Russian Chicken and Dumplings Soup

At Bear, a homey Eastern European restaurant in Astoria, Queens, chef Natasha Pogrebinsky serves a pelmeni stew she calls "Siberian Express," adding marinated mushrooms, brined cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, scallions, and a soft-boiled egg all to color up the dish's otherwise beige landscape. But her customers call it something else: Russian Ramen. This chicken-and-dumpling soup also takes advantage of two ingredients more common in Asia than Eastern Europe—sesame oil and cilantro—for a simple but rewarding soup that probes the boundaries of what we think of as Russian cuisine.

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