Ingredients
5-15 leeches (live ones)
Blood (From human, preferably from a live one)

Cooking
Boil in water. Use a Russian manufactured gas stove from the communist era for the most authentic results.

Portion Size
Pijavki is a perfect Hors d’ouvre, a nice start for the evening of fine dining with any number of friends.

Preparation
1. Go to Russia. Get your mittens on some leeches. Remember, it’s a wild animal, so hunting the beast is no task for inexperienced outdoorsman. Luckily many Russian leech clinics offer annelids fresh from their cellar-farms, born and raised in controlled laboratory conditions.

2. Get some blood. There are many ways to do this, but best flavor comes from claret sucked from a fellow human being. But don’t settle for just anybody. A chain-smoking person one drunken step away from the burnout, personal bankruptcy and other life’s little hardships usually owns a liver that gives the blood rushing through it a distinguished zest that won’t dissolve in the process of making the dish.

3. Let the leeches feast on the blood of the person of your choice, until the busy little hermaphrodites have eaten themselves into immobile obesity.

4. Boil the water, but keep check on the temperature. Remember, you are not meant to kill the natural aromas of the blood circulating inside the leech with the heat turned on too high.

5. When the liquid turns clear and the surface of the leech turns into scarab-like shell, the dinner is ready.

6. Serve without any side dishes. At the more fancier dinner parties, use lobster knife.

7. This sakuska is perfect with a nice, healthy bottle of vodka.

And remember those cultural differences! Even though you and I might consider the leech just a cute little pet to feed, to play with and to love, you must remember, things are different behind the former iron curtain. So don’t bolt, animal lovers and other animists – when in Rome and et cetera!

Kick them munchies with luscious leeches!