Ukrainska Kukhnia · The Ukrainian Table

Ukrainian Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Step into a Ukrainian domivka, where borshch simmers away the whole Sunday morning, varenyky are turned in browned butter, and salo is pounded with garlic just as the bread comes out of the oven. Honest ingredients and deep flavor, the way the villages along the Dnipro have always cooked.

Explore the Recipes
Salo✦ Butter✦ Smalets
An elegantly plated Ukrainian dish on a dark wooden table
✦ Borshch with Pampushky
From the recipe collection
Salo

Salo in the Larder

Salo, the cured pork fat of the Ukrainian larder, is pounded with garlic for borshch, sliced thin over dark bread, and melted into the pan where the deruny turn gold. Every kitchen we learned from kept a piece wrapped in cloth.

Maslo

Sweet Cream Butter

Butter carries the heart of a chicken Kyiv, browns the varenyky, and enriches every dough in this collection. We use sweet cream butter generously, the way the farm tables of Poltava always have.

Nikoly

Never Vegetable Oil

No seed oils, no shortcuts. Only butter, salo, and smalets rendered slowly on the back of the stove, the traditional fats that Ukrainian home cooks have trusted for generations.

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From Our Kitchen

Ukrainian Home Recipes

Six beloved dishes from the Ukrainian table, each cooked with the honest fats that have fed the domivka for generations.

Nedilia Ukrainian borshch, a deep red beet soup served with sour cream and dill

Ukrainian Borshch

Beet soup finished with salo and garlic

2 hr 30 min·6 servings·Medium

The heart of the Ukrainian table. Beef simmered to a rich broth with beets, cabbage, and potatoes, then finished the old way, with salo pounded to a paste with garlic and stirred in at the very end.

Ingredients

  • 600 g beef brisket or shin, on the bone
  • 2.5 litres cold water
  • 3 medium beets, peeled and coarsely grated
  • Half a small white cabbage, shredded
  • 3 potatoes, cut into chunks
  • 1 carrot and 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 3 tbsp tomato paste and 2 tbsp butter
  • 50 g salo plus 2 garlic cloves, for the finishing paste
  • 2 bay leaves, salt, and black pepper
  • Sour cream and chopped dill, to serve

Instructions

  1. Cover the beef with the cold water, bring slowly to a simmer, skim well, and cook gently for 1 hour 30 minutes until tender.
  2. Melt the butter in a wide pan and soften the onion and carrot for 5 minutes, then add the beets and tomato paste and cook 10 minutes more with a ladle of broth.
  3. Lift out the beef, cut it from the bone into chunks, and return it to the pot with the potatoes. Simmer 10 minutes.
  4. Add the beet mixture and the cabbage and simmer another 10 to 12 minutes until everything is just tender.
  5. Pound the salo with the garlic and a pinch of salt into a smooth paste and stir it into the pot with the bay leaves.
  6. Season boldly, cover, and let the borshch rest off the heat for 20 minutes; it should be a deep garnet red.
  7. Serve with a spoon of sour cream, plenty of dill, and warm pampushky.
Sviato Kotleta po-Kyivsky, a golden crusted chicken cutlet on a warm plate

Kotleta po-Kyivsky

Chicken Kyiv with dill butter

1 hr·4 servings·Medium

The proud celebration dish of Kyiv. A chicken breast wrapped around a core of cold dill butter, breaded and fried in smalets until the first cut releases a stream of golden butter.

Ingredients

  • 4 chicken breasts, skin removed
  • 150 g cold butter
  • 3 tbsp dill, finely chopped
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 100 g plain flour
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 180 g fine dry breadcrumbs
  • 300 g smalets (rendered pork fat), for frying
  • Lemon wedges, to serve

Instructions

  1. Beat the butter with the dill, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt, shape into 4 small logs, and freeze 20 minutes.
  2. Pound each chicken breast between sheets of parchment until evenly thin, and season both sides.
  3. Set a butter log on each breast and roll tightly, folding in the sides so the butter is fully sealed.
  4. Dust each roll in flour, coat in egg, then breadcrumbs, and repeat the egg and crumbs for a double crust. Chill 15 minutes.
  5. Melt the smalets in a deep pan to 170°C, about the point a crumb sizzles instantly.
  6. Fry the kotlety 8 to 10 minutes, turning gently, until deep gold and cooked through.
  7. Rest 3 minutes on a rack and serve with lemon, warning everyone about the first buttery cut.
Richka Karasi v smetani, river fish baked in sour cream with herbs

Karasi v Smetani

River fish baked in sour cream

45 min·4 servings·Easy

A quiet classic from the rivers and ponds of the Ukrainian countryside. Small fish fried crisp in butter, then baked under a blanket of smetana until the sauce turns golden at the edges.

Ingredients

  • 4 small crucian carp or other river fish, cleaned, or 4 firm white fish fillets
  • Salt and black pepper
  • 3 tbsp plain flour, for dusting
  • 100 g butter, divided
  • 1 onion, sliced into thin rings
  • 400 g smetana (full fat sour cream)
  • 2 tbsp whole milk
  • 3 tbsp dill, chopped
  • A grating of nutmeg (optional)
  • Boiled potatoes turned in butter, to serve

Instructions

  1. Pat the fish very dry, season inside and out, and dust lightly with flour.
  2. Melt 70 g of the butter in a wide ovenproof pan and fry the fish 3 to 4 minutes per side until golden. Set aside.
  3. Add the remaining butter and soften the onion rings in the same pan for 5 minutes.
  4. Whisk the smetana with the milk, a pinch of salt, and the nutmeg, and warm it gently over the onions.
  5. Return the fish to the pan, spooning the smetana over so it is nearly covered.
  6. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 15 minutes until the cream bubbles and takes color at the edges.
  7. Shower with dill and serve straight from the pan with buttered potatoes.
Horod Deruny, golden potato pancakes stacked on a plate with sour cream

Deruny

Potato pancakes in smalets

40 min·4 servings·Easy

The great humble supper of the Ukrainian garden. Grated potato and onion fried in smalets until lacy and deeply crisp at the edges, served hot with cold smetana.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg starchy potatoes, peeled
  • 1 onion
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • Black pepper, to taste
  • 120 g smalets (rendered pork fat), for frying
  • 1 tbsp butter, to finish
  • Smetana (sour cream), to serve
  • Chopped dill or chives, to serve

Instructions

  1. Grate the potatoes and onion on the fine side of a box grater, alternating so the onion keeps the potato from darkening.
  2. Press the mixture in a sieve to drain, then stir in the egg, flour, salt, and pepper to a thick batter.
  3. Melt a generous layer of smalets in a heavy pan over medium high heat.
  4. Drop in spoonfuls of batter and flatten slightly; fry 3 to 4 minutes per side until deep gold and crisp.
  5. Keep the finished deruny warm in a low oven while you fry the rest, adding smalets as needed.
  6. Slide a knob of butter over the hot stack so it melts into the edges.
  7. Serve at once with cold smetana and a scatter of dill.
Pekarnia Pampushky, soft golden bread rolls fresh from the oven

Garlic Pampushky

Soft rolls with garlic butter

2 hr 30 min·12 rolls·Medium

The pillowy rolls that no bowl of borshch should be without. A soft yeasted dough baked shoulder to shoulder in one pan, then brushed while hot with melted butter, garlic, and dill.

Ingredients

  • 500 g bread flour
  • 7 g instant yeast
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 280 ml warm whole milk
  • 60 g soft butter, plus 50 g melted for the glaze
  • 1 egg, beaten, for brushing
  • 4 garlic cloves, finely grated
  • 3 tbsp dill, finely chopped
  • A pinch of coarse salt, for the glaze

Instructions

  1. Whisk the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt, then add the warm milk and soft butter and knead 10 minutes to a supple dough.
  2. Cover and let it rise about 1 hour 30 minutes until doubled.
  3. Divide into 12 pieces, roll into tight balls, and arrange snugly in a buttered round pan.
  4. Rise again 40 minutes until the rolls touch, then brush with the beaten egg.
  5. Bake at 190°C (375°F) for 20 to 22 minutes until deep golden on top.
  6. Stir the garlic, dill, and coarse salt into the melted butter and brush it generously over the hot pampushky.
  7. Serve warm, ideally beside a bowl of borshch.
Sad Varenyky, plump dumplings glistening with butter on a rustic plate

Varenyky z Vyshniamy

Sour cherry dumplings in butter

1 hr 15 min·4 servings·Medium

Summer in the orchards of Podillia, folded into a dumpling. Tender dough filled with sugared sour cherries, boiled gently, then turned in melted butter and served with cold smetana.

Ingredients

  • 400 g plain flour, plus more for rolling
  • 1 egg
  • 180 ml warm water
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 500 g sour cherries, pitted
  • 120 g sugar, plus 2 tbsp for the cherries
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 80 g butter, melted
  • Smetana (sour cream), to serve
  • A few fresh mint leaves (optional)

Instructions

  1. Knead the flour, egg, water, and salt into a smooth soft dough, cover, and rest 30 minutes.
  2. Toss the cherries with 2 tbsp sugar and the cornstarch so the juices thicken as they cook.
  3. Roll the dough thin and cut rounds about 8 cm across.
  4. Set a spoonful of cherries on each round, fold, and pinch the edges firmly into a tight seam.
  5. Boil the varenyky in batches in well salted water; they are done 2 minutes after they float.
  6. Lift them into a warm bowl and turn gently in the melted butter so every dumpling shines.
  7. Serve hot, dusted with the remaining sugar, with cold smetana alongside.
A cook working at a warm stove in a busy home kitchen
Our Kitchen

The Kitchen Behind Brasou Domivka

Brasou Domivka is a small home kitchen devoted to the cooking of Ukraine, where a pot of borshch is started before the house is awake, bread is brushed with garlic butter while it is still too hot to hold, and no one leaves the table until the varenyky are gone. We write these recipes down the way they are still cooked in family kitchens from Poltava to Podillia, patiently, precisely, and with a generous hand on the butter.

Our only house rule is an old one: salo cured in the cellar, butter from the morning cream, smalets rendered slowly on the back of the stove and nothing else. Vegetable oil never comes through our door, because it never sat on the tables we learned from.

Smachnoho, may it feed you well.