The Guide to Ukrainian Cuisine

Although Ukraine is known all over the world by such national unique dishes like borscht, varenyky, and salo, everything mentioned above isn’t included into the daily ration of an ordinary Ukrainian. Moreover, each region of Ukraine has its own favorite special dishes and noted all traditional food of Ukrainian cuisine is cooked differently in different places.

For example, in Prymorsk of Zaporizhzhia Region, beets isn’t added to red borscht, and in the east of Ukraine this dish is cooked according to special recipes, seasoning it with cucumbers, boiled eggs, and vinegar. Also, there are over 50 recipes of okroshka known in this area, which is not very popular in other regions of Ukraine. Western Ukraine was always famous for various meat dishes; a compulsory gala menu always includes homemade sausage with chicken in jelly and horseradish. In the north of the country, people cook a roast, which is pot roast with potatoes, cabbage and meat, always cooked in pots in the oven. A feast here is impossible to imagine without deruny (potato pancakes), and in Korosten (Zhytomyr region) there is even a monument to this dish. Citizens of the centre areas are proud of their galyshky (dumplings), and every woman even has her own recipe.

Cooking in the North.

People in the northern cities of Ukraine can boast with a dish called pechenia (roast). It is baked in a clay pot potato with pork or beef and sauerkraut. Despite the fact that the dish mainly exists in rural areas, it is pretty popular in Chernigiv. The second most popular dish in Chernigiv Region is baked stuffed buns with snowball tree berries, which the locals are very fond of.

Citizens of Zhytomyr are known for their special love to deruny. There are even festivals held in Korosten and even a monument devoted to this culinary miracle. Typically, deruny are cooked of dough and grated potatoes. However, there are some creative recipes common in Zhytomyr, suggesting cooking this dish with curd inside in the oven. The special dessert of this area is varenyky with blueberries and sour cream.

This sweet dish is very popular among foreign tourists. It is difficult to prepare this dish on your own, for it requires quite a lot of culinary skill. Even if you buy blueberries in the market, you’ll have to beat the dough for by yourself.

The colorful dishes of Southern Regions

The Southern cuisine is distinct with the most colorful and exotic recipes. Perhaps, this can be explained by the proximity to eastern Tatar cuisine, which had a significant influence on the favorite dishes of people residing in these regions. The food in the South always has a special flavor, provided by various aromatic spices from different plants.

Marine city Odessa prefers fish dishes. The most traditional Odessa dish is bull-calf round rissoles. Bull-calfs are very conditional, for you can take any fresh fish, like anchovy. Tear the heads, beat the simple dough, mix it with fish, do round rissoles, and fry them in oil. According to locals, this delicious snack tastes great with beer.

People at ​​the Azov coast like adding peppers in almost all dishes, as well as they like using many spices.

Food is peppered here much more than in other regions. People here like to treat others with pancakes. In order to prepare this dish, you to roll some unfermented dough very thinly and to mix curd with butter for stuffing. Then draw a roll of all of it and bake in the oven.

The Tatars in Crimea and Kherson don’t manifest their food as something extraordinary. For example, a traditional dish lagman is something eaten by Tatar families every week. Lagman is a first course, made of meat soup, preferably on beef, with vegetables and noodles. Another Crimean favorite dish is dolma. It is small stuffed cabbage wrapped in grape leaves.

Unique recipes in eastern Ukraine

In eastern Ukraine, people really enjoy cooking okroshka. There are more than 50 recipes for this dish. One of the most typical recipes contains boiled meat or sausage, cucumbers, radishes, greens, and boiled eggs.

Everything is seasoned with the sour cream or mayonnaise with pouring – kvass, whey, or mineral water – it’s up to you. Add more salt, sugar and mustard – and it’s ready. The main dish of the festive menu is shanks cooked on Donbas receipt. The shank should be pork, one boar has two shanks. Meat on the back of the leg has a special flavor, that’s why it is so appreciated. The meat is marinated, rubbed with salt and pepper, and then baked in foil or puff pastry. The main thing is to bake it at a low temperature (160-180 degrees) but for a long time – for a few hours.

In Lugansk region, people cook beef according to their own receipt. You need to take cold cuts, marinate them in mayonnaise and onions. Then fry it in a pan. Also, locals enjoy stuffed chicken leg: you have to remove a bone from the ham and fill it with vegetable stuffing, like onions, carrots, and mushrooms.

Dnipropetrovsk often eats Jewish dishes, and one of the most popular is forshmak. This is a kind of a paste made of herring and butter, which is really very tasty and useful.

Delicious and varied cuisine of Western Ukraine

Cooks of Western Ukraine have always stood for their passion for cooking. People here cook a lot and cook it delicious. No festive table is not complete without varenyky with any stuffings: meat, potatoes, cabbage, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, cheese, and other fillings. They are cooked very quickly – beat the dough on water, add eggs, make the filling in 20 minutes, mold varenyky, and eat.

At Christmas, no holiday table is complete without homemade sausages, chicken in jelly with horseradish, and stuffed cabbage.

Only here in Ukraine people eat the famous mamalyga (corn porridge). Also, locals like dishes in pots cooked with its special recipes. This dish from Bukovyna is prepared with meat, with smoked ribs to be precise. It is prepared with layers of beans and potatoes. First, put a layer of potatoes, then a layer of beans, and then – smoked ribs and onions. It is filled with water and is ragout. One of the most exotic dishes of the region is krovianka. For its preparing, people use a pig intestine, which is filled with buckwheat, pork tenderloin, and bacon, and pig’s blood, and also add different spices and seasonings (milk, flour, pepper, oil) and bake it all in the oven.

Flour dishes cooked in central Ukraine.

In the central Regions, people are very fond of dishes made of dough, which are known being eaten repeatedly by characters of stories and fairy tales of famous writers. For example, people in Poltava Region enjoy varenyky and galushky, and in Cherkasy region, people like red borscht with pampushky and garlic.

Another popular dish is pundyky of Poltava. This kind of thin cakes of the dough which is beat on eggs and yogurt, and then fried in a pan with onions. Pundyks can be salty, sweet, and with sour cream, but they are delicious anyway. People also savor galushky. Every hostess is notable in her own way. For example, galushky are cooked stuffed with chicken or liver. You should also be able to fill every galushka with meat and onions.

The highlight of Cherkasy Region is kapusniak. The traditional dish is cooked of lean pork, potatoes, millet, onions, and, of course, sauerkraut.