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Food is love. This food is my love letter.
Sent first to my family and friends, and now to all of you.
When I quit my job to pursue full time food blogging, I wanted to start with something close to my heart. Ukrainian food. Or Ukrainian-ish food? I’ve never even been to Ukraine so I don’t feel like I have the right to call any of my recipes “traditional” Ukrainian food. They are more of a memory I have of the perfect form of a dish my Ukrainian Baba served to me once.
I say “once” because my baba is famous in our family for never using recipes. She is forever experimenting and switching up recipes based on what was in her fridge. Sometimes the dish was perfection, sometimes… less so (hehe love you, baba!). Dining with baba could be a bit of a gamble, but this influenced me to develop my own perfect version of each dish catered to my tastes. Borscht, for example. Borscht is a vegetarian soup. Forever and always. Borscht with meat just feels wrong to me. I am not quite sure why, but I could hazard a guess…
Picture this: it’s a cold ass winter day in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I arrive to my baba’s house all bundled up, my little brother and sister in tow. It takes a solid 12 minutes to strip off our zillion layers of protective clothing (making sure we hang it up nice and tidy because otherwise gramps gets grumps). Baba hands us some crocheted slippers and we fight for the best seat at the kitchen bar-top (middle). No surprise, Baba is in the kitchen puttering. As per usual, she made way too much food.
The first thing she passes over the counter: borscht. Piping hot and ruby red. Full of veggies. No meat. Perfectly sour and salty from the homemade pickle juice she adds to the broth. The beets are grated, and there’s lots of them. Heavy on the dill. Sour cream is not allowed to touch my borscht (it still isn’t). And after a bowl (or two) I am warm and cozy. Life is good.
Every Ukrainian dish I know and love came to me through this process: a vivid memory of a perfect dish, usually made by Baba, that had a Ukrainian name. So when I decided to create my own Ukrainian recipes, I sat down with my memories and started writing, and then I started testing. I have tried every perogy (aka pierogi, pyrohy,varenyky, pedaheh, verenika) dough out there. I’ve tested using sour cream, butter, eggs, and baking powder. It took a while to connect my memories and the ingredients to create the perfect perogy dough texture. But I got there eventually.Check out my Perogy Dough recipe here!
The most popular perogy fillings my baba made were some variation of potato or sauerkraut filling. Fillings are where you can get super creative with perogies, and I decided to create several filling recipes: some classic Baba recipes and some of my own invention. Sauerkraut is my numero uno flavour, so that was a no brainer. filling is a classic and crowd favourite. My husband’s family always ate cottage cheese verenika so I wanted to create a recipe for those, too. The most divine mushroom perogies at the famous Veselka in NYC changed my life, so that had to happen as well. Sweet potato and sage? Hell yes – let’s do it. So many recipes will be coming your way soon.
Since carbs are life, buns were next on my list of Ukrainian recipes to develop. Beet leaf buns were a staple on Baba’s table. My memory is that Baba never baked them like a casserole with cream as other Ukrainians do, so I also do not. Baba always made hers as a dinner roll-type bun, baked on a tray until golden.That’s my jam too. Soft and light beet leaf buns are perfect to soak up delicious cabbage roll tomato sauce or to be slathered in butter and sour ream.
Pyrizhky (meat buns), on the other hand, are a different story. Pyrizhky are soft, buttery, enriched buns filled with a ground beef mixture. Maybe Baba made pyrizhky, but it must not have been a staple at the table, because I don’t remember it. Instead, the incentive to make this recipe came from my best friend Kelsey and fellow Ukrainian babe. Unfortunately, we no longer live in the same city, but whenever visits, I take serious responsibility to ensure her jeans don’t fit by the time she leaves. Nothing makes me happier than finding her standing in my kitchen eating cold pyrizhky from the fridge at 7:00 a.m. Love it. Love her. This one’s for you, girl.
I think that rice holubtsi (cabbage rolls) should be rice heavy, fall apart easily, and be smothered in tomato sauce. You need lots of sauce for all those buns after all. Another best friend (my lil sis, Holly) reminded me of the need to make a recipe for buckwheat holubtsi too. I’m on it, sis!
Holly won’t be asking for my all-time favourite Ukrainian dish, however: nalysnyky. I don’t mind. It has only ever benefited me that she wasn’t a fan of them. I will gladly eat her share. Nalysnyky are kind of like a cottage cheese crepe casserole. Heavy on the cheese, cream and dill. Because health. These beauties are filled, rolled up, sliced, piled into casserole dish and baked with cream. Although Nalysnyky are traditionally served at Easter, I could eat these pillowy delights all day, every day. If I close my eyes, I can go back to Baba’s dining room in my mind, where I’m eying up the Pyrex dish filled with cheesy crepes, and taking care to sit near the casserole dish so I could snag them immediately after grace was said.
Food memories are so powerful, and I love thinking back to the special memories that shaped my relationship with food. Shout out to Baba, who inspired so many of my recipes. Food is love. This food is my love letter. Sent first to my family and friends, and now to all of you. I hope my Ukrainian-ish recipes leave you (too) full, cozy and happy. Budmo friends. Xo.
