Syrniki with Blueberries (Russian Pancakes) with Ally's Kitchen

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and we are Around the Kitchen Table. And we're not around my kitchen table today because I have a special guest star for us. Before I introduce her, I want to say hi to my co-host Susan Sarah. How you doing, Susan?

Hi there, I'm great. I'm, I'm good. I'm excited about this show. I'm so excited to have Ali here and I'm doing good. And you too, you're looking So far so good.

Weight stayed off of me. I mean, I go up 2 pounds, I come down. Yeah, yeah, it's been— everything's good. I'm happy. How could you not be in Florida? And we're getting ready to come back up north just about another 5 weeks, I guess it is, that we'll be back in Jersey.

Wow. Okay, I better get all my dimensions out of you until then. And everyone, we started with Chef's Kitchen last week and we'll pick it up again next week. But today we just have too much excitement around here today.

Too much to do, and I'm not even in my kitchen. I'm sitting at my desk just relaxing, lounging today. So let's not wait any longer, and I want to introduce Ali Phillips from Ali's Kitchen. And Ali, you know, I see Phillips on the book, but I see another name on your screen name too. So what is yours? Ali Phillips D'Antonio, or—?

Ah, it's Alice D'Antoni Phillips. And it's Ali's Kitchen. So my grandchildren call me Mama Ali, so I guess I'm an Ali.

I like that. I know I felt when I was mentioning you on Facebook and I had to write Alice, I'm going, I've never heard anybody call her Alice. You know, it's like, so I felt like it should be Ali. So love it.

I know, I know. However, if the new royal baby had been named Alice, which was considered It would have exploded in popularity. It's a very old-fashioned name.

Yes, it is. It's a lovely name. Tell me, how many grandchildren do you have and what ages?

Susan, I have 6 grandchildren and I've got a 7th on the way due in August. And so a lot of, a lot of young'uns, and they range in age from 24 down to 16 months. They don't.

Not 24 months to 16— not 24 years old.

24 years to 16 months. I don't believe that.

I can't believe it. I have 2, 5 years old and 3. And you know, I'm just in love, so I love to talk grandchildren. But I won't diagnose any more.

Yeah, they're great. They're wonderful, but it's nice to let them go home and we have our peace and quiet and sanity back.

Yeah, so go ahead, go ahead, take it away from me, Chef, or I'll keep talking.

That's fine. We're happy to be here, Ali, but I do have a couple questions for you. Well, first of all, I want to show your cookbook here. I have it, and we'll put it in front of my face. Thank you., and it's Ali's Kitchen, A Passport for Adventurous Palates. Let me tell you, I got this, and I have been going through it, perusing it, and the first night I got it, I was just blown away. I cannot wait to start cooking out of it. The only thing that's stopping me right now is I know I need to get some good fresh spices because I want to make the spice blends. I want to keep talking about them. You said you made 3 of them. Which ones did you make? I made 3 yesterday.

I made the Ethiopian Burberry, and it's on, I think, page 3. Oh my gosh, I wish you could smell it, it's just amazing. I made the rose elder nut, and I just put these in old, you know, in leftover jars, and it's just, you know, it's It's as fresh as fresh can be, because you roast some of the seeds. And then I made the harissa, which is a Moroccan spice mixture, and it's fabulous. So a lot of the recipes in the cookbook refer to using these new spice blends. The Ras el Hanout, it means top of the shelf in Arabic. And you really, with making any of these, you can't go wrong. I mean, you can just start dumping and blending and roasting and then put them in a grinder and you're gonna get something magical. So when I was at the grocery store the other day, I saw that McCormick's does have a blend for ras el hanout, but I, guarantee it is not as fresh and as delicious as your own homemade. I think my recipe, I think that's page 9 or 11, Dennis Littley, and it might have 15 different spices in it. Yeah, yeah, it's just, the hardest part of creating your own spice blends is just the organization, getting everything together, which takes maybe 5 minutes, and then to roast, if you have to roast cardamom seeds or cumin or anything else, it may take 5 minutes. It's worth that little bit of time.

I want to show this real quick. This is your harissa, just so people get an idea how beautiful that fresh spice is.

I'm sorry, I have to jump in. I wasn't listening because I just was ordering the Kindle version of your cookbook. And Chef had me— Oh, good! Yes! So forgive me. Chef had me at— he was so impressed with it, and I just went, okay, whoop, here we go, and it's ordered. It's on my Kindle.

Yay!

Wonderful, thank you, Susan.

I think one of the things about this cookbook is that it's like a piece of artwork. It's culinary artistry with the photos, and then it's almost like a little mini novel because I talk about so much of my inspiration from my travels over decades around the world getting ideas for these recipes and really paring it down to 15 per area, Middle East, Asia, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Africa, was really hard because I had so many recipes in my stockpile. So there'll be a second cookbook.

So you have been a world traveler then. At what age did you start traveling to these countries?

I started my first trip was when I was 20 years old, and I went to Europe for 3 months, and I think I visited maybe 13 countries, including Spain and Barcelona and Mallorca. So I, but I was, I was young and restless, and all I wanted to do was go to the clubs and party. So I didn't really invest my energy in food. However, I did meet this gentleman in Greece, and he was much older. I was 20, he was probably 40 older, and he took me to the fanciest restaurant I had ever been to in my life. I mean, I grew up in Appalachia, in the hollers in West Virginia. I had never seen all the silverware and the glasses and And, you know, people folding your napkin every time you went to the potty. So that was an amazing experience, dining on the Adriatic with this gentleman. Well, you know, Ali, it makes me wonder.

The question I want to ask is, with all this traveling, with all these cuisines you've accomplished in terms of cooking, what's your favorite?

What's my favorite type? I have a real affinity for Middle Eastern food. I love it. My back— I'm Croatian, so you know, Middle Eastern, Eastern European food. That, and it's because I think, you know, being Croatian and my background, and my mother was an amazing cook, and my grandparents came over when they were teenagers, and you brought their customs and their recipes, and so I think those are two of my favorite, the Eastern European and Middle Eastern foods. I love the Middle Eastern spices. They are just amazing. A couple of years ago, I went to Israel, and one of my most favorite things to do was just spend time at the Jerusalem market. It was just bustling with flavors and scents and people and every kind of spice and dried fruit and meat you could even think of and fresh vegetables. It was, it was heaven. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven.

You know, Ali, we have a— we have a Middle Eastern, a good Middle Eastern restaurant in our town, a really good high-end one, and they happen, they, the seasonings are like nothing I've ever experienced, quite honestly. But they, they seem to do a lot of grilling, a lot of kebabs, a lot of healthy— it seems to me the menu has a lot of healthy foods on it.

Well, I think it's very healthy because, you know, they use totally fresh ingredients. I have— there's nothing boxed or processed that I've used. A lot of fruits and vegetables. And you're right, grilling and spices just seem to make the foods burst with flavor. And there are things that you really don't associate or think about combining together. For instance, one recipe in the cookbook is a grape mint red onion salad. And, you know, you usually don't think of onions and grapes and mint and then tomatoes, little cherry tomatoes. But it is just fabulous. With the addition of the mint and then lemon juice and the olive oil and just a little sea salt and pepper, oh, you've got the sweet and then a little bit of the burst of the tomato with the salty. These are the things I like. I like different twists on food.

Your cookbook certainly shared that with us. Like I said, I don't know I'm gonna dive in on the spices because I saw that pork chop you posted yesterday, and I had just— I am not the king of grilling. I am good in the kitchen, but grilling is something I'm learning. I saw those seasonings, and I had made a dry rub, and it was good, but I saw the one you made, and it looked to die for.

Well, that is so easy because it was just, you know, a thick bone-in pork chop, and it had the Ethiopian berbere seasoning mixture on it, and just to die for. It's got everything from turmeric to cinnamon and nutmeg and all these different spices in it, and you don't expect it when you slice into a pork chop. Fabulous. So I can't wait for you to try it.

I'm gonna, but like I said, we'll be heading into Winter Park sometime this weekend and we'll head to Penzey's and buy all the fresh spices because that is important. People don't realize that spices First of all, almost everyone stores them over their stove, which is probably the worst thing you can do because the heat destroys them. The enemies of anything fresh like that is heat and air. I mean, if you're leaving it open, if it's in too big of a container, they can breathe too much. We're a nation of surplus, so when we buy things, especially like at Sam's Club, we buy the big containers. Well, unless you're a restaurant, don't do it because you're never going to go through that much seasoning.

No, it goes bad before you're able to use it all. So it really— unless you're doing something that you're going to use in lots of things like garlic granules or something like that, or, you know, salt or pepper. But, you know, to buy the big containers of others, it's— yeah, you're going to lose a lot just in waste.

Yeah, unless it's like your go-to spice, like if you're a big chili powder person, then I can see it. But buying the big ones unless you're an institution doesn't make sense. But before we start, because I want to let you get started, I just want to say hi to everyone real quick. And Michael Thompson is saying, "Who else has a stainless steel culinary table in their kitchen?" And— Hi, Michael. I do. Aslan Bloor is saying hi to you. 70 bucks. And Kim Baltman. Hi, Kim! And Kim's here. And Ali is— or Aslan is saying, "We're Middle Eastern soul sisters." Yes, we are. Absolutely. Michael is also saying, "We're probably going to need 3 episodes of Around the Kitchen Table to cover all of Ali Phillips' content." And we would need a whole series, Michael, and maybe we'll do that.

I think that's a good idea.

That's a good idea. Coach Moore is here. Ray Miller is here, he's saying hi. And we've got a few other people in the house. Davina Chong is here saying hi to everyone. So we've got a nice crowd watching, and if you have questions, leave them and we'll get to them as soon as we get a break. But right now we're going to turn it over to Allie, and Allie, tell us what you're going to make for us.

Okay, today I'm going to make, it's called syrniki, and they're Russian pancakes. Now Eastern European food oftentimes has a lot of cottage cheese used. You know, my mother, I have a wonderful, it's called jiva lakata cheesecake, and it's my mother's recipe, and the cheesecake is made with cottage cheese. And then there's another Croatian recipe called strukli, and it's made with cottage cheese. So this Russian pancake called serniki is made with cottage cheese, and it means cheese in Russian and Ukrainian. So it's a very easy recipe. I started making it at— well, I've been to Russia 3 times. My first trip to Russia was in 1988. In my former life, I was Dr. Alice. I was a psychologist. I had a private practice. And so a team of psychologists and psychiatrists went— we went to Russia, and it was right after perestroika and glasnost, and they— we worked with their mental health professionals there exchanging ideas. So that was when I first experienced this, and then I went back two other times.. But I love these pancakes because they, the ingredients are just a tad bit healthier than regular pancakes with all of the cottage cheese in them. And my 4-year-old grandson, every time he comes, he comes and plops himself on the little red stool here in the kitchen. He goes, Mama Ali, I want wushin' pancakes. Wushin' pancakes. So these are kind of my, I give this My Little Tsar Nicholas, Niko, is Russian pancakes. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start with some cottage cheese, and the recipe's in the cookbook and it is on page 229. We've got a couple of eggs that have just been whipped up a little bit. Then we have some flour. Some vanilla, a little bit of sugar, and a little bit of baking soda and baking powder, and that's it. So we're just gonna blend this a little bit, and the pancakes, you know, have those little lumps of the cottage cheese in them, but you don't even realize it or know it. So, and I've made a few ahead of time, But we're just gonna mix this up a little bit, incorporate all the ingredients. And the batter is, as you can see, it's kind of thick. You can make it a little thicker if you want them, if you want to fry them, but I use either cooking spray or a little bit of butter, and since today's a special day, we're going to use butter. So I've got my grill pan back here. On low and they're really hot, so I'm gonna put a little butter on 'em, and we're gonna start dipping out some of these, this batter, and we're gonna put some blueberries in them. And I have some made, so we won't have to make them all. But just a little bit of— and I like to cook them kind of slow to let the butter ooze into them and they get all these little crinkly crispies on the outside. There we go, and we've got a little dipper here.

That looks like a flat, some sort of flat pan that you're using. It looks like a special type of pan, Ali.

It's a crepe pan, Susan, but I've also used, that's hot, I've got right here on the other side, I can do it in a cast iron skillet too. So, you know, you can use, or you can use a nonstick skillet. Let me put some blueberries on here. And I like to put the blueberries on top because I don't want them running or fading into the batter until they start cooking a little bit. So I've got, and when I serve them, I like to serve them, When I serve foods, I like to also extend the food beyond to the feel of where it came from. So for these pancakes, I would use some of these, these are yard sale finds, just little saucers, teacup saucers, they're retro plates, but they look beautiful.

I love that, Allie, that's what, we talk a lot about that. On the show about, you know, designing the table and other parts of the kitchen around the food, so I love that you're doing that.

Yeah, and they just look so pretty, and a little sprinkle of confectionery sugar, and this is my— I love the retro old kitchen utensils too. Usually, sorniki is served with honey or a dollop of cream, sour cream. I've got some right here. So you might serve it with a dollop of sour cream and then just a drizzle of honey, or you might use some applesauce is another thing. And it's just a fabulous, you can use it for a dessert or a breakfast. So I think this might be getting ready to— need to turn it up just a tad, get me some heat going there. And as you see, I've got more of them that I made earlier, you know, about an hour before we started. And these are great because you can freeze these. Just put a little bit of parchment paper between each one so they don't stick. Stick and tear when you pull them out. But, you know, people who buy frozen food, frozen pancakes? No way! You can make up a whole batch, put them in Ziploc freezer bags and parchment paper between each, and you can just pull them out and take them on the run with you.

And Ali, are you making them very thin?

You can make them thin if you want to thin your batter some, but I like them a little thicker, Susan, because they get a little crispier on the outside, and then the inside is kind of really velvety tender. And then you bite into it, and you've got that burst of that fresh blueberry. You can use frozen blueberries too. I understand—

I understand why you needed to write a book, because your verbiage is so attractive, and the way you describe every single detail It's wonderful. I can't wait. I already downloaded the Kindle, but I can't wait to see it.

Oh, well, I know that Lynn will be getting a surprise in her post office box or in her mailbox real soon, so I can't wait for her to get it. So be on the lookout for that, Lynn. Kim's already gotten hers, haven't you, dear? And this cookbook was 13 months in the making, and I could not have done it without Kim Bultman. Kim and I worked every day for hours virtually on the cookbook. She was my editor, and she was amazing. Found every little space and period, and I know at one time I was just hammering out recipes so quickly, and I put in the recipe like 2 pounds of chicken backs, and Kim emails me back and she goes, "Now what kind of recipe are you making with chicken backs?" I said, "No, no, I meant chicken thighs." Ah, yeah, she's pretty good, huh, Chef?

She's a good egg.

Okay, now, we're gonna, this one's coming hot off the grill. Look how pretty that is. Oh, that does look nice.

That does look beautiful.

Look at that, Chef. That's gorgeous.

Now I'm going to put just a little bit of powdered sugar on it. Mm-hmm. And just a dollop of sour cream. Mm. And a drizzle of this wonderful Amish honey. Now that could be a dessert. Oh yeah. That is beautiful. Can you see it well enough?

Can you bring it up to the camera?

Can I bring it up to the camera?

Yeah, why don't you walk it around to the camera for us. There we go. Wow.

Oh yeah. Do I have it—

Perfect. Looks great.

So that's, it's almost like a pancake then, would you call it almost like a pancake?

It is. Yes. Yeah, yeah, it's a pancake of sorts, but it's, you know, it's with the cottage cheese and it's got a little more crisp on the outside, Susan. I'm going to put another one on here as we're talking.

Oh yeah, no, similar, I mean in the way it looks, but very different.

Very different in the taste, so I'm going to cut into this one so we can see the inside, and it's just, it's just so beautiful, wait till you see this.

Okay.

You might even see the steam coming off of it. Can you see it, Dennis?

Yes, I can. Yeah, nice.

Oh, yeah, and then the sour cream. Yeah, it's excellent. I'll taste it for you. Please do. Y'all ready?

Dennis Littley, now you know how I feel.

There you go, I know.

I mean, I'm telling you, this is so good, you might just want to lay down and go into shavasana. Shavasana. And there's just a little, there's just enough crisp on the outside to give you that just tad bit of crunch. And I keep regulating my heat between a a simmer and low because you want to make sure it doesn't burn, but, you know, it gets crispy enough to flip without flopping. So those are the Russian pancakes, and you've got a lot, you've got your calcium in them, you've got your eggs, and then it, I think the recipe calls for maybe a quarter of a cup of flour,, and this will make probably 8, 10, 12 about this size, about 3-inch size, but they'd be wonderful for dessert too. Hey, Ali?

Yeah? Ali, we have a question from Davinia, and I hope I don't say your name wrong, Cheung. She wants to know, what other berries can I use if I don't use blueberry berries? And what other cheese can I use if I can't eat cream cheese? But you don't have cream cheese in there. So what other berries and what other cheeses?

You can use raspberries. I've used raspberries. You could use strawberries. I like berries that bleed just a little bit, like raspberries, blue, blackberries, strawberries. It's cottage cheese. It's not cream cheese. You probably could use, you could try, oh, well, mascarpone or cream cheese. Now, hopefully you can use cottage, you can tolerate cottage cheese.

Is that like a farmer's cheese?

That's the authentic.

Would it be like a farmer's cheese then? Could you use that?

You could do a farmer's cheese, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, there's another one. Mm-hmm.

And Ray Miller wants to know, how about maple syrup?

Uh, you know, I've never used maple syrup on them, but I'm sure you could. Traditionally in the Eastern European countries and in Russia and Ukraine, it's honey. It's usually honey and sour cream. So if you want to go, if you want to do maple syrup, you know, that would be fine, of course. But I like to kind of extend to, you know, how they would do it in Russia. And also, you could also put some spices in it. If you want to put cinnamon or nutmeg or sprinkle it on, it's kind of like being at Starbucks, just kind of make it to what your taste buds like. And I'm gonna put another one on as we're talking. So, and you can see in this batter, I don't know if, can you see the lumps of cottage cheese in there, Dennis? Yes. Okay. We're gonna get this. And then you just put a few of your little blueberries on top and you got some real good stuff going on there. I wanted to, you know, when I created this cookbook, I wanted to make these recipes easy enough with the ingredients, sourcing the ingredients, you know, and making them affordable. There's nothing worse than a recipe calling for something and it costs, you know, $20 for one thread or something. You know, most people can't do that. And then I also wanted to make the how-to easy, make it simple to create, otherwise people aren't going to do it. So I have a recipe in there for biryani, and it's with shrimp. And it's delicious, but I have shortcuts that make it easier and more accessible to a busy home cook.

That's important because, you know, we can't expect other people to have time we don't. And that's always something I tell.

That's right. Well— That's exactly right. This— and that's the— go ahead.

I said this has been wonderful, Allie. We got a look inside your kitchen, and I love it. And I see you have a whole big stack of books back there. And I gotta tell you where my copy of your book is placed. When you walk into my home, I have my 60-inch TV, which is my man cave, but it's where you walk into the home., but in one corner I have 4 cooking magazines, and in the other corner I have your cookbook. Oh, Dennis!

Chef Dennis! I'm thrilled. I'm honored. Thank you. Thank you so much.

But it's that pretty. It's just that pretty. It's not just something to make stuff out of. It's a— I don't want to say it's a coffee table book because you're going to use this cookbook. You're going to dive into it. You're going to make the recipes, and you're going to make one, and then you're going to want to make another. I mean, they're so flavorful and they're so— they're just beautiful. And you're creating, like you said, adventures for your palate. It's just—

well, and I'm so glad you recognize— the wonderful thing about working with my publishing company was that they let me work directly with the designers and graphic artists I had input into everything. You know, if there was something I didn't like, for instance, the bohoing tips. At first they had them in a straight line rectangular box, and I said, no, that's too harsh. It's too sharp. It's not me. And so they created the little bleed, the fade pattern that you see. The color of the paper, the colors, all of this, I had my hands in all of it, and not many publishers allow you to do that. So when you're looking at that cookbook, everything, even down to the colors that are chosen for each section, like I wanted Africa to be this wonderful cocoa brown, you know, just reminded me of you know, out in the savanna with the animals and things like that. And I wanted the Middle Eastern section to be this real deep, rich eggplant color. So yeah, every— my fingerprints are all over there as well as my passport stamps.

I saw those. I love those passport stamps. They were wonderful. What a great idea.

Well, it's, it's I think it's like an art book. But that's what being— I had one person, a couple of people say, well, you know, it's not organized into sides and desserts and entrees. And I said, but that's what Bohemian is all about, being unconventional. You still are able to do what you do, but you just don't do it the way everybody else does.

You know what, Ali, it's a personal expression. That's what it is, and that's the best when you can access, you know, those parts of you that you do want to express and that you want to share and that speak to you, and you're in touch with that and you put it on paper. That must be so fulfilling. I can understand, you know, I get what you wanted to do and why you want to do it, because it's not just about numbers and measurements of— and food ingredients. It's about the whole experience. And, you know, food is very soulful, and that extends to the environment we're in and we want to create for ourselves when we're enjoying the food. And it's about all the senses. I think you're talking about all the senses that are surrounding, you know, the meal and the food. And this— that I always say the kitchen is the place where— I've always said that where all 5 senses reside. And I think that's probably going to come through in your book from what I'm hearing.

Well, you're exactly right, Susan. And you know, it's— eating is a necessity, but dining is an experience. And I don't— it doesn't matter whether it's a ham sandwich or a bologna sandwich. I'm going to make it a dining experience because life is short and we, you know, food is such a part of our world, why not embrace it? And you don't even have to leave your kitchen to travel the world. It's allowing yourself to be that child again and imagine. In my cookbook trailer, I talk about growing up in the mountains of West Virginia. And one thing, we didn't have much. My mom was a single parent. My dad died when I was 10. She was 38. She raised 4 kids on her own. She had not even graduated from high school. And one thing that no one could take away from us were our imaginations. And we would go into the mountains and we would have— I would go all around the world in my imagination and with the World Book Encyclopedias. Those old big—

Oh, I had those. I grew up with them, Ali. You know, this one word I'm thinking of when it comes to you, and that's inspiring. And Dennis, I'm sure you agree.

Oh, absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you. And we have one more surniki in a beautiful antique vintage plate. I wish you guys were here. I wish I could serve you up around this stainless steel table. Now I would take you to my dining room, and we would enjoy and have tea and coffee and bruniki with blueberries.

They look excellent. And I gotta say one more time, if you buy one cookbook, this is the one you want to get this year. And I'm gonna hold it up again. You will not be disappointed, and I promise you. And let me speak about, you know, those people that said, oh, it's not organized by entrée, it's not organized by dessert or sides. That is so the wrong way to think about food, and it's so the wrong way to think about cookbooks. I am going for an experience, and your cookbook provides that experience. I'm not looking to see what am I going to make for dinner, what side do I want to throw with it. You want to just immerse yourself in something that you're doing, and this is when you have fun around the kitchen table. This is when you when you have fun cooking with your family, with your kids, with your friends, when you live these experiences like you've provided with this cookbook. So, you know, thank you so much for all your hard work on this, and thank you to Kim for being there for you and helping you.

Well, thank you all for having me around the kitchen table. Susan, thank you. Dennis, and everybody out there that's chiming in and listening now. I really, really thank you so much for your support. It wouldn't have come without support from folks like you, because that's what inspires all of us to run faster and jump higher.

I hope you'll join us again. Will you join us again? I will!

I will! Hey, we'll do something even more fun!

Sounds like a plan. I can't wait, because, you know, I love having you here, and you are inspiring. And show people that with your imagination, you can create some amazing dishes. Thank you so much, Susan. Always a pleasure seeing you. Allie, I hope to see you again soon. Are you coming to the World Food Championships by any chance?

I am, Dennis, and I will see you there. Absolutely. Good. I will have my cookbook so you can sign it because this one wasn't signed. Awesome. I'll put my paw print on it. There you go. All right. Bye, everybody.

Thank you all for joining us today.

And we'll see you soon. Bye-bye. Okay, bye.