Ukrainian cuisine: features, popular dishes, interesting facts

Ukrainian dishes made it to the top 10 most delicious cuisines in the world according to a study by travel blog and Yonderbound in 2016. They are rich in different combinations of flavors and ingredients. Ukrainian cuisine cannot be called dietary. Since Ukrainians used to work very hard cultivating the land and raising livestock, their diet was caloric. What are the peculiarities of modern Ukrainian cuisine? Let's consider popular dishes and interesting facts.

Features of Ukrainian cuisine

Ukrainian cuisine is interesting because there are dishes that are cooked throughout the country, and features of recipes by region. Since certain regions are neighbors with other states and nations, the cultural peculiarities were formed in different ways. Western Ukraine keeps a lot of sheep and rams, in the Polesie region potato dishes are popular. Throughout the country, foods are boiled, stewed, baked and fried, vegetables are salted and sour.

Dishes that are cooked throughout the territory of Ukraine:

• Varenyky with cottage cheese, with potatoes and cherries are favored by many.
• There are many recipes for salting pork fat.
• Fried derunes - pancakes made of grated potatoes.
• Kievsky cutlets made of chicken with butter and herbs stuffing.
• Stuffed cabbage of various sizes, with cabbage or grape leaves and stuffing of minced meat.
• Sweet cheesecakes made of cottage cheese, eggs, raisins and sugar.

Borscht is a special dish for Ukrainians, and it has received the status of intangible world heritage. There are many combinations of ingredients. Every hostess has a different taste of borscht. It depends on the quality of vegetables, their ratio, cooking time and other factors. Even the same hostess can not repeat borscht the same as the previous one.

A few dishes popular in different regions of Ukraine:

• Bograch is a dish that came to Ukrainian cuisine from its neighbors the Hungarians. It is cooked in western Ukraine. Bograch consists of several types of meat, lard, carrots, potatoes, kohlrabi cabbage and onions, paprika spice.
• Kapustnyak is popular in central Ukraine. The classic version of this first dish is made of pork and beef sausage, as well as mushrooms, spices, carrots, onions, potatoes, and sauerkraut.
• Okroshka is especially popular in the eastern part of Ukraine. There is no single recipe, but the main ingredients are cucumbers, radishes or radishes, green onions and kvass. Sausage, chicken are added to it.
• Kulesh is a dish of millet with potatoes, onions, lard, carrots and herbs. It is especially often cooked in Chernigov region, Poltava region, Southern Podol.

From desserts the most famous is Kiev cake. It is one of the symbols of the Ukrainian capital. Its recipe was created at the confectionery factory named after Karl Marx. The recipe was patented in 1973. The successor of this factory became the Roshen company. Therefore, only its workers know the secrets of cooking Kiev cake. It is based on crusts made of sour proteins with sugar, flour and nuts. The cream consists of butter, milk, eggs, sugar. Cocoa and brandy are added to it.

Unfortunately, many dishes of the Tripolites, who used to inhabit the territory of Ukraine, have been forgotten. However, some of them became part of modern Ukrainian cuisine. They were supplemented with ingredients, the technology of cooking was changed, enriched with recipes of neighboring peoples. Thanks to this, modern Ukrainian cuisine is so tasty and diverse.