Yesterday I went to Messob for dinner, on Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, and we happened to park just in from of Euromix Deli, a small, tidy store carrying products from all over Europe, but specializing in Eastern Europe. I've been here several times before, ever since my friends Victoria and Penelope bought me a huge assortment of food items from there, but I don't think I've blogged about the place yet. I won't now either, :-), but I promise to go back to the place and tell you more about what they carry.

One thing they do carry, and that Victoria & Penelope had included in their gift, are Russian spice mixes. They come in little green envelopes good for one meal and they have them for rice, kebabs, roasts, fish and other things I couldn't really tell what they were. I've tried the ones for the rice, the kebabs and the roasts and they are excellent.

I made a tri-tip roast in the rotisserie with the roast spice mixture for election night, and the results were great. The meat was super tender and very flavorful. I let it sit at room temperature with the rub for almost an hour before cooking, and I'd recommend you do the same. I've made the kebabs before, and they also rock. You marinate the chunks of beef or lamb in some red wine mixed with the spices and then grill. Yumm.

But I think my favorite mix is the one for the rice (pilau). I've made it a few times last year and the results are great - very satisfying.

Alas, the packages of these mixtures are in Russian, so I can't tell you even what they're call. They are distributed by West Coast Trade in Newark, and, as I said, available for sale at Euromix.

This time they didn't have the roast spice mixture, so I bought several packages of the ones for kebabs ($1.40) and rice ($1). The former consists of: sweet paprika, salt, coriander seeds, onion, MSG, garlic, red hot pepper, sugar, basil leaves, black pepper, mustard, turmeric, cumin and nutmeg. The latter includes: salt, sweet paprika, turmeric, barberry,curry,coriander seeds, cumin and ground marjoram. Of course, they smell divine.