Of the meat products consumed, pork stands first in the list followed by beef and poultry. Meat is prepared in many ways but roasted and stewed preferred. Popular are such dishes as roast meat home style; Ukrainian mince meat balls; garlic and fat larded boiled pork cold; kruchenyky (vegetable, mushroom or cereal stuff wrapped in a layer of meat); zavyvantsi (meat rolls); stuffed domestic fowl, etc. The meat food prepared in portion pots (casserole) is especially tasty.

Meat is often a source to prepare the first course of a meal with borsch rightly placed at the head. There are up to thirty variants of its formulation (for instance, borsch of Poltava, Volyn, Chernihiv, Galyts, Lviv, rural or Dnipro style, etc.). Fish occupy a prominent place in Ukrainian sustenance, which favorite dishes are the following: sour cream baked crucian; pike stewed with horseradish; carp baked in cream with onions; zander broiled with mushrooms and crawfish; fish kruchenyky; carp stuffed with mushrooms and boiled buckwheat; and others.

Pastries are invariably part of the Ukrainian menu; these are varenyky (stuffed pasta); halushky (pieces of boiled dough); mlyny (pancakes), battercakes, blintz, babka (baked pudding), etc.

Various kashas (groats) are popular, including millet gruel, boiled buckwheat, squash, as well as porridge made of buckwheat flour consumed with milk, sour cream, or sunflower oil and fried onions, hominy, etc.

Among beverages peculiar for the Ukrainian cuisine milk drinks, especially baked milk and riazhanka (fermented baked milk) are popular. Uzvar, a drink made by boiling various fruits, is also one of the most liked and appreciated.

Represented well in the Ukrainian cookery are sweet desserts, which preparation requires the use of fruits, honey, poppy-seeds, nuts, and so on.

The inevitable part of festive meal is alcoholic beverages – horilka (vodka), brandy, wine, fortified liqueurs that Ukrainians know numerous formulas for ages. From the wide variety of Ukrainian horilka the kind of the one prepared of honey plus pepper stands apart, since it combines rival tastes of pepper pungency, sweetness of honey and aroma of native-grasses embodying diversity and unpredictability of life itself.

Ukrainian Borsch with Pampushky

• Ingredients: 500 g meat, 4 potatoes, 200 g fresh cabbage, 40 г bell pepper, 1 beet, 3 tablespoons tomato paste, 40 g lard, 2 onions, 1 carrot, half-root parsnip, 1 tea-spoon wheat flour and as much sugar, 20 g pork fat, 2 clove garlic, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, spice as desirable.

Way of Cooking: Make meat broth. Chop the meat and strain the liquid. Put chopped potatoes into the boiling broth followed in a while by shredded cabbage and bell pepper, and stew for 20 minutes. Simmer beet with tomato paste, fry carrot, onion, and roots, adding them all to the broth to boil until ready. Stiffen borsch with fried flour, salt and sugar; in five minutes put in black pepper, bay leaf, and pork fat pestled with garlic and the green of parsley. Bring to boil, take off the fire and let it draw for 15 to 20 minutes. As a rule, the borsch is served with sour cream.

Ingredients for pampushky: 2.5 cup of wheat flour, ? cup of water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 12 g yeast.

Ingredients for garlic condiment: 2-tablespoon sunflower oil, 10-clove garlic, ? cup of water or kvas (fermented beverage made from rye bread crust).

Cooking pampushky: dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, add ? of the flour mix thoroughly, and let the dough to froth. Add on the rest of flour and oil, sugar and salt dissolved in little water, mix and leave for two hours for fermentation. From the dough thus prepared forms 30 g balls leaving them on an oven plate for 15 minutes, and then bake for 7 to 8 minutes. For condiment, cloves meshed with salt mix with oil and cool boiled water.

Varenyky with Curds

The dish prepared of flour and fillings is deemed on a par with borsch as the most characteristic in the Ukrainian cookery. The name originates from the Ukrainian verb to boil. The single piece of the dish looks like a small envelope that wraps different kind of fillings, that is, potato, cabbage, mushrooms, kidney beans, salted or sweetened cheese, sweet fruits or berries. The dish prepared is served with either sour cream or oil-fried onion. Varenyky with curds are the most popular dish that Ukrainian folklore frequently mentiones.

Ingredients for the dough: three cups of wheat flour, ? cup of milk or water, 1 egg, ?-teaspoon salt. For the filling: 800 g cottage cheese (curds). ? cup sugar, 2 eggs, and salt.

Cooking: a portion of flour is scalded with boiling water or milk (approx. 1/3 of all the liquid) and, after it mixing thoroughly, add the remaining tepid liquid with salt and egg (better egg yolk), the rest of flour, and make dough leaving it to raise for 40 minutes. Mix the grained cheese with salt sugar and eggs. Cheese is placed on the dough rolled out in small round disks; the edges tweaked together, the varenyky are immersed into the boiling, slightly salted water one by one to boil for 5to 7 minutes. When ready, varenyky are buttered for sour cream to be served separately.

Holubtsi, Meat-Stuffed Cabbage Ukrainian-style

Stuffed cabbage holubtsi is Ukrainian prevailing second course dish that combines meat, rice and vegetables. The name is of old and originates from the word holub meaning dove.

• Ingredients: with 1 kg beef – 1.2 kg fresh cabbage, 4 tablespoons rice, 2 onions, 3 tablespoons butter, salt and pepper to the liking. For the sauce: ? cup sour cream, 2.5 cups meat broth, and 1-tablespoon wheat flour and butter each.

Cooking: a head cabbage of average size, the upper leaves peeled off, washed and stem cut out, is immersed into boiling water to cook from 15 to 20 minutes until half-done. After the cabbage is taken out, cooled and stripped to separate leaves, the thick stems are either cut out or chopped off with a vegetable chopper. The meat is grinded in mincing machine, added semi-boiled rice, fried onion, pepper and salt, mixed thoroughly, and then placed on the cabbage leaves prepared. Each leaf is stuffed with the filling mixture, the sides of the leaf turned in to cover the filling and a little rectangular bundle is formed. Holubtsi are placed into a stew- or saucepan, filled up with sour cream sauce and cooked in an oven until done.

Preparing the sauce: the flour is fried on butter before changing color; add sour cream, dissolved with hot beef tea and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes. After that, salt the sauce, strain, bring to boil and flavour by adding butter.

Kutia, whole-wheat grains kasha seasoned with crushed poppy seeds or jam

Christmas kutia is believed to be the most distinctive festive food of the Ukrainian cuisine. It is consumed thrice a year, that is, on the Christmas Eve (the Holy Night), Schedry Vechir (the night on the New Year’s Day eve) and Vodokhresch (the Baptizing), with grains at the heart of it.

• Ingredients: 500 g wheat grain, 1 cup of poppy seeds, ? cup of sugar or 2 tablespoons honey

Cooking: Sort out the wheat grains, wash and pour out into boiling water. When simmering, drain off in colander, wash with cold water, put into a saucepan, pour water, bring to boil, and cook on slow fire under the lid ready. Put the wheat thus prepared in a cool place. Meanwhile, wash 1 cup of poppy seeds, scald with boiling water, pour the water out, wash in cold water, and again scald after draining cold water out. After another washing with cold water, crush in a stone cup until the seeds are pulverized turning white and add ? cup of sugar or two tablespoons of honey, mix with the wheat pouring in a little of cool boiled water. In place of poppy seeds one may add a cup of berries or fruits from jam without liquid part but somewhat dissolved with sweetened boiled water.

Uzvar, compote of dried fruits and berries

• Ingredients: 125 g dried fruits, 75 g sugar, 50 g honey, producing 1 liter of the drink.

Cooking: have the dried fruits – apples, cherries, plums and raisins, ready by sorting and cutting, if needed, wash out thrice with tepid water and boil under the lid until ready. After adding sugar and honey bring to boil and cool.