MARKETS : A Russian Market With Food

International Food Center, 7754 Santa Monica Blvd . , West Hollywood, (213) 656-1868. Open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

The new Commonwealth of Independent States has big food problems. But even when it was the Soviet Union and many foods were government-subsidized, there wasn’t much to choose from in the government markets, and in the privately run food stalls a delicacy such as a kilo of strawberries could cost a third of the average worker’s monthly salary. These days, they say, Commonwealth consumers are discovering real sticker shock.

But in L.A.’s “Little Russia”--the area around Fairfax Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard--there is plenty of wonderful food to be had, and at very manageable prices. Though the neighborhood can’t rival Brooklyn’s Little Odessa, its handful of markets offer everything that a cook or host from the former Soviet republics would need.

In lieu of unavailable items from the Commonwealth, the shops are crammed from floor to ceiling with goods from neighboring areas that share similar larders: Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Germany and Holland. Many products, particularly meat and dairy items created for the European-American market, come from the East Coast or Michigan.

At the 13-year-old International Food Center, one of the oldest of Little Russia’s food shops, ready-to-eat hot dishes, salads, desserts and countless other delicacies give real significance to the word delicatessen . It’s hard to imagine that this absolutely unassuming shop near the Pussycat Theatre, with its plain sign written in the Cyrillic alphabet, could hold such an opulent spread of goodies.

The smoked fish section, where a counter woman ladles salmon caviar out of a huge container by pints, rivals what you’d find at Murray’s Sturgeon Shop in New York. The cheese case features at least a half dozen varieties of butter, both imported and domestic. Piled beside them on one counter, many kinds of savory pastries exude the faint aroma of warm butter.

The cook at the International has maintained a devoted following almost since the shop has opened. “She’s the best baker in town,” an older gentleman informed me as I inspected the khachapuri-- Georgian-style savory pies with a cheese filling inside a rich yeast-risen crust.

These days, because its clientele is increasingly cholesterol-conscious, the International’s cook uses ground chicken for meatballs, cabbage stuffing and pirozhki filling. This doesn’t mean, however, that the customers are ready to give up their favorite smoked tongue or cured-meat cold cuts.

The Russian ideal of an abundant table is set forth in the shop’s brimming cases. And you won’t have to stand in line or spend a heap of rubles to savor their contents.

SHOPPING LIST

HOT PREPARED FOODS:

Kharcho : A beguiling Georgian-style beef-vegetable-and-rice soup with a sour tang. Handfuls of fresh herbs are stirred into its rich, long-simmered broth just before serving, which gives the soup still another taste dimension.

Borscht : Naturally there’s borscht at the International, a version dense with fresh vegetables--potatoes, beets, tomatoes cabbage--suspended in homemade beef broth.

Kotletki : Patties of seasoned chicken meat. These oval Ukrainian-style patties are lightly breaded and deep-fried but they manage not to be greasy. Another cutlet available most days is a pounded chicken breast with an amazingly light breading.

Stuffed chicken parts : These came into vogue along with kotletki a la Kiev and cotelettes de volaille (boneless chicken breasts) in the 19th Century when French cooking was favored by the Russian leisure class. Boned chicken legs are stuffed with ground chicken and mushrooms. The breast is treated similarly: A chicken breast skin is wrapped around chopped chicken meat and fried without any breading or batter. This treatment provides crisp and soft textures in each bite.

Golubtsi : Stuffed cabbage in a sweet-and-sour tomato sauce. The International uses ground chicken, rice and dill for its stuffing and really packs the cabbage leaves to the max. The same mixture is also made into meatballs that the shop calls frikadelki . The name is borrowed from German but the sweet-and-sour sauce gives them an unmistakable Russian flavor.

Chicken Tabaka : For this well-known Georgian preparation, a Cornish hen is flattened, lightly marinated and fried whole. Typically it’s served with borani, a fresh herb and yogurt mixture (see recipe below). Tabaka gets its name from the ridged iron skillet whose heavy lid keeps the chicken flat as it cooks.

SAVORY PASTRIES AND PIES:

Each ethnic kitchen in the Commonwealth has its own variations on the common theme of dough wrapped around a well-seasoned filling. Yeast doughs, flaky crusts or short pastry filled with meat, fish, vegetables or cheese in endless combinations make up a huge repertoire of savory pies.

Meat pies : Large pies are usually called pirogi, the smaller individual pies pirozhki (the singular is pirozhok ) . The manager at International says pirozhki may be either baked or deep-fried and may even have an exterior of mashed potatoes. Pirozhki are the favorite street food throughout most of the western half of the Commonwealth. With a bowl of hearty soup, most are substantial enough to make a meal.

Khachapuri : These large cheese-filled pies are sold in khachapuri parlors throughout Georgia. International’s version uses a slightly tart cheese, and the rich yeast-dough crust melts in your mouth.

Knishes : International makes a round-shaped potato knish with an exterior of tender, short pastry the like of which I’ve never tasted in any local deli. (To call most deli versions of knishes “substantial” would usually be euphemistic.) The cylindrical, meat-filled knish is every bit as elegant as the potato-stuffed version.

Chicken-filled potato pirozhki : These football-shaped mashed potato balls have a filling of chopped chicken blended with onions that have been slowly cooked almost to a caramelized marmalade. The pirozhki are quickly deep-fried to give them a thin, crisp exterior. They’re definitely hearty enough to make a meal. Serve them with a tossed salad or a few of the shop’s cold vegetable items, such as the sweet red peppers stuffed with a julienne of vegetables.

Yeast - dough - fried pirozhki : With their airy-light exterior, these unique deep-fried pirozhki are best described as savory-filled doughnuts. Their filling may be meat, potato or a delicious sweet-tart cabbage-and-onion mixture cut as fine as angel hair. A light simple soup is the best complement to their richness.

SALADS AND COLD FOODS:

Before the meal, the wealthier people in pre-Revolutionary Russia used to have an elaborate cold buffet. This lavish display of appetizers ( zakuski ; the singular is zakuska ) was often set out in a separate room. The idea was to have a little something on hand to accompany vodka for unexpected visitors who may have traveled a distance in the cold.

Today the zakuski may simply be the first course or a spread of various cold cuts, smoked fish, salads and caviar that could stand in for a meal. Any of the following dishes would make a fine addition to the zakuska table.

Eggplant caviar : Minced eggplant with loads of garlic in a mayonnaise dressing. This is an excellent spread for Russian rye and may also be served as a dip.

Marinated mushrooms : Wild mushrooms are the only variety available in the Commonwealth countries. As a substitute for them the cook uses pointy-capped Chinese straw mushrooms and irregularly shaped Japanese-style oyster mushrooms to marinate as accompaniments for cold cuts or smoked fish on the zakuska table. In their tart vinaigrette, the mushrooms lend a homey meal of pirozhki or chicken cutlets a little touch of exotic luxury.

Eggplant and pepper salad : A saute of sweet red peppers, eggplant chunks, tomatoes with garlic and onion makes a salad with a surprisingly Mediterranean character.

Vegetable-stuffed red peppers : These impressive-looking, lightly cooked sweet red pepper halves, heaped with finely julienned carrots, onions and other vegetables, make a stunning addition to almost any meal. A subtle touch of tart, marinated cabbage in the filling brightens up their flavor.

Fried eggplant slices : These are thick and firm and spread with a rich garlic mayonnaise laced with shredded fresh dill.

Salad Olivier : A meat-and-potato salad, one of the most familiar components of the zakuska table. It was introduced to Muscovites in the 19th Century by a French restaurant in Moscow, Cafe Olivier, but the salad is so often associated with Russia that it goes by the name salade Russe in most of Europe. Originally it included cold game, but chicken and vegetables or vegetables alone are the contemporary ingredients. International makes its version with diced potatoes, carrots and peas held together with a mayonnaise dressing.

Chopped herring salad : Minced marinated herring is eaten on thickly buttered bread or by the forkful.

Chicken liver pate : “This is not chopped liver,” insists Anna, the manager, of this meat paste delicious with the sweetness of long-cooked onions. “It’s much smoother.”

Beet - and - potato salad : This mixture of diced fresh beets, potato, shredded cabbage and home-cured dill pickle chunks, dressed with a light vinaigrette, is one of the best accompaniments for cold cuts, cold chicken or in fact any meat.

Marinated cabbage wedges : These cabbage wedges are lightly pickled in a slightly tart brine. Their red color comes from beet juice.

Smoked fish : This is the pride of the zakuska table, and International has an impressive array to choose from. Many of the fish are cold-smoked, a low-temperature smoking method that cures but doesn’t cook the meat and allows the smoke to flavor the flesh deeply. In addition to the familiar sable, chubs and white fish, there is cold smoked salmon , which is cut crosswise into steaks rather than the thin slices of a filleted side customary with Scandinavian and Scotch-style salmon. I found the smoked trout-- a meaty, three-pound fish--to be rather salty. But the hot-smoked osetrina , a small sturgeon with dense, meaty flesh, is a smoked fish-lover’s dream. There are also smoked herring, smoked eel, smoked shad cut crosswise into steaks and marinated in oil and small sardine-like smoked sprats , which one customer explained are popular in baked potatoes with sour cream.

CHEESES AND DAIRY FOODS:

Yogurt, soured cream, fresh cottage cheese and sheep’s milk cheese in brine are the dairy staples of the Commonwealth. Used in cooking or eaten plain, they are found on the table at almost every meal. Look for:

Farmer’s cheese : Also known as tvorog. This is a smooth cottage cheese with a touch of tanginess. It comes in two degrees of butterfat content. Tvorog is eaten either plain, spread on bread or used to fill blintzes or make cheesecake and other desserts. Try the cheese in the Russian-style breakfast spread recipe below. One version of the cheese comes already sweetened, with golden raisins added.

Brined cheeses : Brynza , a goat’s or sheep’s milk cheese preserved in brine, differs from region to region. Here the closest substitute is feta cheese. International carries Bulgarian, Greek, Danish (with the label written in Russian) and French feta, each with a slightly different character. Before using it, some cooks like to rinse and soak the cheese in plain water to remove its salty flavor.

Ryazhenka : A yogurt made with milk that has been baked in a slow oven to evaporate it. The milk becomes the color of light caramel, and the yogurt made with it is creamy and only slightly sour. Look for it in plastic bottles in the refrigerator with the juices and mineral waters across from the cheese case.

MEAT:

Sausages : The wide assortment here includes the bologna-like detskaya. “Children love it,” says Anna. “It’s like a giant hot dog.” The mild sausage also comes in a larger diameter, for cold cuts. Other items will be more familiar: long, skinny Polish kabanos , garlicky kielbasa, Hungarian salami, German-style liverwurst and a delicious fresh salami known as “young Moscow.”

Cold cuts : Two wonderful veal rolls include the cured veal pepper loaf with a swirl of crushed peppercorns freckling the interior. Another loaf contains three meat styles: a swirl of fat-streaked cured veal, a fresh salami-like section and plain cured meat on the outside holding everything together.

Other meats include roast pork leg, small smoked veal tongues, several styles of head cheese, hot-smoked pork shoulder and cold-smoked pork loin wrapped in a thin leaf of fat.

SWEET PASTRIES:

Bulochki : A yeasted eggy dough rather like a sweet hallah filled with a sweetened fresh cheese and golden raisins or sweetened tart cherries. It’s an excellent breakfast pastry.

Poppy-seed pirogi : Also made with a rich yeast dough rolled around sweet poppy seed filling.

Rogaliki : Rolled Russian-style cookies with walnuts and raisins.

Strudel : This version has a wonderful thin shell packed with walnuts, raisins and berry jam.

BREAKFAST ORANGE CHEESE SPREAD

3 tablespoons orange marmalade, or to taste

1 pound tvorog (farmer’s cheese)

2 tablespoon rich sour cream

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

Place marmalade in small dish in top of double boiler. Heat over simmering water until it melts. Combine cheese, sour cream, butter and orange zest in bowl. Blend in marmalade, stirring until mixture is well homogenized.

Wrap in double layer cheese cloth and place in ceramic dish with weight on top. (Soup can will work.) Keep refrigerated 3 or 4 days before serving. Unwrap before serving and invert on plate. Makes about 1 1/4 pounds.

GEORGIAN BORANI FOR CHICKEN TABAKA

Unsalted butter

1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 bunch spinach, washed, stemmed, patted dry and sliced crosswise into ribbons

3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1/3 cup plain yogurt

Salt

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in large skillet. Add and saute onion and garlic over medium-low heat until translucent and tender. Stir in 2 additional tablespoons butter. Add spinach, handful at time, until wilted. Cook about 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in basil, dill and cilantro and cook about 1 minute longer. Stir in yogurt, add salt to taste and heat through. Serve alongside Chicken Tabaka. Makes 3 or 4 servings.