Fermentation in Ukrainian Cuisine
Learn How to Make Ukrainian Sour Cream
Ukrainians love all things sour. Seriously! It has a lot to do with the central role fermentation plays and has always played in Ukrainian cuisine. Most importantly, Ukrainian’s love for sour flavors is also closely connected with the practical need to preserve food. Even today, fermentation remains one of the most common ways of preserving the abundance of produce that’s grown in the rich Ukrainian soil, allowing vegetables and fruit to last all year round.
Ukrainians don’t use the word fermentation, instead to talk about the process of fermentation, we use the term kvashennia from the verb kvasyty (means to make sour). The Ukrainian term for fermented foods is kvasny. For example, last week you all learned how to make Kvasheni Ohirky or Soured Cucumbers.
Let’s take a closer look at the etymology of kvasny—it’s actually the same as kvas.
The word kvass is ultimately from Proto-Indo-European base *kwh₂et- ('to become sour').1
Ukraine has two main versions of kvas: there is a rye bread version and a beet kvas version. Beet kvas lost popularity at the turn of the 20th century, but is going through a revival phase. Traditionally beet kvas was used in the preparation of borshch. You can make beet kvas with any variety of beet including white beets! Yes, there is of course a white borsch variety that uses white beet kvas but that’s a different story. The use of beet kvas in borshch is especially popular in Western Ukraine. Rye kvas, on the other hand, is popular in Eastern Ukraine and is used for making okroshka, a chilled summertime soup.
Check out my White Beet Kvas Process Here!
Check our my friend’s YouTube video of how to make Red Beet Kvas!
Fermented vegetables are found in some shape or form in almost every Ukrainian meal. They truly are a staple of almost every Ukrainian meal or dining experience. Some of the most popular fermented vegetables of Ukraine include: cabbage, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, plums, watermelon, apples, bell peppers, and beets.
Ukrainians who live in a private house, especially in more rural areas, will almost always have a root cellar of some sort. Many would consider it one of the most important places in the whole house, even with easy access to refrigeration today. A lot of fermentation would happen at the end of the summer or beginning of fall. The excess produce were first fermented and then placed into the cellar to be used throughout the year until the next growing season. As you can see, a root cellar is also a way for many Ukrainians to connect with the land and its natural cycles.
My grandparent’s house in Mariupol had a root cellar that used to give me nightmares. I was terrified of falling into the deep, dark, cold cellar and not being able to get out. That thing was deep! The door to the root cellar was right next to the main sink where we would wash our hands after playing outside or before eating. I remember being scared every time I had to wash my hands. To be honest, I think I closed my eyes every time I had to wash my hands. I am not exactly sure how that would have protected me from falling into the cellar but it did the trick, my hands would be clean and soon I’d be feasting on whatever was causing those delicious smells from the distant kitchen.
I used to watch my dad get jars of who knows what from the cellar, I was mesmerized. It was such a bizarre and magical process. My dad would emerge from the ground climbing out of the cellar with jars, bottles, all sorts of vessels. And it would be years before I really made the connection that these potions were indeed the same jars we had helped clean and seal the summer before. The cellar begin to lose its spooky mystery and I began to see it as a place of transformation, like so many other things in my grandparent’s garden. It instilled in me the desire to one day have a root cellar of my own, my own magical place to transform ingredients into powerful potions. The cellar is also where my grandfather stored his homemade wines and spirits—which were indeed some powerful potions. Apparently, and much to my own delight, it was also where they kept their tea mushroom (S.C.O.B.Y. for making kombucha)!
For me a root cellar is synonymous with abundance. It’s like a cave full of treasure, you go underground and pull out endless treasures but instead of gold coins you have fermented food and drinks.
Ukrainians employ other methods of preservation such as pickling, drying, curing, as well as making preserves. The history of food shortages and man-made famine in Ukraine has instilled the need to preserve food as a survival strategy just as much as the varied seasons necessitating storing seasonal flora and fauna. The current war in Ukraine, inflicted by Russia, has been a testament to this attitude. Thousands of Ukrainians have been living off of their food preserves and root cellars. In many cases, people would have starved to death if they didn’t have food that they could eat from their root cellars, and the common knowledge of food preservation technique has helped to turn perishables to shelf stable goods as this war continues. Tragically, the root cellars are also being used as bomb shelters. Providing protection, dutifully, in a more immediate and vital way.
The last family of ferments that I wanted to talk about was fermented dairy. This group is very close to my heart. As some of you know, I love to make my own dairy kefir. I got my kefir grains about 10 years ago and have been making my own kefir ever since. The grains are like another little pet. You feed them with milk. The active cultures in homemade kefir allow me to use it to ferment and create other types of cultured products such as butter, sour cream (smetana), ryazhanka, and syr.
Two dairy products that are less known in the west that Ukrainians consume are curdled fresh milk (kyslyak) and clabbered milk (huslyanka). The latter comes from the Zakarpattya region in western Ukraine. Huslyanka is a type of drinkable yogurt traditionally made by the ethnic minority group, Hutsuls. I first learned about huslyanka from my dear friend Katrya, she actually has a recipe for it on her Patreon! If you can, please consider supporting her amazing work.
This is a nice segue into this week’s recipe for Ukrainian sour cream.
RECIPE OF THE WEEK:
Ukrainian Sour Cream (Crème fraîche) / Smetana / Сметана
Smetana is an essential ingredient in a Ukrainian kitchen. Almost every Ukrainian dish is made with, served with, or finished with, you guessed it, smetana.
Traditionally, raw cream was used to make smetana. It gives the final product a beautiful yellow color. It is incredibly thick, rich, and luxurious. As a kid one of my favorite snacks was a spoonful of homemade smetana. I mean it’s pretty much buttercream without the sugar. I have made it with raw cream from Ash Acres Dairy and it worked beautifully. One of the benefits of using raw cream is that you don’t need to add any cultures. The raw cream already has all of the bacteria it needs for the fermentation to happen. Below you can find three different ways of making smetana.
You can buy raw cream here in Austin from Ash Acres Dairy, they have tons of different pick up locations throughout the city including Mueller and UT Austin campus.
Equipment:
Mason Jar
Coffee filter
Rubber-band
Ingredients:
1 pint or 500 grams heavy whipping cream or (raw cream)
1 piece sourdough bread (100% rye is traditional but any sourdough will work)
2 to 3 tablespoons cultured crème fraîche, sour cream, cultured buttermilk or kefir.
Method 1:
In a jar, stir together heavy cream and creme fraiche, sour cream or cultured buttermilk.
Cover the jar with a coffee filter or a kitchen towel secured with a rubber-band and let stand at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours or until the mixture has thickened. It should smell sour but still fresh.
Once thickened, place in the fridge for another 6 to 24 hours before using.
Method 2:
Pour the heavy cream into the mason jar and add a piece of sourdough.
Cover the jar with a coffee filter or a kitchen towel secured with a rubber-band and let stand at room temperature for about 24 hours or until thickened. It should smell sour but still fresh.
Once thickened, place in the fridge for another 6 to 24 hours before using.
Method 3:
Pour raw cream into the mason jar.
Cover the jar with a coffee filter or a kitchen towel secured with a rubber-band and let stand at room temperature for about 24 hours or until thickened.
Once thickened, place in the fridge for another 6 to 24 hours before using.
Pro Tip: Smetana ferments best between 68 F to 72 F or 20 C to 22 C)
Discard if the mixture develops a foul smell. This means some bad bacteria contaminated the mixture!
BAKING:
Cheesecake orders are now open through March 15th! Make sure to place your order as soon as possible.
BEST FOOD IN AUSTIN:
I have been dying to share with you all my three favorite snacks or treats in Austin.
One of Austin’s biggest secrets is the delicious food that’s inside Hana World Market, I mean both the food court and the food sold in the grocery store itself. Right past the kitchen supply area is the prepared food section where you can find the kim bab and it’s honestly the best kim bab in the city! It’s my absolute favorite. They sell out pretty fast and definitely have a backup plan if you do go there for food since they might be sold out.
In that case, you can hop back in your car and drive to Texas Bakery that’s located in the Chinatown Center right next to the MT Supermarket. One of my absolute favorite things to get at the bakery is the red bean bun! The yeasty dough is incredibly soft and light with just the perfect amount of filling. The filling isn’t too sweet in my humble opinion making it the perfect snack in my book.
Lastly, when I am in the mood for something fruity. I like to walk down to MLK and grab a blackberry vanilla swirl in a cup from Zed’s. They make a New Zealand style ice cream that’s made with real fruit and ice cream (both dairy and non-dairy). They use this really cool looking machine that looks like a juicer to blend the ice cream and fruit into this soft serve consistency! The blackberry is my favorite because I love the tartness of these berries, the only minor downside is a mouthful of blackberry seeds. You can read more about them in this New York Times feature by Priya Krishna.
KIM BAB FROM HANA WORLD MARKET
RED BEAN BUN FROM TEXAS BAKERY
BLACKBERRY VANILLA CUP FROM ZED’S REAL FRUIT ICE CREAM
SUPPORT MY WORK BY BECOMING A PAID SUBSCRIBER:
Please consider becoming a paid subscriber! Your paid subscriptions goes towards recipe testing and development, video/photography, and cookbook writing. I am a big advocate of open access information and my priority is to keep the newsletter accessible to all. Those of you who can support my work monetarily are keeping the newsletter free for all!
If you prefer to make a one time donation, my venmo is @ogitheyogi.
Wikipedia contributors, "Kvass," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kvass&oldid=1208693234 (accessed February 26, 2024).