UKRAINE: THE FOOD

Finally, a mini-vacation. It’s Labor Day weekend, so we have tomorrow off, and the kids and I both have Tuesday off as well. I certainly don’t feel comfortable with doing things that would require us to go inside places or around a lot of people. My husband doesn’t think we should leave the house at all. But we’re going to take a long drive, pick up some fast food and go eat at a park somewhere and then take the long way home. I even have a kickass playlist made up (mostly based on songs from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and songs similar to them), so it's official.

Small, but mighty. Just like me.

The first thing I made was Garlic Pampushki, or Ukrainian Garlic Bread. I started out making a sponge (which I remembered at 1:45am this morning). To make the sponge, I mixed together a package of yeast with a tsp of powdered sugar (instead of caster sugar), then I whisked that into 2 oz of warm water and threw in ½ c of flour and mixed it together to put in the fridge overnight. Then today, I added in another ½ c of flour and a ½ Tbsp of salt to the starter and knead it until it’s smooth. I actually had to add just a bit of water to get it to come together. After that, I divided it into 8 pieces and shaped them into round buns. I placed these buns into a well-oiled round casserole dish, covered it and let it sit in a warm place for about an hour. They joined together, but they certainly didn’t rise at all like I thought they would, maybe only the slightest. As I preheated my oven to 425ºF, I made the basting oil by stirring in some crushed/minced garlic into my olive oil with a bit of salt and let it sit to infuse. When the buns looked rounded and ready to go, I brushed them generously with some beaten egg as a glaze and then baked them for 20-25 minutes until they were golden brown on top. Right after I took them out, I brushed them with the garlic oil. Outside of just being small, these were actually pretty tasty. I may amend this recipe a bit (I kind of have a feeling the recipe I was using wasn’t written correctly) and try it again.

It almost got me, but I'm glad I tried again because it was amazing.

The main dish today is Chicken Kiev, a dish I’ve often heard of and not sure if I’ve ever had (much less, made). The first thing I did with this is make the Kiev Butter: I mashed softened butter with some minced garlic, lemon juice, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper. Then I shaped it into a log, covered it and put it in the freezer while I finished prepping everything else. Then I took my chicken breasts out and placed them between two pieces of wax paper, and then I used a rolling pin to flatten them (or you can use the smooth side of a meat tenderizer tool, which I couldn’t find). It should be thinner on the edges. I couldn’t get mine too flat; some pieces behaved, others didn’t. Once all the chicken was done like this, I sprinkled some salt and pepper on one side of them. Taking my Kiev butter from the freezer, I divided it into four pieces and placed a piece in the middle of each chicken breast. Then I folded the top and bottom together over the butter, and tried to roll them together. At this point, I preheated my oven to 350ºF, and set a deep skillet with oil to heat up (you should have enough oil to go halfway up the chicken roll-up). Then I dipped each chicken piece in a bowl of flour, then dipped it in beaten eggs, and then dipped it in bread crumbs (which was more difficult to do in real life and keep them rolled up). Then I put it in the hot oil to fry, and that’s where my troubles began. The first batch I had my heat up waaaaaaaay too high, and so essentially, I burnt up the first piece of chicken and was able to snatch out the second one to salvage. So, I dumped the oil (ok, it was my husband who saved the day) and tried again. After about 4 minutes on each side, I placed them in a baking dish and baked uncovered for about 20 minutes. Even though I had a lot of cursing and frustration making this dish, it actually turned out really well. (I just flat out hate frying.) The butter on the inside kept the chicken from getting dried out, and the breading was really good. I think I should work on this a little more.

I may have made similar salads, but it's ubiquitous for a reason.

To go with this, I make Odessan Vegetable and Sheep Cheese Salad. This simple salad consists of chopped lettuce (I used a premade bagged salad), cucumber, tomatoes, and red bell peppers. I added some feta cheese (feta is traditionally made with sheep’s milk, but nowadays, feta is often made with a combination of sheep and goat milk). To make the dressing, I took some apple cider vinegar and mixed in a little salt and pepper and sprinkled it over the salad. It was a little sour, but as long as you just had a little bit of the vinegar, it was pretty good. It was the only thing my son ate (besides the bread).

This was the surprise of the evening. Sooooo good.

I also couldn’t help but make Olivye, or Ukrainian Potato Salad. I peeled and boiled a few potatoes (that I diced) and some carrots (also diced) together. When they were soft, I drained them and let them cool. In a separate pot, I hard-boiled five eggs and let them cool when they were done as well. In a bowl, I added my chopped potatoes, diced carrots, chopped eggs, chopped pickles, diced green onions, some diced ham, and some mayo (or Miracle Whip, you know, the fake stuff. I’m NOT a fan of real mayo). I mixed enough to combine it all together. The recipe called for some peas to be folded in as well, but for the life of us, we couldn’t find the can of peas we just bought the other day, so we left it out. I finished this off by seasoning with a little bit of salt and pepper. This was amazing. Like I really, really liked this. This is the kind of recipe that I’m going to keep around to take to get-togethers (whenever that might happen again).

Overall, this was pretty good. Ok, it was really good.

This blog was supposed to teach me patience, and apparently I still haven’t learned that. I’ve cooked 182 meals and haven’t learned a dayum thing about patience, haha. I’m either the worst teacher or worst student (or both?). I think quarantine’s got my nerves all frayed. Probably like everyone else. But here’s a huge shoutout to my husband for coming to my rescue, as he always does. (But not without his infamous commentary!)

Up next: United Arab Emirates