Stalker

Sounds like shashlik. Originally it should be mutton, but we use pork instead in Ukraine. The rear parts or neck parts are usually used. They are sliced into dices with side up to 5-6 cm (for those who use non-metric system - about 2-2,5 inches), then they go to marinade of white dry wine (vinnegar is often also added), with solt, black peper, laurel and sliced onion rounds. Then it rests for no less than 10 hours, 24 even better. Then we string the slices on a spit and stew them on the fire when it has already burnt out that is on hot charcoal. The process of stewing takes from 20 to 40 minutes depending upon how hot is charcoal in fireplace. The favorite meal for a picnic in Ukraine. Mmm, delicious when goes with frech vegetables and greens. The choice of alcohol is up to you. :wink:

Leto

Taste good, although I may try first with mutton.

And with this post above a new recipe thread is opened.

Daube stew (can use beef or boar)
- 1 bottle of red wine
- 1 small glass of strong alcohol (preferably cognac or any derivative of wine - slivovitz does it too)
- laurel
- 2 onions, with one pinned with cloves
- thyme
- garlic
- Carrots
- potatoes
- mushroom
- olives (green or black according to your taste)
- 1 small teaspoon of sugar
- 1 tomato
- 1 kg of meat cut in piece (2,20 pounds)
- flour, salt and pepper, oil

One night put in a salad bowl, the meat, the onion with the cloves, thyme and laurel. Cover it with the wine. Leave it rest for at least 12 hours. The day after, in a large pan, put oil, garlic and the other onion, make it cook on strong heat. Take one after one each piece of meat and roll them in flour, throw them in pan. When they started turning brown, lower the heat and add carrots cut round then potatoes (cutted too). Add the mushrooms, stir a little and then add the wine with laurel and thyme. Take the clove out of the onion, cut it and add it. Cut the tomato, add it. Cover, wait for half an hour. Taste it, add the sugar and mix if it's sour then add the olives and add the glass of alcohol. Cover, lower again the heat and let it cook for 2 hours while stirring from time to time.
Serve with green salad as appetizer and with a good bottle of wine (preferably from the same origin than the one used to cook).

Stalker

Oh, I will try to do this for sure!
We've got a much simpler recipe for stew in Ukraine without red wine, brandy (cognak), cloves and olives, all the rest of ingredients are usually used in our stew. The crucial difference is the idea of using alcohol in the meal. How many cloves do you put in, they are too aromatic!
Now, in summer I would suggest typical summer meal I often cook. That is vegetable ragout or stew.

Take 5-7-liter thick-walled cauldron (1-1,4 gallons) the bigger, the better! :wink:
Put it on small fire, pour there approx. 300 mililiters (3/4 of a pint) of oil (olive, sunflower - whatever you prefer), then step by step, as you slice put there the vegetables in the following consequence:

• onions - 2,3,4 even 5 pieces
• carrots - about the same quantity
• aubergines - 3-4, midsized
• marrows or custard marrow (optional) 1-2 small pieces
• asparagus (desirable but optional) up to half a kilo (approx. 1 pound)
• green or red (sweet!!!) peppers - 3-4 pieces
• cayenne peppers (optional, according ro your taste)
• peas (up to half a kilo) (approx. 1 pound)
• diced potatoes (the share of potatoes should be 1/3 of the whole mass of all the vegetables combined)
• cabbages sliced very thinly (I usually put 400 grams of them - it also may vary according to your taste)
  Here put the cover on place, let it stew for 5-10 minutes and
• then go grated tomatoes, you may also use instead of it tomato paste or sauce but without any other food additive
• greens

You may also experiment with various spices you like but I strongly recommend that you not use garlic with this particular meal.
To check the readiness of the meal, feel potatoes or cabages. Some people prefer completely overstewed cabbages - fie! - I personnaly prefer cabages still able to crunch in my teeth. But that's of course, up to your taste!
Well, here it is, one of most democratic meals! :smilie:

P.S. Ah, forgot - don't forget to add salt!!! :biggrin:

Leto

yummy, I'll get the list for my trip to market this week-end.

For the cloves, up to 5 according to your taste. 3 to 4 is a good number for beef, but with board don't hesitate to put 5 of them. Here boar meat is obtained only by hunting and the animal killed is usually an old male (as usually they only kill the rogue ones).

Stalker

Ah, a wild boar, a game! Now I understand why you advise cloves. What if I put pork instead?

Leto

white wine then and 3 cloves. Boar is a red meat as beef (or deer), not pork.

Princess Ivy

recipies look good. to bad i can't make. i can just about talk my kids into sausages and mash (and thats very exoitic!)

Stalker

Pilaw or pilau
An oriental meal that was modified in Ukraine, so here goes the recipe of Ukrainian modification of the above meal.
For the beginning, take 5-7-liter thick-walled cauldron (1-1,4 gallons) the bigger, the better, or ven bigger!
Original meat in oriental pilaw is mutton but we are nt Muslims and eat pork, so pork it is. Beef and veal won't do - we need a fatty meat here!
So, let's get started:
For pilaw the ratio between meat (pork) and rice (the mass of dry grains is meant)* is 1,5 to 1. Rice should be long not round.
So, contents: vegetable oil (olive or unflower - depends upon your taste), 500 miligrams (a bit more than a pint) 1,5 kilos of pork (3,4 pounds), rice, 1 kilogram (2,2 pounds) 5 cloves of onions, one clove of garlic, 5 midsized carrots, salt, pepper, laurel, you may use cloves here but I would not recommend more than 2 because they are strong enough to overwhelm all other aromas, if you like you may also use a tiny potion of corriander, tomatoes (4-5 big ones previously grated or pressed into juice, or tomato sauce clean of any other food additives).

For the beginning, take 5-7-liter thick-walled cauldron (1-1,4 gallons) the bigger, the better, or even bigger!
Put it on small fire or through flame spreader if you've got a gas cooker.
Slice onions there, and then dice meat to pieces ith the side approx up to 3-4 sm (1,2-1,7 inches), no more.
Add salt according to your taste, put the cover on place and stew the meat about an hour on small fire.
Attention: if you prefer slicing carrots in big pieces, then you should add carrots to stewed meat at once, but I would advice that you use the big-celled grater for that purpose - then the carrots should be added to the other portion of the meal I am about to describe below...
While the meat is being prepared, you should prepare the other portion of a meal.
Take a bowl, pour rice into it, if necessary wash the rice and filter water out, then add there grated carrots (in case they are not sliced into big pieces), laurel, garlic (most peope only peel the film off the garlic and put it in a single piece to the rice but I personally peel it divide into sections and press these sections through the garlic masher), black grinded pepper (according to your taste), other spice (according to your taste but don't experiment to much with them, especially when you cook the meal with the first time), grated tomato mash, or pressed tomato juice, or tomato sauce, salt to accomplish our bouquet! :smilie:
When the hour of stewing meat has expired, pour all above rice with ingredients into the cauldron, add fresh water to cover the rice with two finger water layer. Put the cover back on place. The tomatoes will create an acid environment, so the rice will take longer to prepare than usually - another hour.
Try rice to make sure it's ready. It might happen that you will have to add some more water to make it get ready. Don't stir the meal. Even when you have finiched cooking, it's better to serve it to the plate in layers, like a cake. Turn your attention not to add to little or too mauch water in order not to tranform rice into simple rice mash, well formed and preserved in shape rice grains in pilau is its essence.
bon appétit!

Leto

As mutton is my second favorite meat (after duck) I'll try it with mutton.

And now, in honor of summer - a dessert :


Ingredients :
- sweet white wine
- berries or currants (the kind you prefer except strawberries)
- grape (preferably white one but it's not mandatory)
- mint leaves

Prepare one bowl or cup per person, in each put the berries and the grape in a mix. put the fresh mint leaves on top. Pour the wine to cover all of them. Put the bowl or cup in the freezer for 2-3 hours. If it's totally iced, get them out 10 minutes before eating.

Stalker

Oh, you may even use duck with pilaw - quite an original taste, my mother used to cook pilaw with duck - yammy! :smilie: