Ukrainians are one of the most hospitable and hospitable peoples. They know how to make a whole holiday out of cooking and feasting - you want to taste these dishes again and again, come back to the generous lands or repeat this holiday and national dishes at home. The multitude of recipes and the variety of ways to prepare the same dish allow the cuisine to preserve traditions and at the same time be unique. Ukrainian borscht, for example, as a symbol of Ukrainian cuisine - and it is prepared according to such a variety of recipes that in different parts of the world it will have its own unforgettable taste.
We offer you a tasting tour of different regions of Ukraine, which will tell and show you the diversity and richness of the Ukrainian table and, perhaps, inspire you to create your own signature recipes. We would like to warn you: the following information is not perceived calmly on an empty stomach, so get ready!
Northern Ukraine and the richness of its dishes
The north and the cold encourage the consumption of hearty and nutritious food, which is exactly what is prepared in the northern regions of the country - tasty and nutritious. Potatoes grow especially well in these parts, and of course, this is reflected in the specifics and ingredients of the local cuisine.
Zhytomyr region: Deruny
Polissya loves pancakes made from grated potatoes - they are called deruny. In Korosten, in the Zhytomyr region, this dish has become a kind of brand, and the International Deruny Festival is even held here periodically. Chefs from all over the country (and not only) come here to share their art, compete and show their talents in preparing this seemingly simple dish. At the place where this festival is held, a monument to deruny has even been erected. And in local restaurants you can try all the variety of this dish at any time of the year, regardless of the festival. Deruny can have a filling, traditionally cheese is used. Deruny can be stewed in the oven, and today deruny with mushrooms, grated cheese, and meat are especially popular. And it is very tasty!
Chernihiv pies with viburnum and pot roast
Chernihiv region will generously offer to your table roast - an amazingly delicious dish, which is prepared and served in clay pots. It includes potatoes, meat, sauerkraut, sometimes other ingredients are added - simple, tasty and appetizing. For dessert, pies with viburnum are served - Chernihiv region is generous with berry crops.
Borsch on beet kvass and Sumy-style roast
And in Sumy region, pot roast is prepared according to a different recipe. Its originality lies in the fact that meat and liver are placed in a pot along with potatoes. Bell pepper, cheese, and sour cream are added. In some variations, the recipe includes mushrooms, beans, and sour cream. And each of them is unforgettably delicious.
Local borscht is prepared with pork, based on beet kvass.
Kiev-style cutlets
The capital of Ukraine is ready to feed every resident and guest, for all tastes and cultures. Its restaurants present a whole map of the world on the menu. But what a delicious traditional, original recipe for wonderful Kiev-style cutlets! A piece of butter and herbs are put in advance in the deep-fried chicken fillet, the fillet is coated with egg on top, breaded. And the cutlet is juicy, tasty and healthy.
There are sure to be restaurants in the capital that will offer you this delicious tradition.
Southern Ukraine: fish menu
The menu of a particular region usually includes local riches that the region is full of: berries, fish, meat, potatoes and vegetables. And this directly affects the composition of local cuisine. The south of Ukraine is a land of fishermen, they have a lot of recipes for cooking the catch that the sea supplies them. Therefore, in local restaurants you can fully enjoy fish days in all variations.
Odesa: legendary fish and bull-headed gobies
The lines about "barges full of mullets" are still fresh in my memory. It's a pity, of course, that mullet is no longer as common in Odessa as it used to be, but goby is a local gold fund. Goby dried for beer is very tasty! But goby made from fresh goby is also quite good - besides, goby can be replaced with sprat, even anchovy, the recipe will not suffer from this. The fish is chopped, mixed with batter, everything is fried in oil. Simple and fast!
Here, fish requires more serious expenses and efforts. Just removing the skin without damaging it anywhere is a whole art. Then you need to remove all the bones, freeing the fillet, chop it, stuff the resulting skin, bake it in the oven - and you will lick your fingers!
In Odessa restaurants, the chefs are true masters in preparing fish, and fish dishes in general, so if you're in Odessa, be sure to see for yourself. :-)
Yushka in Nikolaev style
Mykolaiv region gives us a recipe for making canned fish – homemade, with the addition of tomatoes. The soup is also cooked with the addition of tomato juice or tomato paste, as well as sour cream. For lovers of spicy food, make a sauce: finely chop the garlic, mix with pepper and salt. This sauce goes especially well with fish – serve with potatoes.
Kherson-style eggplants and “overseas caviar” – eggplant
The south of the country is rich in vegetables, and therefore in recipes for dishes made from them. For example, Kherson-style eggplant is a rather spicy dish that can compete with dishes of oriental and Asian cuisine. Eggplants are fried in oil, with the addition of pepper - sweet and bitter, as well as apple cider vinegar.
Those who don't like spicy food can try eggplant caviar. Usually housewives boil eggplants and peppers, but local chefs bake them, which preserves the aroma of the vegetables.
Crimea: Tatar dolma and lagman
Crimean Tatar cuisine offers us one of its most popular dishes - lagman. This is a transitional link between the first courses and the second - noodles, served with pieces of meat (usually beef), stewed in gravy, along with vegetables. It is very simple and incredibly tasty! The traditional recipe involves cooking noodles on the spot, in the restaurant itself. In everyday life, store-bought noodles are often used, which speeds up the cooking process.
A popular dish in the spring is dolma. It is in the spring that grapes produce juicy young leaves, which are very suitable for making these little stuffed cabbage rolls. And what would Crimea be without giant chebureks!
Zaporizhzhia cabbage fields and mills
Zaporizhzhia Sich was also famous for its hearty cabbage soup, traditionally with pork, because the use of lard and pork was opposed to the "busurman" culture.
In the Azov region, interesting mills are prepared - they are not pancakes or fritters at all. They are made from yeast dough, which is rolled out very thinly, a cheese filling is spread on it, to which butter is added, and all this is rolled up into a roll. It turns out extremely tasty!
Central Ukraine and the richness of its cuisine
The center preserves traditional recipes - in local restaurants you can immerse yourself in the flavors of the past, which have survived to this day and are a kind of calling card of the country.
Cherkasy borscht with donuts and garlic
Borscht is different everywhere, and that's its charm. In Cherkasy region, it is prepared richly, according to the traditional understanding of the dish. This borscht is necessarily accompanied by fragrant lush donuts and necessarily with garlic - only in this way can you fully appreciate the taste of this borscht.
Kirovohrad region: meat dumplings and a variety of dumplings
Central Ukraine especially loves dumplings. The filling for dumplings can be almost anything: potatoes, meat, mushrooms, cabbage, liver, berries. In addition to these fillings, our grandmothers sometimes had to remember a recipe that often helped them out - dumplings "with tako". For this recipe, which was easy to prepare, lard was fried with flour and onions in a frying pan, that's all the wisdom. Moreover, dumplings come in different sizes: a generous hostess delighted her guests with dumplings with a fist.
Meat dishes include kruchenyky – small meat rolls filled with minced meat, prunes with nuts, and pate.
Poltava – the city of dumplings and pundits
Everyone knows the expression “Poltava galushka” – it has become so ingrained in the minds of many Ukrainians that, in addition to the popular local dish, the inhabitants of the Poltava region themselves have also begun to be called that way, by association. If you are brought a dish where boiled small pieces of dough, similar to halushki, float in your plate with delicious soup, do not believe that these are halushki. Real halushki are not at all like these: they are filled and much tastier than just dough. To see this for yourself, it is worth coming to the Poltava annual halushki festival. Well, those who cannot spare time for this festive and delicious event will be able to enjoy the dish in local restaurants.
And pundyky are flatbreads made from dough mixed with kefir and egg, and fried in a pan. Pundyky can be salty – with onions, or sweet – with poppy seeds inside. Poppy seeds flatbreads are also prepared for Makovey, they are served with honey.
Dnipropetrovsk region: minced meat and signature soup
Dnipropetrovsk is similar to Odessa in its attitude towards fish – it loves it just as much. Here they prepare a signature, practically textbook Jewish dish – forshmak. It is prepared from herring soaked in water with the addition of vinegar (you can take milk to soak the fish no less well). Then the fillet is ground, mixed with boiled potatoes, decorated with an egg or green onion.
And from fish freshly caught in the Dnieper, local chefs will quickly prepare a Dnieper-style soup – served with lek. Catfish or carp are suitable for such a soup. The soup is prepared as usual, and its peculiarity is in the seasoning: it is lek – garlic, grated with salt, with the addition of fatty fish broth. This seasoning can be poured over the fish or simply added to the soup, as you like.
Vinnytsia region: bigos and flaki
The territorial proximity to Poland also affected the cuisine - so, Polish dishes have taken root in many regions. For example, Vinnytsia region has sheltered the Polish recipe for bigos - this is a second course, prepared from sour stewed cabbage, with meat and mushrooms. The meat must be mixed, of different varieties, as for solyanka: pork, smoked meats, beef, sausages. Moreover, the more - the tastier!
Poland also left Ukraine a recipe for flayk – a soup made from beef tripe. It is seasoned with roots, cheese, and spices. In addition to Vinnytsia, it is also loved in Galicia.
Eastern Ukraine and the diversity of its cuisine
A characteristic feature of the cuisine of Eastern Ukraine is the desire for satiety and weightiness. This is understandable - after all, miners live here. And physical labor is exhausting and requires thorough recharging with a hearty dinner.
Donbass-style golyashka. Okroshka
The leg is cooked in the oven, and for quite a long time, several hours, at a temperature of 190-180 degrees. For this dish, you need to take the back of the pork leg. It is thoroughly rubbed with spices and salt, baked in foil or in dough - at the discretion of the hostess.
Also, the cooks of Donbass know about 50 recipes for okroshka. Therefore, in each family, okroshka, like borscht, will have its own taste and traditions. It is prepared with kvass, whey, sometimes mineral water is taken. Sour cream is added to the finished okroshka - and this way the dish becomes even tastier.
Luhansk-style meat roll
This dish is very nutritious and original in itself. On a piece of cloth, minced beef and pork are spread, an omelette and a large boiled carrot are placed on top. It is rolled up tightly, the cloth is tied and all this is boiled in water, which is previously salted. The cloth is removed, the resulting roll is cooled and cut into portions. The filling can be different, at the discretion of the hostess.
Kharkiv region: borscht in Slobozhansky style and buckwheat
And again Ukrainian borscht in all its glory, and most importantly - diversity. In the real Slobozhansky borscht, beans are added, and the most delicious - meatballs. Meatballs are usually made from beef. For the second course, buckwheat is usually served - these are meatballs (with buckwheat), sometimes mushrooms are added to them.
Western Ukraine. Hearty, tasty and plentiful!
Western Ukraine is famous for its incredibly rich set of culinary recipes and traditions. Poles, Hungarians, Lemkos, Hutsuls - everyone has added their own touch to the menu of this region. There are dishes in it that you have not only not tasted, but probably did not even suspect of their existence. So, learn new things and take note!
Prykarpattia: banosh and mushroom soup
Banush, banosh – all these are different sounds of the same dish. A thick porridge is prepared, for which corn grits are taken, best on an open fire, seasoned with sour cream, and even tastier – with cream. Served with fried bacon, with cheese.
Since the Carpathians are rich in porcini mushrooms, of course, in Bukovina, Transcarpathia, and Prykarpattia they cook a wonderful mushroom soup, which is topped with sour cream.
Bukovina: chinakhy, mamalyga and brynza
Chinakhy is a traditional Bukovina dish, similar to a roast. It is made by layering potatoes, beans, smoked ribs, fried with onions. All this is poured with water and stewed in a pot.
Chernivtsi region knows the recipe for a very delicious homemade brynza - it is made from sheep's milk. There you can also try the traditional Hutsul mamalyga - corn porridge. Usually, according to the traditional recipe, the porridge is cooked not in water, but in sheep's milk, to which butter is generously added. When the mamalyga hardens, the Hutsuls can use it instead of regular bread.
Transcarpathian Zavyvantsy and Bograch
Bograch is a dish from Hungarian cuisine. There must be three types of meat for it. So, goulash is taken. Traditionally, everything is cooked in a cauldron, seasoned with roots, Carpathian herbs, and Hungarian paprika.
Meat rolls in Transcarpathia are called zavivantsi - they come in large and small sizes. For small zavivantsi, in the Uzhhorod style, thin pieces of beef are taken, a mixture of finely chopped boiled eggs, bacon, pickled cucumber, grated potatoes (raw, do not boil) is spread on them. The roll is twisted, fastened with a thread, then fried and stewed.
Volyn-style mazuryky and Polesie verguny
Mazuryky? Is this also a dish? It turns out, yes – the Volyn region convinces us. In Western Ukraine, there are a lot of different recipes for homemade sausages and sausages. And Volyn-style mazuryky are small homemade turkey sausages with butter and cheese inside.
And we highly recommend trying, if you're in these parts, Polesie verguny - these are very tender and delicious dough products fried in oil.
Lviv region: legendary Galician cheesecake and delicate strudel
The mysterious name of strudel is an incredibly delicious dish that people in Lviv are especially good at cooking. It is a wonderful Viennese roll that can be with cheese and bacon – salty, or with cheese and apples – sweet. In any case, it is worthy of your attention!
Is Galician cheesecake so unlike any other? It is simply a culinary masterpiece! The whole ritual consists only of preparing the cheese mass, which is then carefully and beautifully laid out in the cheese dough. After this ritual, the cheesecake should rest in the refrigerator for at least a day. Therefore, it is easier not to cook it yourself, risking missing an important step, but simply go to one of the restaurants in Lviv and enjoy a masterpiece prepared by a master.
Rivne region: potato pancakes and matsyk
Matsyk in the Rivne region is called dried meat in kendyukha (this is cured pork stomach). The name of the dish comes from the cooking technology, because when preparing this dish, they "taste" it quite a lot. We remember that Western Ukraine knows how to and loves to cook homemade sausages.
In addition to sausages, in the Rivne region you can also get a delicious fill of potato pancakes (or zrazy). The dough is made from mashed potatoes, into which various fillings are then placed: mushrooms, meat, egg with onion. This whole peculiar pie is fried in a pan.
Ternopil region: machanka and kulish
And again, the name is unclear – machanka, what is it? A thick soup with meat, so beloved by the Lemkos, with a frying of flour and onions, with the addition of ground sweet pepper. It is especially tasty in the Ternopil region. Machanka can be mushroom, with a spoon (or even better – more) of sour cream. The mushrooms can be finely chopped, and then it will be an excellent sauce that can be served with dumplings.
First, you should ask for a rich kulesha – millet with cracklings, it's delicious!
Khmelnytskyi region: variety of sausages, meat rolls and buckets
Veeder? The answer to the question of what it is, they know in the Khmelnytskyi region. And it turns out that it is potato sausage. Pork intestines are stuffed with raw grated potatoes, generously greased with lard on top and all this is baked in the oven.
Khmelnytskyi will feed you deliciously with amazing meat sausages and rolls. They are baked to an appetizing golden crust. They are served on the table with a variety of side dishes.
Having learned so much about delicious food, you will probably want to try all these wonders yourself, not just read about them. And it is easy to do this - the main desire is, so we are planning a tourist and gastronomic route and on the way, enjoy the taste diversity of Ukrainian cuisine.
Based on materials from igotoworld.com.
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