Charlie D's Ukrainian Recipes

[CharlieD]

Originally Posted by David Cottrell

...Ukrainian cooking is that spices are very lightly used if at all. Salt and pepper...

You are very much so correct. Not only there were very little of any fancy spices, only if you were lucky enough to go to one of the southern republics or Georgia at least during the summer and there you’d pick up some spices. Otherwise it was salt and black pepper or red pepper (which I have no clue where it came from). As far as herbs go: dill and parsley and parsley root during the summer, maybe few other roots, i.e. horseradish and its leaves. Gosh I can’t think of anything else. Bay leaves. Allspice, cloves. That is it. I can’t remember anything else. People used a lot of leaves, like black currant leaves, sour cherry leaves. Sorel leaves, spinach was not popular at all. A dandelion leaves.

Even such simple things like bell peppers were brought in from Bulgaria or Hungry.

Not having any of the fancy herbs or spices however did not make the food tasty boring or tasteless. Ukrainian foods are really incredible and extremely versatile. For may-many ethnic foods there is something similar in Ukrainian cosine. I.e. won tons – pirogy (vareniki). Italian meatballs in tomato sauce – Ukrainian meatballs in meat sauce. Hamburger – kotlety. I can’t think of anything else right now. You give me a name of food _ I’ll find something similar.

[David Cottrell]

Way to go Charlie and everyone who has responded to this thread. This is great! I hope you don't mind a gringo like me chiming in from time to time. If you have the patience for it I could post Olga Bondar's awesome Spartacus cake (tort) - her family recipe named for a striped candy, Sparta, that was a childhood favorite of her's. She sent me some with a book she brought back from a recent trip back "home" to Kiev. I wrote the recipe for a non cook like me, especially a non baker, but I could shorten up a bit for those more experienced. I haven't met anyone who doesn't like it and I've made it about six times and shared widly.

[CharlieD]

Fire away. It doesn't have to be my recipes, it should be ukrainian recipes.

[David Cottrell]

Originally Posted by buckytom

charlie, i was surprised to see that you bake your pirozhki/pierogi.

my mil always fried them, in lots of butter, with sweated onions.

they were traditionally served with sour cream, apple sauce, and either cold or hot red cabbage slaw.

my wife would love the idea of baked pirozhki, being the health nut she is, always on the lookout for fat/calorie reducing methods of cooking.

how do you serve yours?

Buckytom, I'm, wondering what would be most traditional - fried or baked. I'm going back to when those old large tile wood fired stoves/ovens were the standard, and are still in use. Would frying or baking be easier I wonder. You know the stoves - the one that the devil hid behind in Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does One Man Need?"

I have a YouTube link to a young lady cooking in her rural village kitchen that has that stove. I'll post the link if anyone would like for me to.

[David Cottrell]

While I'm here I might as well post the YouTube link to the village kitchen in Ukraine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH25ZbAB7Rc Hope it works for you. For folks like me who haven't been there and probably now (just got older today :) won't go on Books by Volunteers who serve Ukraine Orphans are a carefully selected group of YouTube links to Ukraine, you might enjoy. Just click on the Ukraine Links tab and at the bottom of the first links page are links to the YouTube collections.
See you in cyber space! D

[*amy*]

This is very similar to the way my (Hungarian) grandmother prepared pierogie. They were served with more sauteed onions, butter & sour cream.

YouTube - Pierogi - Polish potato filled dumplings

[expatgirl]

Charlie D., what a great thread!! I forgot to tell you but my hubby and I made your borscht recipe and it was wonderful. Like you and your DW we had to compromise on the beets to potatos ratio---I like less beets he likes more and vice versa with potatos. I love Ukrainian food---they make the best soups!! :)

[CharlieD]

Yes they sure do. Ukranians really know how to cook. They like to eat and they like to cook. People going to scream at me, but russians don't know how to cook period. Schee, yech, yuk.

I'm glad you liked the borscht. Did you make that special addition? The peppers?

[David Cottrell]

Charlie! What are you trying to do - start WWWIII?? With the energy thing in Ukraine, NATO, and all that. You know as well as I do that the Russians claim all the good stuff! Surely they invented something good to eat, but being the younger brother to Ukraine maybe not. Oh my! I better go wash my mouth out with soap.

[CharlieD]

That's the thing they do claim a lot. Like for example first airplane, first VCR, well the list is endless. I'm sure they had some good recipes alone the way. But there was a bigger, better, much tastier one in Ukraine. Russians just do not like eating as much as Ukrainians. That is of course doesn't say anything good about Ukrainians, because food is the only thing on their minds.