If you visit Ukraine, then certainly pay attention to the "hodgepodge" of gastronomic traditions of the peoples of the world. For breakfast you can serve vareniki with cherries. For lunch - miso soup in a sushi bar. And at the end of the day - a piece of Moroccan baklava with mint tea. Everyone can become a gourmet today - national cuisine is very popular. Meanwhile, I would like to plunge into the magical Gogol world and taste dishes of original Ukrainian cuisine. We will tell you what the best dishes of Ukrainian cuisine must necessarily try.
In our age of enlightenment, many people begin to follow diets, which sometimes contradict our body. But it is the national food traditions that are the most correct. With one caveat: for a person born and living in a given locality. The "popular" menu is always balanced, the combinations of products are reconciled over the centuries. Take, for example, Georgian cuisine with its abundance of meat. Try to eat a bowl of chahokhbili or a pair of skewers of mutton shish kebab - a meal, frankly, heavy. The Georgians solved this problem! They seize meat with bunches of fresh greens (parsley, coriander, tarragon) - it promotes the assimilation of meat dishes. And also drink dry red wine. It activates the production of the digestive enzyme pepsin. And such examples are in every national cuisine. However, this does not mean that overseas gastronomic delights should be "registered" on our table, because food chains are formed over three generations.
In other words, if we now introduce into our diet an exotic for us passion fruit or lulia-kebab, then only our grandchildren will be ideally assimilated. So to build your diet is better in the Slavic traditions. And exotic culinary pleasures will benefit if we eat them from time to time, on holidays. About what to begin acquaintance with popular in Ukraine Japanese and Moroccan cuisines, and also about the forgotten traditions of Ukrainian cooks, we now will tell.
You can not spoil the porridge with lard
It would seem that everything is familiar: porridge is the second bread, more seasonal vegetables and, of course, a piece of fat. However, our ancestors knew very well how to turn simple food into a real medicine. Ukrainians like to eat hearty! Bakery traditions of Ukrainian cuisine have a practical explanation. Peasant labor is very energy-intensive, and winters in the middle belt are long and cold. Before the Ukrainian hostess there was a difficult task: to feed more positively and at the same time cheaper. So borsch were born, dumplings, dumplings, pancakes, stewed vegetables. All kinds of porridge - buckwheat, barley, oats, millet - always occupied an honorable place on the table of our ancestors. Oat groats were generally considered second bread. In times of poor harvest, she was saved: bran was taken, finely grinded and boiled oats jelly. Oats are rich in vital vitamins, in addition, this croup is more than half consists of starch, which is digested for a long time and is also gradually digested. Thus, for a long time the feeling of satiety remains. By the way, oats were respected at Zaporizhzhya Sich - and legends about the strength and power of the Cossacks have survived to this day!
Each field has its own season
In the Slavic cuisine there are a lot of cult, ritual dishes - for example, wheat or buckwheat pancakes were prepared for Shrovetide, apple and honey dishes - for the Savior. Ukrainian cuisine is "seasonal" - in winter the diet is dominated by more caloric and fatty dishes, pickles, in the warm season - vegetables in the raw or stewed. Also our ancestors in the summer ate okroshki, beetroot, botvinya (cold soup with kvass with beet tops, nettles, sorrel, onions, and boiled fish). In June-July, it was time to root crops: turnips, black radish, parsnips, beets served as the main dish (boiling in a stove with spicy herbs), and as a salad (in this case raw vegetables were used) and even dessert (stewed in honey turnip or radish - just delicious). By the way, about desserts. White sugar was not available to ordinary people right up until the 19th century. Therefore, the food was sweetened with honey and cooked on its basis delicious and healthy fruit and berry candied fruit. Raspberries raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, as well as pears, wild ducks were cooked in honey, and then dried in an oven. And the viburnum was tormented the whole night in a clay pot in the oven - this dainty was saved from colds, both old and young. Favorite drink of Ukrainians Uzvar (compote of dried pears, apples, prunes) - this is a real pantry of vitamins and microelements!
Why is pork "easy"?
To argue about the severity of Ukrainian cuisine is not entirely correct. After all, simultaneously see on the table borsch with pampushkas, stuffed carp, meat krucheniki, draniki with mushrooms and vareniki can only be for the holiday. In everyday life, one or two meals are usually served for one meal. In addition, the ingredients of the dishes perfectly complement each other. For example, a couple of centuries ago, vareniki in most of the peasant families were prepared from wholemeal flour - there are more useful substances in it. In addition, with exclusively vegetable fillings: cherry, cabbage, nettle, oxalic. It's simple: the dough saturates, and vegetable fiber helps it digest! Or take the spindrum - a pork brisket, stewed with beetroot. Obligatory components of this dish - onion (contains the acid necessary for digesting meat), as well as beet kvass (includes enzymatic substances that help to break fat pork).
By the way, the fat, so beloved by Ukrainians, is a dietary product, it does not recover from it. If, of course, do not eat it with white bread or fry potatoes on it. Salo reduces the level of cholesterol in the blood and - which is especially important in the current environment - does not accumulate radionuclides. However, only fresh fat, not smoked or salted, is useful - and no more than 15-20 g per day.
Miracle oven
Our ancestors cooked in the most healthy way - in the oven. Before you put food in it, the stove is heated. As a result, the dish seems to languish in its own juice. It turns out incredibly delicious! In addition, vitamins in the oven are not destroyed, as happens when boiling during cooking. Secondly, the preservation of useful substances and contributes to dishes made from environmentally friendly material - clay. Pay attention to the shape of the pots for baking in the oven: they taper slightly upward. Thanks to this dish "comes" faster, it turns out juicy. Potatoes are also baked in the oven: with a peel, on coals - so potassium is stored in the vegetable. In the olden days stewed vegetables were prefabricated mainly with olive oil (it was brought by merchants). Sunflower and mustard spread widely in Ukraine only in the 18th century.
Traditions of herbalists
Scented and healing herbs are often used in preparing the best dishes of Ukrainian cuisine. For example, kvass was cooked not only on bread or beets, but also on birch buds and leaves, on cranberries and kalina. As a seasoning, use onions, garlic, cumin, mint, various kinds of pepper, as well as thyme, lovage. Meadow clover is still scrounged and marinated in some families. Traditionally in the winter they were served with salads. And grated dry leaves and clover flowers were added to the flour. Shepherd's bag (in Ukrainian "gritsiki") is added to salads, broths, pickles. And nettle can be eaten all summer. It is added to green borscht and salad. By the way, we offer an excellent recipe for beriberi: mix the leaves of nettle with boiled water with finely chopped boiled egg and onion, season with sour cream.
Botvina: the taste of summer
We offer the most traditional Ukrainian dish. This soup has a lot of advantages. It will perfectly refresh and rejuvenate in the summer heat. It is rich in "living" vitamins. He is low-calorie - your waist does not threaten anything! You will need: 1 liter of bread kvass, 250 grams of spinach and sorrel, 2 cucumbers, a bunch of green onions and dill, grated horseradish, 250 g of boiled fish (sturgeon, salmon or pikeperch).
Spinach and sorrel cook separately, grind in a blender. Mix with finely chopped cucumber, onion and dill, add horseradish to taste. Fill the vegetables with kvass. When serving on a table on a separate plate, put the cut fish, decorate it with herbs.