Yes.

Its ready.

Got it all prepared.

Its finished.

It's stunning.

Yes.

It's great.

It's all so ready.

So just let it all begin.

Hello everyone, and welcome to the QED Cooks Kitchen.

I'm Chris Fennimore and toda is all about European cooking.

Pittsburgh is the perfect place to explore all those cooking traditions, because of the different immigrant groups that made their way to the Steel City and established communities where those traditions could be nurtured and passe from one generation to the next.

Every year I used to go to Saint Malachy's Church to help out during their festival, and they took the unique approach of having multiple booths that featured differen ethnic specialties from Polish to Lithuanian, German, Italian and even French.

And that's the booth where I helped make crepe Suzette with my frien Melissa, her mom and her kids.

It was a family affair.

I'm glad they let me into their family for it.

Our first segment today features a recipe from our friend John Righetti.

He used to run a car Parthowosen festival every year in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

This recipe that we're going t make is for a traditional soup, and I love the way that John starts his recipe with a lot of butter.

And you start by melting two tablespoons of butter.

And to that butter you're going to ad about a half of a chopped onion.

And for East European cooking, it's always good to use a pungent kind of onion a yellow onion, not something mild like a white onion, because a part of what you're looking for is for this to give the flavor and, and what you're going to do is cook those onions, and we'll cook those until they get translucent, until they, you know, they look like almost like a window pane.

Right.

And as you do tha and that's going to cook for us, what gets you that roux or the prosecco.

You can se it's already starting to cook.

All right.

Is to be really careful with this.

Because if you don't do this correctly you're going to burn that butter and then you got to start all over again.

Okay.

But what you want to do is then gently add to this.

And why don't I have you add flour, Chris, while I start.

Okay.

All right.

We're going to gently add flour to this translucent onion mixture.

Yeah.

Because unlike a New Orleans gumbo you're making a white roux.

That's correct.

That's correct.

And to see that the speed at which you do this makes all the difference in the world.

If you just threw that all in there, it would be it would clump.

So the way that you're sprinkling it, this is one of the joys I have of cooking with you is that I don't have to teach you how to do these things.

You're the pro, you know, but you do a lot of cooking with your kids, though, don't you?

I do I do of sharing that tradition.

It's always been important for me to teach them those things because as I tell them, I' not going to be around forever and I'm going to come to your hous someday for Easter or Christmas, and I want to eat the same thing.

You know, I'm picky that way.

So the groove will continue to boil like this.

And what you're trying to do is to let this get to be a golden brown color.

What you're seeing, it's turning to pretty readily.

You're not looking for it to get very thick.

You're not looking to cook all of the fluid out of it.

And in fact, it's very, very close, as you can see when it really starts to stick a little bit to the sides, you're ready to go.

Okay.

So I'll turn that down so we can take that.

And from that we're going to put that roux directly into the two quarts of water which are not yet boiling.

The purpose of this is it does two things.

The onion adds a little bit of flavor.

The, the a roux, thickens the soup over time.

And don't panic if it doesn't thicken it right away.

That's not its intention.

Right.

Okay.

Now we start that, we turn that on and get that boiling.

And now to that we're going to add two other ingredients the cubed potatoes okay okay.

Are there a particular preference that you have for those.

Or you know I really don't though in Eastern Europe it's a yellow potato that is used similar to what, like an, Yukon gold.

Okay.

Okay.

So we get potatoes in there, and then we also add parsley.

And if you can do fresh parsley, which you once upon a time in the winter you couldn't do, but now you can.

Yeah.

But if you can do fresh parsley, add it.

And people this kind of surprises people because they thin to themselves, why parsley now?

Why not at the end?

Because the parsley is one of those few East European herbs that you have, and it makes the soup very aromatic if you add the parsley at the beginning.

Okay.

So now you're on boi that for about a half an hour, the purpose of which is to cook the potatoes.

And one of the other things, if people are watching, they're probably surprised.

That is no salt went into their Now, while salt helps to enhance the heat of the water, potatoes absorb salt.

So what you're doing is putting all that sodium in there that you won't taste.

So if you want salt, you do salt at the end, okay.

You do that for about a half an hour.

And the other thing now you add the green beans.

And fresh green beans are of course bes because of the flavor they give.

But if you add the green beans, why is this?

Because green beans can get mushy pretty quickly so you don't want them.

The potatoes already cooked about half an hour in.

That's right.

So once those potatoes are soft and you can even kind of tell from looking at those potatoes as they soften, you know they're kind of solid right now.

But that color will dissipate.

They'll be a little less color.

They'll they can look softer.

The critical piece of this of course, is that you want to soften those potatoe because the starch breaks down.

And that's a part of what work with the roux or this approach get the thickness and just a little okay.

Yeah.

Now at this stage of the game, I don't know that it's going to have much flavor.

But the most critical piece o this recipe is now what happens.

And, I remember my grandmother teaching me this and, doing this over and over again to get it right.

And that's.

How do you get sour cream into hot soup without it curdling?

Right.

And the secret to that is at some point you shut the soup off.

And again, we have a sample here, okay.

Which we'll put here.

So you shut the soup off.

And this is what it looks like at that stage.

And you take some of the water from the soup.

Now you want it to coo just a little bit.

It doesn't.

It just can't be bubbling hot.

It.

But it can be warm, you know.

And take the butter or.

Excuse me, you want to take the water and you put it in, some type of container and you add to that water sour cream.

Okay, okay.

Why is this important?

If you added it into tha boiling soup, it would curdle.

And so now what you're doing is simply and, again, through the magic of modern television, we have pre dissolve this, but with the, with your dissolving the sour cream into the inside out, tempering the, the, the temperature, in other words.

Right.

You, you want to integrate it but you don't want to shock it.

That's correct.

It curdles You're absolutely right, Chris.

And so what you see the consistency that it gets is it should look like almost like batter pancake batter at that point.

Now what you do is and agai I'm going to ask you to assist me here, I'll be the stirer at this time you don't turn the heat back on you leave the hot heat off of the soup, but gently, while stirring, pour the sour cream back into the soup mixture.

Okay?

And you can see how gently, how nicely that goes in, how smoothly it folds into the water.

And look at that.

No curdling, no curds on the top of that.

Wow.

Okay, so you get a nice rich dairy flavor from the sour cream, but you don't have lumps to get through.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And it does.

And it's attractive.

You know it doesn't look like something curdled on the top of that.

Where does this knowledge come from, do you think is this is this like one of those trial and error things of the old world that, you know, somebody you know, Mildred makes it, but her soup is always curly, and then you go, wow, I figured out a way.

You know, I think people probably 500 years ago figured out how to do this, you know, and my knowledge, I'm very fortunate that I had a grandmother to learn from and other relatives to learn from.

And then I've spent a lot of time going back to Eastern Europe as well.

Right.

And learning recipes at people's hands and some of the tricks of the trade.

But, you know, anybody who cooks will tell you a part of that knowledge is your own trial and error and figuring out how to do it with your stove and your heat and all of those kind of things, you know, but you can see how beautifully this has already turned out how nice and thick the soup is.

And now you turn it back on a boil, okay?

And you're going to cook this for maybe and then it won't curdle now.

And now it won't curdle now that you turn the the you put the sour cream in, it won't curdle.

So you turn it on.

You're going to cook this again and continue to thicken it.

Okay.

Hour for another hour.

And to also build some of the cream the sour cream taste into the potatoes themselves.

Yeah.

Because one of the beauties of potatoes and I think one of the views of this show is potatoes take on what the flavor of whatever you put them in.

Yeah.

You know so that' one of the nice things about it.

So we do that for about an hour and then we have one then we have one that's boiled.

And actually, what you said in your, recip was that you do that for an hour and then you let the soup coo and then let it stay overnight.

It gets even better the next day.

Absolutely.

So this is the next da because we made this yesterday.

Yeah.

And it just it's turned out.

And look how nice and thic this is the consistency of it.

The, the it's almost like marinatin because now what you've done is the potatoes have an overnight to again absorb some of the flavor of the sour cream.

You know.

And the soup has time to thicken.

This is a wonderful wonderful winter soup.

Yeah.

You know in Eastern Europe soup is not the first entree or the first course.

It is.

It is the whole meal that's, you know, so this is, it's this has kind o give you everything for the day.

So there we have it.

And I'm ready to serve I think.

So let's do that.

Let me pull some of this out of here.

So we saw that up on there okay.

So so let's get you on here and there.

Now you think you're done but you're not.

Because there's still two more steps to this soup.

So here we go.

All right.

Oh boy.

Well those potatoes have just about cooked down and they're just integrated into the whole.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And in fact if you really wanted to cheat, you can use mashed potatoes, but I don't know about that.

Oh, come on, I don't recommend that.

Now, when you serve, you you can let folks do whatever they want to do with salt.

Usually just a pinch because remember, we we haven't salted this recipe yet.

Right?

And now, this is actually going to have a very mild flavor, but to give it a little bit of bite to balance that sour cream against another flavor, vinegar, white vinegar.

And I, I usually put it like this on the table for people because I let them do it themselves.

Some people may lik a lot of vinegar, some may not.

Some people may want no vinegar at all, you know, and so just sprinkle a little bit.

I generally recommend for a regular 8 or 12 ounce serving no more than a teaspoon okay.

All right.

So you do that integrate the vinegar into the soup along with the salt.

Just fold it in there and then take a little bit more fresh parsley.

And the different flavor parsley the fresh top okay.

And there you go.

Let's get me one very quickly here.

And and then you an I will have the opportunity to.

And John, you allow I'll pour this in here.

Move.

You have now had a change in your life because you're you're cooking all the time.

I have I have the catering.

I started a new cate and this a specialize in this.

Eastern Europe specializes in East European, Italian and Middle Eastern cuisine.

Well that about which just pretty much fits Pittsburgh pretty well.

No tortillas.

But other than that you know lot I learned long ago my only make what you're good at.

Yeah.

So let me give myself a little bit of vinegar here.

Put a little bit of salt i there, a little bit of vinegar.

Let's fold that in.

Okay.

Called Old World Catering.

And, enjoying it very much.

As you can tell from our years of association, cooking is something I enjoy.

And, it' a pleasure to be able to do it as a part of my career.

I always enjoyed your cooking, too, so I'm glad you brought some bread with you.

I did.

Now, traditionally you would serve this.

You would serve it with.

And this is a black pumpernickel rye.

So you would serve it with this.

And you could put butter on that if you like.

Let's brea this one in half for you and I. How about it okay.

Breaking bread with John Righetti.

It doesn't get any better than this.

Ooh, this is nice bread, too.

Okay, well, let me have a taste of this.

Very good.

Oh, you're, You're right about the vinegar.

Nothing like complimenting your own recipe.

Oh, no, but the vinegar, makes the difference.

But you don't need that much.

Yeah, just that contrast.

As you said, it's really really wonderful and heartier.

And more, satisfying.

I couldn't imagine a soup being, You've done it again, John.

Whether you're here by yourself or with one of your, children, you, you always bring us something wonderful and fresh and real.

And thank you for that.

Yeah.

John's the real thing.

And so is that soup.

Like so many ethnic recipes, i replaces expensive ingredients with love and car to create a satisfying result.

Next, we make our way up to northern regions with a Norwegian recipe and their recipe for crepes that they call lefsa.

In the studi we have Andrea Yule with her two grown sons, Eric and Jason, and it's easy to see tha this is much more about spending time in the kitchen with thei mom than just making a recipe.

Well, let let's let's just see you as if we're standing there at Christmas time.

You guys are bringing together a recipe.

Talk us through what's what's in each one of the ingredients in here is, I believe this is half of a recipe.

Right.

So, you all have cooked russet potatoes, and while they're warm, you want to put them through a ricer.

Then you're going to measure out four cups of rice potatoes to that you're going to add a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of sugar a fourth of a cup of heavy cream and a fourth of a cup of melted butter.

So really what you've made are some really rich mashed potatoes, cracked, I mean, and they would taste good just like ingredients I like.

I know that recipe.

It would taste great just like that.

But at that point you're going to cover them and put them in the refrigerator and chill them overnight.

Okay.

Then the next morning you add, since this is a half a recipe, you add one and a half cups of flour.

Okay.

Now, okay.

And I usually I get in there and just mix it with my hand.

That's the way you do it That's the way we should do it.

And it usually.

It'll seem like it's falling apart.

It'll be crumbly, the dough, but it'll come together if you keep working with it with your hands.

But you don't put any other liquid in there.

No.

Okay, so.

And like I say, it seems really crumbly and it just feels like it'll never come together, but all of a sudden it'll form a ball.

I know one time I was trying to make potato candy.

Oh.

And it said to add powdered sugar to one mashed potato.

And so I put a pound of sugar into one mashed potato.

And it just kept getting thinner.

And thinner.

It seemed to draw the liquid out.

I thought somebody was sneaking up behind me.

There's something about potato where there's some intrinsic, moisture.

Right.

So, you know, whatever.

So now, do you do much cooking other than left?

So, just in the house?

I don't really do much, though.

I like to cook.

I have fun cooking, trying out different recipes.

But the tradition is more important than the food, isn't it?

Yes, of course.

Yeah.

My sons are both very good cook.

Are they okay?

They are.

Yeah, well, I would I would assume that if you if you're hanging around good cooking then when you have to move out.

But you're down in Washington now, you know, then there's no alternative.

You have to cook.

Yeah.

If you want to have that stuff again.

Yeah.

Right.

So we'll look at that.

It has actually come together right.

As if it's a dough.

Right.

And of course it won't.

There's no yeast so it isn't going to rise.

I don't just be.

And then once you have the flour incorporated you want to cover it an put it back in the refrigerator because you want the dough to be really chilled and really cold.

Yeah.

It makes it much easier to roll out.

Okay, so we brought some dough that is we fixed yesterday and so it' had a chance to rest and cool.

I'm going to put this in the back because we'll be making left.

So for the rest of the day with that thing right.

I might bring that home and make them tomorrow.

Then when you're ready to bake them, they're baked on a griddle.

On an electric griddle, you don't use any butter or any kind of spray on the griddle, okay?

You tear off a piece of the dough and you keep it refrigerated while you're baking it because it really needs to stay cold.

Okay.

So you work just a little bi of the dough at a time.

Correct.

And and you want to roll it into a ball a little bit smaller than a tennis ball.

It's pretty big.

And that's.

And then we make them.

And this is where my sons come in.

They finally the they have become the experts at rolling it out.

I don't have the patience.

So they have become very expert at rolling it out and baking them.

So we'll show you how to do that.

Now you your tradition is Scandinavian.

You're, you're I'm, I' half Norwegian and half Finnish.

Oh my father was Finnish.

Okay.

And my mother Norwegian.

And then of course, my kids are, I think English and probably some Danish.

And from their father.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So you and you have a nice.

That's a like a pastry board, I mean a cloth that you put over the board.

And it's been well seasoned with all the years that we've been making lefsa.

So, so A question about a pastry, cloth like this.

Do you wash that to clean it, or do you just shake it out, take it out, and then just basically let it sit out so it's nice and dry, and then just roll it up and put it in in the bag that we have for it.

And then you have covered your rolling pin with, more cloth.

This is obviousl a pretty delicate kind of dough.

Right.

And it needs to be thin.

You try and get it as round as you can, but that doesn't always happen.

So whatever shape it turns out, that's what we go with.

All right.

It it ha it doesn't crumble at the edges.

I mean my like when I roll out pie dough, it usually breaks someone up.

But I guess sitting, letting it sit for a while overnight, may help the gluten in the flour or.

And I think it's just, potatoes probably.

That just makes makes a difference.

Now, those circles on your pastry board also for an 8 or 9 inch.

So this is about a nine inch circle.

Yeah.

And it all depends on how big you've made the, the ball of dough.

And I had how far we did that left.

It was so big I guess I thought of them as little rounds.

I think you can probably make them any size you want, but, and then you just let it sit on the griddl and it'll start forming bubbles.

And at that point, you can start moving around the griddle.

Initially when you put it down, it's going to want to touch.

Yeah.

You don't want to touch them.

It's going to stick.

But once it starts formin bubbles you know it's cooking.

And then we just kind of watch it, see?

See how brown it's getting?

Well, if you only have one griddle.

No wonder this takes you three days.

It's just, actually they've got it down to science where they put two on tw on the griddle at one time, so.

Yeah.

All right, well, let's se you roll one out here or what?

You're, you're you're the flame.

So how about do we both do they do the flipping.

It's, it's a tag team now.

But let me ask a question.

I and I shouldn't ask a question that that I haven't asked you before, but, Do you what do you do whil you're doing all this cooking?

Is it just.

Do you tell family stories?

Do you just catch up with each other about what's going on?

We have fun.

We do a lot of laughing.

Yeah we just have a lot of fun.

Yeah.

Last night we were in hysterics.

Yeah, well we throw you off your schedule because normally you wouldn't be making them yet, right?

It would be too early.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, but this is this is working out good.

Well, I yeah, this looks like a tortilla.

It does I mean I mean I want it it does.

It looks like a flour tortilla.

Except that it has that potato, you know, so that's, so it's a different kind of, recipe altogether.

Now, traditionally, these are served how and when during the holiday they're, they can be served with a meal as a bread or just for snacking.

When we take it off the griddle, we fold it in quarters and we stick it under a kitchen towel to keep it moist.

Once they're all made, w let them rest till they're cool.

And then we store them in plastic bags in the refrigerator.

Or you can freeze them right?

Then when you serve them, you, cut each left, into quarters.

Butter it, put brown sugar on it and roll it up and eat it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that says you can use it as a, like a table bread or as a dessert.

It could be a dessert.

But a lot of it is just snacking.

We like to snack on it.

A lot of it just gets eaten while you're making them.

Correct.

Yeah.

Well that's my temptation right now.

I got to tell you when I see this, Beautiful.

Yeah.

Look at that.

Oh, it's a little hot.

Yeah, it's very hot.

And then we usually.

Oh, this one's not coming.

Oh, Oh, well, that's a little warm.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that always happens here in the studio of whatever we're doing, pie dough or any kind of, thing that's temperature sensitive.

Is that the lights change the entire, circumstance.

And, and it's so but small wonder that the first one work because it was nice and cold and, you know, it' only going to get worse for now, but fortunately, you've put some together, and I just want to feel what it's like.

Oh, it is, they're very pliable and very feathery, like.

Right, right.

Yeah.

It's good with a rich potato flavor and quite hot.

Yes.

Yeah.

They're eating at roo temperature.

And are they.

Okay.

So do you, do you have a plai one that I could just, Oh yeah.

This is one we brought that we made yesterday.

So.

And this is the way you would eat it at, if you would just using it as a bread.

Right.

Correct.

Just just rip it or cut it into fours and then just put butter in Brunswick.

Go ahead or just have it plain.

Like that.

Yeah.

it's so amazing because when I'm expecting one flavor.

I'm getting a completely different one.

Yeah.

Because I'm, I'm frankly I'm expecting a floury kind of flavor.

But well I could se having a stack of these around, you know, brought in a plate.

Yeah I'm ready.

And, and so then you would just, brush these with, just melted butter, not melted butter, which is really butter.

Okay.

Just spread them and some brown sugar.

And that's what you have over there.

When we roll them out, we're going to taste one of those.

So this is what a big plate of lobster looks like.

I got to have one of these.

You can all have one for some.

that may be the best way to have them.

With the with the brown sugar.

Now, do you know if this is Scandinavian, just Norwegian or is it Norwegian?

Swedish?

Well, we like to call it Norwegian.

Yeah.

Well you're probably, you're probably variations of it in other countries.

In Scandinavian countries.

But yeah, but the most important thing again, and, and we really thank yo for sharing it with us is the, the creation of a, of a tradition.

Whether it's making cookies around the holidays or, you know, an ethnic treat like the lepsa.

So I always have my memories of making meatballs on a Sunday morning.

It didn't.

It doesn't really matter what the food is.

What really matters is that yo do it together as a family and.

And that those memories sort of linger on and on.

You're carrying on a tradition that predates you by a good bit and now you're carrying it on.

And, you know, people wil hopefully be doing this together as a family through your line that you never will meet.

You know.

Right.

Well, my son Jason has a little daughter who's a year and a half.

Her name is Caitlin.

And hopefully in a few years, she'll want to learn how to make lepsa.

Shell carry on the tradition.

Caitlin will have to work with you first.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Caitlin.

Nice.

Nice to see you.

I hope you're watching out there.

You can see they're in the room or they're in the greenroom.

Yeah, right.

There are.

So there you have it.

Two potato recipes from two very different ethnic traditions.

But most both of those recipes are made with love and with the family in mind.

I hope you'll enjoy them with your family.

And as I always say, we do it for you.

But we can't do it without you.

So keep cooking and keep watching in.