Who does not love to snack? Snack time is easily a fun time when we can enjoy our favorite sweets or salty treats. People snack between meals. Usually, a little bit later after lunch, coffee lovers would drink some coffee with a little biscuit. For those who prefer tea to coffee, they can have a cup of tea with some cookies. If you do not belong to any of those two categories, coffee lover or tea drinker, that is okay, too. You can still munch on your favorite treats.
Nowadays we can easily find many kinds of snack in the market. Candy, ice cream, chocolate, and, everybody’s favorite, chips are just some of the snacks we can find in all mini markets. If you like to cook your own snacks, you can find many of its recipes online. If you like brownies or ice cream, you can even find a package of its premix ingredients at the supermarket. Using this premix package is so easy. Usually, all you have to do is adding another one or two ingredients into it, mixing it again, and baking (for cakes) or putting it into the fridge (for ice cream).
Snack is not only a part of the daily meals but also has become a tradition. Just like each country has its own traditional food, it also has its own unique snacks. Take Russia for example. One of its famous snacks is Sushki. It is a super simple snack that you might want to try to make.
“Sushki” The Russians’ Famous Snack
Sushki has been a part of Russians’ tradition for a long time. Before we talk about Sushki, let’s also dig a little bit more about the eating habits of the people of Russia.
- Russians’ eating habit
It is widely known that Russian loves to eat healthy food. They care so much about the nutrition of the meal they consume so that is why they enjoy cooking from scratch. What makes it even more admirable is the fact that Russians also love to grow their own vegetables. The kinds of vegetables they grow in their garden are cabbage, radish, potato, carrot, and cucumber.
For potato and cabbage, they will grow as much as possible so then it will be sufficient for their winter needs. They also love to pickle those vegetables to make them last for months, especially for winter when not all kinds of vegetables will survive to grow through the cold weather. The Russian’s habit of gardening is a good example for us to take care of our health by providing ourselves healthy vegetables on a daily basis.
- “Sushki” The Popular Snack of Russia
Sushka, the singular version of Sushki, is rooted from Sushi, a Russia word that means “to dry”. This name is related to the way of making this Sushki which is by boiling and baking it until it becomes a crunchy treat. Just like mentioned above, this snack is very easy to make. It is guaranteed that everybody will nail to make Sushki 🙂
To make Sushki, you only need basic ingredients that most likely you 
already have at home. The ingredients are 300 grams of flour, 1 egg, a ½ cup of water, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt. The first thing you must do is mixing all the ingredients (except the sugar) until it becomes a firm dough. Cover the dough using a kitchen towel and let it rest for 25 minutes. After that, cut the dough into small pieces and roll each piece until its thickness is 1.5 cm at the most and put both ends of roll together to form a ring. The ring’s diameter is usually around 4 cm. In a different pot, boil the sugar water. Once it boils, cook the rings in it briefly. After that, set the oven temperature to 170 C and bake the rings for 15 minutes. There it is, the golden, crunchy, and mildly sweet Sushki!
In the original tradition, Sushki is made without toppings. But nowadays you can find Sushki with poppy seeds. You can try this version too at home by sprinkling the poppy seeds on the rings right before baking it.
Since Sushki is a part of the Russians’ meal, it is also very common to find this treat all over the market in Russia. To keep the traditional essence of it, you will find seller putting Sushki on a string and hanging it at their shops to attract people to buy it. But since Sushki became popular, you can find packaged Sushki at the markets in other countries.
You can now try to make Sushki at home or if you want to taste it first, you can just buy it in the markets where Russian foods are available. The most important thing is, do not forget to enjoy it with tea or coffee. Some people prefer to dunk it first into the tea or coffee to soften it up a bit, but if you want to enjoy the crunchiness of Sushki, just bite it right away!
- Similar Snacks
There are similar snacks that you can also find around the markets. The first example is the bagel. This bread, that is very popular in North America, is bigger than Sushki. Other things that make it different from Sushki are the chewiness and that most of the time bagel is topped with poppy or sesame seeds.
Ukraine, a former soviet union country, is also has a traditional snack similar to Sushki. It is called Bublik. This bread needs more ingredients than Sushki (you have to add milk and butter into the ingredients) and you can tell it right away from its look. It is a bigger version of Bagel with a wider hole. It also looks glazy because the top of it is covered with egg yolk.
Now you know the recipe of Sushki. Try it and you are going to nail it for sure 🙂