Gravlax (Swedish marinated salmon)

I was not at all aware about Swedish cooking before I got a request for a private Swedish cooking class last November. It looked like no chances to make for me. However at the end of the story the class went well and I became attached to many Scandinavian dishes among which gravlax goes first. Gravlax is home marinated salmon served with special mustard sauce on rye bread toast. It requires hardly any work and is a killer appetizer. For those like me, who can't really stop eating it halfway, it often tends to become a self sufficient lunch or dinner.

Seafood paella

I have serious emotional attachment to seafood paella since I first tried it in Barcelona. I had it many times in restaurants before I finally visited a Catalan cooking school. That was double luck: the paella we made at school was even better than those really good ones I tried before. Simultaneously I figured out how to make it. The recipe performed really well both at our family kitchen and at our Moscow cooking classes for half a year and it feels like a good time to share it.

Tom yam kung. Home made.

In a certain way I was really proud when I got this tom yam at home. I had many doubts that it was at all possible in Moscow. But after certain reading effort, couple of visits to an Asian store and some time around the stove I tasted it and (!) it was good. While in Thailand and Singapore I had so much tom yam everywhere possible that I got very clear - the right tom yam is pure red liquid magic that impresses you forever once you try it. However even in Asia you very often get served a very ordinary prawn "soup" instead of it. This home made one is among the two or three best tom yam's I tasted.

Long, exhausting and delicious Bouillabaisse

The whole day was busy with this 'fish soup' (forgive me for saying these two words, I don't mean to hurt your feelings). And I didn't even wake up early enough to join our chef shopping. If I put it into bouillabaisse recipe format it is going to look long and scary. Better I'll just tell you about the day. Misha's bouillabaisse is inspired by Le Miramar port restaurant in Marseille. 'It is getting more and more expensive to have bouillabaisse in Marseille' he sais, 'last time the two of us paid something like 350 euros in Le Miramar'.