Oladi

After discussing the writing journals while on holiday recently, someone asked if I ever went back and read them. Well, yes I do and while I was rifling through one from my holiday to far eastern Russia I found this recipe for Oladi - a sort of yeasty drop scone. I remember well sitting round the fire one morning while we were camped near the beach and Vladimir making these. They were delicious - hot straight out of the pan and dripping with condensed milk. One of the other local breakfast specialities was prawns with the local beer!

15g yeast or two 7g packets of instant yeast
225g flour
150ml warm milk
1 egg
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
25g butter
oil for frying

condensed milk to serve

Mix the yeast with the milk, flour and sugar and then leave in a warm place until doubled in size. Then mix in the egg, salt and butter. Squidging it with your hands seems to work best. Then leave to rise again. Once you have a big dome of yeasty mixture heat a frying pan over you camp fire, or on your hob if you're at home! Then fry tablespoons of the mixture in a scant amount of oil until golden brown on both sides. Drizzle with condensed milk and try not to eat all of the oladi by yourself!!

I knew I'd find it eventually - here is Vladimir cooking oladi over the camp fire!