Ukrainian

The carrots melt into the broth of this comforting soup with meatballs.

Karpatka cake is like a cloud of rich milky frosting trapped between two layers of pâte à choux.

These easy Moldovan flatbreads are made by mixing the filling into the dough rather than stuffing it.

This fried Greek bread—stuffed with feta and spring onions—can be filled with chopped herbs for extra flavor.

If you haven’t tried eggplant with butter before, this will be a revelation. It is delicious and silky and makes for the best starter or sharing dish. Add some fresh herbs too, if you have them.

One take on the Ukrainian salad known as shuki, perfect for Easter.

It’s not a Ukrainian Easter celebration without makoviy rulet, a poppy seed and nut roll. Here, the process is simplified with store-bought phyllo pastry.

This classic Ukrainian dish is one of pure indulgence, and was common in French restaurants in the middle of the last century. Warn your guests: When made properly, butter spurts out of the chicken when it is cut; it’s quite spectacular. You can prepare the chicken rolls ahead of time and fry just before serving, but it cannot be said that this is a dish that takes no work— it’s about as complicated as I care to get. Traditionally, Chicken Kiev is served alongside crispy potatoes and fresh green peas, but rice and salad are good too.

Pelmeni were traditionally frozen before cooking (they’re from Siberia; one would just make a few hundred, throw them in a bag, and put the bag in a barn or outdoors), and some people insist that they’re best when frozen first, though I cannot imagine why that would be. But all dumplings can be frozen successfully after filling and can even be cooked directly from the freezer. Just make sure they’re floured enough to prevent sticking during freezing, or the dough might tear. You may not use all of this filling, but it’s best not to run short. As with pot stickers (Wor Teep, page 63), be sure not to overfill the dumplings or the seams will burst. Any combination of meats will do well as a filling here. If you grind your own, it will be even better; the meat should be ground quite finely. Though the butter suffices as a sauce, you can serve these with sour cream as well if you like.

These are usually quite sweet but served as a main course nevertheless, because they’re incredibly filling. Most frequently boiled and served with melted butter, like the meat-filled dumplings in the preceding recipe, but I grew up eating them fried in butter, and they are superior that way. (Ideally, they’re served with sour cream as well.) These, served with some of the other vareniki or pierogi on these pages, are just great.

My favorite dumplings, these are creamy, savory, and salty and, when served with the cooked onion garnish and some sour cream, irresistible. Like the cheese filled version on page 60, they may be boiled and served with melted butter, but I think they’re best when fried in butter and served with sour cream. In addition to the variation, you can stuff these with cooked cabbage, cooked mushrooms, sauerkraut, or almost anything else you can think of.

Whether the noodle and wrappers made from its dough moved west from China or east from Italy is anyone’s guess, but it wound up everywhere. There is barely a square mile of turf between Mongolia and Hungary that doesn’t boast some kind of dumpling, and the variety is staggering. (And, if you consider the ravioli and empanada dumplings, they are universal.) But though shape and filling vary wildly, the doughs are pretty much the same throughout the world: they’re made either with egg or without. These are mostly made with, making the dough essentially the same as that used for fresh pasta.

Kutia This lightly sweetened pudding is the first of 12 traditional dishes served on Christmas Eve in Eastern Europe. Countries such as the Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania each have their own version, sometimes chilled, sometimes served as a warm porridge. (The dish used to be a tradition in Russia as well, but because of the communist Soviet Union's official atheism, it has become extinct there.) Our version is based on the baked Ukrainian style, which is traditionally made with wheat berries, which require overnight soaking and long cooking. For convenience, we've substituted quick-cooking barley, which packs the same nutty-chewy punch. For the best results, prepare the pudding a day ahead: Let it cool, cover it, and chill it overnight to let the flavors meld. Serve it chilled, plain or sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar.

To make this borscht into a full meal, serve the butter-braised oysters as a starter, or vice versa.

Ukrainian Dessert Dumplings These stuffed dessert dumplings with a chewy noodle-dough wrapping are a Ukrainian specialty. The fruit fillings vary widely—ours are stuffed with dried apricots and walnuts, then sprinkled with a cinnamon-crumb topping.

Strong beef broth and garlic, not sugar, make a true Ukrainian borscht delicious. Fresh root vegetables and roasted beets provide plenty of sweetness which is balanced by an acid edge of lemon.

This rich red nectar may be eaten hot or cold. I serve it in a demitasse or other small cup. Scrub the beets well before cooking. Taste as you prepare the soup, because getting the right balance of sweet and sour is important.