Ukrainian Night in the 5 Foot: Buryakovy, Varenyky i Kapusty

Since we can remember, making varenykas is where our love of cooking started. It was fun as a kid because there was flour, a rolling pin, and lots of pinching of dough involved. And afterwards, we would make these delicious fried cookies with the left over dough. Our Ukrainian mom passed on this tradition, so we thought we'd try it out with our friends. It's a hell of a lot of work, but that's what makes it special, and why you only do it once every few months.

Mama's Varenykas

Ingredients:

For the dough pocket:

3 1/2 cup flour

1 cup water

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

Sour cream and/or buttermilk

Butter

Make a dough from the flour, water and eggs and leave to rest for 20 minutes. Roll out to about 1/16 inch thick (double the thickness for varenyky with cherries). Use a thin walled glass to press circles out of the dough. Place a teaspoonful of filling in the center of each circle, ford them in half and pinch the edges together well. Cook the filled dough pockets in generous quantity of salted water, boiling water for about 10 minutes. When they float to the surgace, add a glass ofcold water, bring back up to a boil and remove with a slotted spoon. Drizzle with melted butter right away so they do not stick together, and serve with sour cream or buttermilk.

Varenyky Fillings:

Savory Cabbage: Chop savoy or napa cabbage into thin slices. Sautee in a large pan with mushrooms, onions, and golden raisins. Cook down until the cabbage is wilted and the mushrooms are soft.

Ground pork and mushroom: In a large pan, cook ground pork sausage. Remove from the pan, cook mushrooms and onion in the grease of the sausage. Add sausage once onions and mushrooms are soft.

Potatoes: Peel white or red potatoes. Boil in a large pot with salted water until soft. Mash down with butter and sour cream.

Cherries: Reduce frozen pitted cherries in a pot with sugar. Simmer for 10 minutes. Use the syrup to dress cherry filled varenyka.

Grace's Russian Venigret Salat
Ingredients:
4 medium sized beets or 8 small beets
3-4 russet potatoes4-5 carrots
1 small onion
2-3 pickles, chopped
1/2 – 1 can of peas
3-4 tbs freshly chopped dill (we don't like dill, so feel free not to use it if you don't like it either)
salt
sunflower oil

1. Cook beets, potatoes and carrots in boiling water until they are soft. Drain and place back in the pot and cover with ice cold water. This can be done the night before so you don’t waste time on waiting for your vegetables to cool.
2. Chop the onion and drain the peas.
3. When the vegetables are cool, peel them and chop into small, approximately 1/3 to 1/2 inch, cubes.
4. Mix the vegetables, onion, pickles, peas, dill together adding a few glugs of oil to coat.
5. Season with salt and serve immediately.

Verhuny (Fried Cookies)

Ingredients:
Leftover varenyky dough
Vegetable oil
Sugar (powdered and granulated) for sprinkling
Honey

Fill a pan with vegetable oil and let it get hot. For an attractive verhuny variation, cut the dough in 4 inch long, 1 inch wide ribbons. Cut a slit in the center. Pull both ends of the strip through the middle slit. Fry the verhuny in the oil for 1-2 minutes until they become golden brown. Brush on honey and sprinkle with sugar.

Smačnoho!