A lesson in life. A lesson Varenyky
Over three years ago I met my partner. In the early days of dating she made it clear that she was Ukrainian. This I like very much.
It was shared with a sense of pride, which I fancied to be honest. My first instinct was excitement - a new and interesting culture to learn about. As a descendant of a Maltese grandfather that was hell bent on assimilating to Australian culture, I guess I missed out on all any sort of a cultural upbringing other than Australian pies, white bread, meat and three and vegemite. 1980’s Australia wasn’t the epitome of cultural exploration and diversity regarding food, it was safe, somewhat bland and mediocre, but we didn’t know any different. As a curious person I’ve always found excitement learning about how other cultures live, what they cook and why they cook the way they do. Being in a relationship with someone that has strong links to a traditional culture was a cherry on top as Lash is a gem of a human regardless of her cultural background.
Admittedly, other than knowing where Ukraine is placed on a map I didn’t know much about its culture other than it being mostly religious, the unpleasant Soviet era and that it was a land of many pierogi (or Varenyky). Seems like a lot of Balkin countries share a love of pierogi, who can judge them for it? Not me.
Over the last few years I’ve learnt a lot more about Ukrainian culture, but what I find most interesting is the food (of course). Lasha’s mum is a very good cook, one that’s been cooking traditional meals since she was a kid, yeah she’s good at her craft.
I respect great cooks and their dedication to holding onto ancient recipes handed down from cook to cook. Imagine a world where that tradition didn’t exist. I can’t even consider it.
Any time there’s a dinner on offer at the family home, I’m always a bit excited, even if I have to sit at a table where everyone speaks Ukrainian and I can’t understand a word but I’ll stay and appreciate to food, that salty, porky, carb on carb food - Who wouldn’t?
I’m appreciative of the ethnic tradition of over feeding, those moments when you can’t leave the parents' place without taking many containers of home cooked food with you - because as we all know, ethnic parents are often emotional feeders. Sometimes not so good on actual emotional communication, but very good at compensating with excessive emotional feeding. Where I believe, everyone benefits. Especially when Varenyky is involved.
After eating many meals and prying Mama for details about the cooking process, I asked Lash if recipes had been handed down to her. Turns out, not so much as I expected. So we collectively asked if we could, at the very least, have a lesson on how to make Varenyky.
It was a really fun afternoon and I took down notes on the technique and recipe to record it. So in the spirit of sharing and preserving special home cooking recipes, here is what I recorded. We’ve had a crack ourselves and had an absolute ball. The girl gang got together on a wintery Saturday night and everyone chipped in. We made a bunch of fun shapes of varying quality and experimented with fillings, which you can do too. My favorite filling to date is half potato, sauteed sauerkraut and onion. It must be served with pan fried cured pork pieces like speck, pancetta or bacon and full fat sourcream. If you serve it with low-fat sourcream Ukrainian mums will knock your front door down and give you a stern talking to. Don’t risk it.
Thank you to Lash for letting me get a peek into what life as a Ukrainian Australian is like. I feel very honored.
Pasta dough:
Add ingredients in order in large mixing bowl:
800gm plain white flour
1tbsp salt
100ml olive oil
1 egg whole
450ml warm water
(Quantities seem to vary but this is a base - good luck?)
Stir ingredients in a large mixing bowl until well formed sticky dough. Wear black as it’s aesthetically appealing but also catches devil dust (flour) spillage. Apron optional.
Turn dough onto the bench and knead. Stretch the gluten like a pro. Avoid or engage direct eye contact with others when kneading and making suggestive grunting noises.
Add dusting flour as ‘kneaded’ so it’s not sticky, this is a sticky dough.
This dough needs to be very elastic to be good, so knead for around 8 -10mins. When you think you’ve nailed it, form it into a bun looking ball and slap that bad boy to be sure.
Depends on how distracted you get but let it rest for a while but “not Donkeys ages ago, too far is not good” as we were told. Who knows what would happen, but we didn’t take any chances. We were told that the longer the dough is rested the more elastic it becomes which makes adding of filling will be a slightly easier process.
Periodically poke the dough to ensure its elasticity. Not sure if this is a necessary step but one that was observed. I partook in the poke, it felt nice. Feel free to poke.
Filling (must be making this before hands)
*needs to be cooked-refrigerated to cool is even better
Meat filling
300-400gm mince (of your choice - today we used mostly pork and some chicken filling which did have pre-mixed garlic, pepper and salt)
2x tbsp Caramelized onion (cooked)
2x tbsp sauerkraut
1tbsp salt to mince
1 tbsp Eastern crack ( vegeta - well durr)
*one must stick blend ever so briefly sauteed mince to a velvet consistency. Licking stick blender not recommended. You should pop this in the fridge as cooked filling is easier to work with. Taste mince for balance. Yes, raw dog that meat.
Cheese and potato
200gm Grated feta (Danish)
Some amount of mash - this is a mystery - sorry I missed this step, but it seems you can experiment with the fillings. 2/3 cheese to 1/3 mash potato.
Taste for balance.
Method
Cut 1/3 of dough at a time, which I found out later relates to the Holy Trinity, everything ties back to religion. Use a rolling pin to do flattening things on the bench. Roll out to a perfect circle. You will be quietly judged if the circle is unevenly round even though you’ll be told there is no judgment, there’s always judgment.
Pasta thickness must be even. Thin like 4mm
Use a coffee mug to cut out circles of pasta.
Use tbsp to fill on pasta (what seemed like a lot - tieght fit bro - stuff that thiccc boi).
Put in pot of boiling water with a tbsp salt and a decent ‘glug’* of oil. (*glug quantities may vary).
The pierogi will cool the boiling water, so pop a lid on until the dumpling rise and the water is boiling. Don’t overcook them as they will fall apart.
Scoop pierogi out of boiling water, add decent chef pinch of salt, and mix of oily caramelized onion (randomly no salt seemed to be added to this which is fucking weird because salt is in everything else).
Things of note.
No vegetta was allowed in the mash potato (very weird).