russian manner
[21:35] as opposed to a la Française 
which had been the traditional  
[21:38] way of serving food in most of 
Europe for several centuries.
[21:43] A la Française is where all of the dishes are 
laid out on a table and people serve themselves
[21:48] while à la russe is where dishes are portioned 
in the kitchen then brought out sequentially.
[21:52] This is how pretty much 
every restaurant today serves food.
[21:56] Also, it made it so that the tsar actually 
had to eat rather slowly on purpose
[22:02] because he would be served 
first and he would start eating
[22:07] and then it would go down the line by order of 
importance and everyone else would be served.
[22:13] But the moment that he stopped eating and put down 
his silverware, the plates would be taken away.
[22:19] Not just his, but everyone's. So, if you were at 
the end of the line, you better eat really quick
[22:24] or else you're just going to get a couple 
bites and then onto the next course.
[22:27] As for the wines, red and whites 
were served with every course. But
[22:32] by most accounts, the tsar himself was 
not a big drinker, which is in contrast
[22:38] with how the Bolshevik propaganda portrayed him, 
which often portrayed him as a degenerate drunk.
[22:44] By most accounts, he actually didn't 
drink that much. And when he did,  
[22:48] it was usually port or sometimes madeira and 
then later on in life it would be a wine that  
[22:54] was from the Crimea. His personal security 
chief wrote that "He only drank port at table.
[22:59] Since he was Japanese war, 
the Tsar had given up spirits;  
[23:03] it was only when he traveled by sea that 
he would take (and very rarely at that)
[23:07] one or two small glasses 
[of vodka] before dinner."
[23:10] And even when he did drink something 
like port, he did so in moderation.
[23:14] "The Emperor was seated in the 
place of honor. Before him was a  
[23:18] bottle of a special Port, the 
gift of the King of England,
[23:21] and a small, golden goblet. He never drank more  
[23:24] than one goblet of this wine, 
and never tasted any other."
[23:27] Again, this is coming from 
someone who was a friend of his,  
[23:30] so it's unclear exactly how 
little or how much he drank.
[23:34] It's just kind of something that we 
have to take with a grain of salt.
[23:38] Now after the meal, it was time 
for coffee and a cigarette.
[23:43] And he would make a point to announce that the 
tsarina had said that it was okay for him to have  
[23:49] a cigarette and then once he did then everybody 
else would also light up and have a smoke.
[23:54] Now these kinds of meals would in 1917 come to an  
[23:58] end after the tsar abdicated his 
throne, was forced to abdicate,
[24:04] but culinary standards were maintained 
even if the guest count went down because  
[24:09] they were essentially under house arrest at 
the Alexander Palace. One menu from October  
[24:15] of that year after they had been moved to 
Tubosk shows the family dining on borsht,  
[24:19] pirozhki, roast grouse, salad and fruit compote.
[24:22] Then in June of 1918, just one month 
before the family's death in Yaketarinberg,  
[24:30] that Tsar actually wrote in his diary,
[24:32] "Since yesterday, Kharitonov 
has been preparing our food,  
[24:35] the provisions are delivered every two days.
[24:37] The daughters are learning how to cook from him,
[24:40] they prepare the flour and knead in the evening  
[24:42] and bake the bread in the morning. Not bad at all!"
[24:46] In the Romanov's last days, their diet 
switched to that of a basic solders's ration.
[24:51] But it was said that they never 
complained. Basic cabbage soup and  
[24:55] bread or potatoes is what they 
ate until the entire family,
[25:00] Nicholas, Alexandra, and their 
five children were murdered by  
[25:04] Bolshevik revolutionaries on July 17th, 1918.
It was the end of the Romanov dynasty and the  
[25:11] end of Imperial Russia. And they were demonized. 
Now, exactly to what level is is really hard to  
[25:19] know, and it's- you know, not the point of 
this channel for me to to dive into that.
[25:25] But what I do really appreciate 
is that in the years after,  
[25:29] friends and people who worked for them
[25:32] did write to try to give a bit of a glimpse at 
the behind the scenes family life of the Romanovs.
[25:41] And as someone who, you know, studies food 
history, I really, really appreciate that  
[25:46] because we learn things like the tsar of Russia who 
was one of the most powerful people in the world  
[25:53] and did you know enjoy his opulent wealth and lifestyle
[25:58] also preferred the very simple dishes on his table.
[26:03] Things like these pilmeni which I am about to eat right now.
[26:07] Except before I do,  
[26:09] I need to address something because the recipe 
that I'm using says to boil them and then it actually says to
[26:14] serve them as a soup, which is common. But
[26:18] it was known that the tsar when he was on the royal yacht actually preferred to eat them boiled and then fried in a pan
[26:26] and he would eat them straight from the pan. So I'm going to pan fry these.
[26:31] So melt some butter or ghee in a pan and then toss a few of the boiled pelmeni in, and let them cook for about a minute on each side.  
[26:38] Just making sure that they don't stick.
[26:40] And then they are ready to be served with smetana or sour cream and a bit of dill.
[26:45] And here we are, Siberian pilmeni fit for the last tsar of Russia.
[26:50] So like I said, they are a little bit bigger than I think I 
would like.
[26:55] This is how big she says to make them, but it's going to be hard to eat this in one bite.
[27:02] One bite is the ideal size. Anyway, uh a little sour cream or smetana on there
[27:08] and we'll take a bite.
[27:10] [chomp]
[27:13] Hmmm.
[27:16] Oh, that's really good.
[27:18] Hm!
[27:20] Oh my gosh, that's good.
[27:22] So, as you may have noticed, a little bit of the meat fell out, and that's because they are too big to do in one bite,
[27:27] or at least one decent bite. Maybe if I was alone in a dark room just scarfing these.
[27:33] But on camera, or in polite society, these are two bite, pilmeni.
[27:37] But you can see the meat in there.
[27:41] The dough kind of puffs up a little bit around it. So agh, it's so good though.
[27:47] One second. One second!
[27:50] Hmm.
[27:52] I mean, I don't think I've ever met a dumpling I didn't like, but these are really, really good.
[27:57] Especially because they are so simple. It's just really the meat and  
[28:01] onions with a little salt and pepper. That's it. 
That's the filling.
[28:05] A little dill on the outside, but that's not a dominant flavor.
[28:10] They are so good.
[28:12] The texture is wonderful,  
[28:15] and I think they do benefit from being fried. They 
would work in a soup when they're just boiled, of course, but
[28:20] the frying kind of gives a little bit of a crispness just along the edges  
[28:24] while then the rest of the dough is nice and soft. 
The pasta is very soft.
[28:30] Yeah, no. They are fantastic. Make them. Just absolutely make them. You can actually buy them if there's a Russian store near you.
[28:38] You can buy them pre-made. And they haven't really changed that much. Usually now they'll have beef and pork,
[28:44] but there are also ones that have mushrooms in them or lobster, which I really want to try.
[28:49] But just try them. I can see why the tsar enjoyed these.  
[28:52] They're absolutely fantastic. I don't care how powerful 
you are. This is a really good food.
[28:59] So make some pilmeni. Eat like a last tsar of Russia.
[29:02] And I will see you next time on Tasting History.