Ukrainian and international home cooking recipes
Appetizers open the meal and save the day when guests arrive unexpectedly. Cold and hot options: tartlets, roll-ups, spreads, stuffed vegetables and canapés — quick, impressive and delicious.
“Obyedenie” (the name roughly means “scrumptious”) is a crunchy raw vegetable relish that’s ready in an hour, with no cooking or sterilizing at all. Cabbage, carrots, bell pepper, tomatoes, and tart-sweet apples marinate in a cold dressing of oil and vinegar, keeping their fresh flavor and bite. The grated tart apples are the clever touch: […]
This hearty preserve rests on a pairing you rarely see in canning: beets and green string beans. The beets bring a dense texture, earthy sweetness, and deep color; the young beans add snap — so the finished jar eats more like a dish of its own than a side. The recipe was shared by S. […]
The name “Harlequin” is literal, not poetic: white cabbage, orange carrot, red tomatoes, green cucumbers and peppers go into the jar in layers, each vegetable visible through the glass. The one trick that sets this apart from an ordinary pickle is that the cabbage is cut into large chunks rather than shredded. Shredded cabbage would […]
A thick beet-and-tomato relish for the winter pantry, where the vegetables aren’t pickled but slowly stewed in boiling tomato until the mixture reduces to the density of a firm, spreadable caviar. Because beets make up the bulk, the finished relish takes on a deep burgundy color and a sweet-savory flavor, nicely offset by hot pepper […]
The hot pour-over does all the heavy lifting here. Instead of the weeks of fermentation that sauerkraut needs, a splash of vinegar essence sets the cabbage almost instantly, and the pickle is ready in just a few days. A single beet tints both the brine and the leaves a soft pink, while horseradish and garlic […]
This multi-vegetable relish comes from the Kuban, specifically the Primorsko-Akhtarsk district of Krasnodar Krai, and takes its name “Khodizhenka” from the town of Khadyzhensk. It’s essentially a thick stew of eggplant, beet, carrot, pepper, and tomato, bound with sauteed onion and garlic. The beet is what makes it unusual — it lends an earthy sweetness […]
Before you cook anything, toss the chopped herbs with the vinegar and chill them for 10 minutes — this quick pickling softens the bite of cilantro and dill and is the real trick behind this warm carrot appetizer. Grated carrot is stewed with corn and tomato paste until soft, then the marinated herbs go in […]
The “Mushroom Glade” is a trompe-l’oeil appetizer: a ball of ham-and-cheese salad sits on a round of fresh cucumber, topped with a pickled mushroom, and the whole thing is arranged to look like little mushrooms on a woodland clearing. Novelty appetizers like this were beloved on the post-Soviet holiday table for surprising guests with their […]
The filling here rides on an unexpected pairing: mashed potato for body and pickled mushrooms for a tart, briny lift that plain vegetable-stuffed peppers usually lack. It works as either a warm starter or a light side. A short bake at 200-220 °C (roughly 400-425 °F) dries the top of the pepper while the potato […]
“Piquant” apples are an unexpected savory preserve in which sweet fruit is marinated with bell pepper, garlic, and parsley. It sits on the line between sweet and savory, closer to a vegetable salad than a dessert, and works well next to meat or potatoes. The interesting part is how the sugar flexes. Use 200 g […]