Lviv syrnyk

While traditional Ukrainian syrnyk is a small round sour cream pancake, traditional Lviv syrnyk is a bit different. Firstly, it looks nothing like the syrnyk we commonly know. Secondly, the taste is more refined thanks to the chocolate and raisins. The syrnyk is served in nearly all coffee shops and restaurants in Lviv and each has unique secrets often passed down by generations to make the dish unique. This recipe is taken from a book called Sweet Cookies (“Solodke Pechyvo”) by Dariia Tsviek.

Ingredients:

• 500 g of cottage cheese with 9% fat content and higher
• 5 eggs
• 200 g of sugar
• 10 grams of vanilla sugar
• 100 grams of butter at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons semolina
• A handful of raisins
  For chocolate glazing:
• 200 g of dark chocolate of good quality
• 100 g of butter
• 5 tablespoons of cream with a fat content of 30%

Preparation:

1. Take butter from the fridge beforehand, make sure it’s of room temperature. Wash raisins in a pot and pour boiling water for half an hour.
2. Separate yolks from whites and put yolks in a large bowl. Add sugar and vanilla sugar. Use a hand mixer until yolks whiten and thicken. In a separate bowl, whisk whites to medium density.
3. Add soft cottage cheese. If your cottage cheese isn’t soft, add boiled potatoes and mash. Add butter and mash again and pour mixture into yolks. Then add soft butter, semolina and mix.
4. Beat cottage cheese, yolks and butter until the mixture is homogenous. Add whipped egg whites to the bowl. Gently stir with a spatula. Mix very carefully to keep air bubbles in whites.
5. Add raisins to cottage cheese mass. Mix gently. Grease the baking pan with vegetable oil and spread cottage cheese mass. Put in an oven preheated to 190 degrees and bake for an hour. Use a toothpick to check if it’s ready.
6. Take syrnyk out from the oven and let it cool completely.
7. Now it’s time to prepare the chocolate glazing. Put pieces of chocolate, butter, cream and in a saucepan. Use the bain marie (water bath) method to melt the mass, stirring constantly. As soon as chocolate melts and the mass becomes homogeneous, remove the pot from heat. Pour curd and put it in the refrigerator until the glaze is completely frozen.

Galician Strudel

One of the classics from Galician cuisine is strudel — a sweet dish that was borrowed from Vienna and re-engineered according to the local preferences. Like syrnyky, strudel in all its variety is served almost everywhere in Lviv. The most popular flavors are the classic apple strudel and Lviv special — cherry and walnuts, famous in Tsukernia café. The recipe is taken from Sweet Cookies (“Solodke Pechyvo”) by Dariia Tsviek.

Ingredients:

• 250 g of flour
• 1 egg
• 130-140 ml of warm water
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1 kg of frozen cherries (if the cherry is fresh, take 700-800 g)
• 150 g of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons of ground breadcrumbs
• 50 g of butter
• 100 g of crushed walnuts
• Powdered sugar for sprinkling
• 3 teaspoons of starch for sauce

Preparation:

1. Defrost cherries beforehand.
2. In a bowl sift flour, beat in one egg, add vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. Knead the dough, gradually pouring in warm water.
3. When the dough forms a lump, mix it with a kitchen processor or manually. Lightly pour the dough with vegetable oil. Wrap in plastic wrapping and put in a warm place for an hour and a half.
4. Mix crackers and nuts. Fry with butter for a couple of minutes. Pour juice from cherries and set it aside, as it will still be useful for the sauce. Add sugar, cinnamon to cherries and mix.
5. Sprinkle the working surface with flour. Sprinkle the dough as well and carefully roll out the rolling pin to about 2 mm thick. Start stretching the dough from the center to the sides. If you feel that the dough does not drag on further, proceed to the next section and so on, until you reach the ends. Do not be afraid to pull the dough — even the torn parts can be patched with a piece from the ends of the formation. The finished dough should be so thin that you see the pattern on the working surface.
6. Sprinkle the dough layer with breadcrumbs and nuts, receding 2-3 cm from the long edges. Leave five centimeters for the last turn of the strudel on one of the short edges. Spread a layer of cherries. Turn the dough in from the long edges. Gently fold the roll. You can help yourself with a towel sprinkled with flour. After each turn, grease the dough with vegetable oil.
7. Gently weld the seam. Smear the strudel with vegetable oil and put it with the seam down on the baking tray covered with the baking paper. Bake in a preheated 200 degrees oven for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
8. In the meantime, prepare the sauce from the remaining cherry juice. Pour the juice into a saucepan, add sugar and boil. Take a small separate bowl, pour 100 ml of cold water and stir starch. Pour the mix into a sauté pan with juice and stir gradually. As soon as the sauce thickens, remove from heat.
9. Pour the sauce on the strudel. You can also serve it with vanilla ice cream.

Baked Trout

Unsurprisingly, Odesa doesn’t hold the monopoly for seafood in Ukrainian cuisine. Baked trout is one of the Galician specialties, popular in Lviv and the Carpathians. Lviv restaurant “Trout, bread and wine” popularized the dish among tourists as well as locals.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium trouts (300-400 g each)
• 140g of butter cut into pieces of 70g each
• Half of a lemon
• Small bunch of parsley
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation:

1. Slice the trout, pull out the ridge and bones. Don’t cut off head and tail. Rub the fish with salt and pepper from the inside and out. Lay out on a greased baking sheet and then on the baking tray.
2. Put 70 g of butter in a saucepan and place on low heat. Melt butter, stirring constantly. When butter is completely melted, remove the pan from heat.
3. Pour melted butter on the fish, both inside and out. Place it in the oven preheated to 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
4. In the meantime prepare the lemon-cream sauce. Grind the peel from a half of a lemon. Melt 70 g of butter, remove from the heat, pour in lemon zest and stir. Then squeeze the juice of another slice of lemon. And add a tablespoon of finely chopped parsley.
5. Pour the sauce on the trout and serve immediately. Baked trout is best served with fresh or defrosted green peas.

Lazanky

This dish was brought to Lviv way back in the 16th century when the Italian queen Bona Sforza arrived in the city to seek a perfect candidate for her son’s future marriage. She brought beloved Italian recipes and local chefs added a special spin to the classic lasagna. There are more than five flavors of lazanky: from meat and mushrooms to spinach and even poppy seeds. We will look into the most popular recipe with cabbage.

Ingredients:

• 300 g of flour
• 2 eggs
• Half of a white cabbage
• 2 onions
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp. butter

Preparation:

1. Put 3-4 spoons of flour in a separate bowl for further sprinkling. Prepare and knead the dough from the remaining flour, eggs and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. If the dough is too soft, add more flour.
2. Divide the dough into 4 pieces, cover with a bowl and leave for half an hour to ripen.
3. Roll each layer of dough into thin strips, sprinkle with flour. Leave to dry for a bit.
4. Cut the stripes into rectangles. Scatter them around the working surface to dry.
5. Cut cabbage into wide strips, then cut further into squares.
6. Boil the cabbage for 7 minutes and toss it in the colander.
7. Finely chop the onion, sauté on a mixture of vegetable oil and butter. Add the boiled cabbage and continue to fry together. Salt and pepper the mixture.
8. Boil the dried lazanky in salted water until ready. Mix lazanky with cabbage.

Iabchanka

Iabchanka is a type of zupa (“soup”) traditionally served in summer as a fresh alternative to warm Ukrainian soups. The recipe is simple, moreover, you can regulate the consistency up to your taste — merely change the number of apples and water to make it denser or more liquid.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 liters of water
• 6-7 apples
• 2-3 tablespoons of sugar
• A pinch of vanilla sugar or cinnamon
• 1 glass of sour cream
• 1 tablespoon of flour

Preparation:

1. Clean the apples, cut into slices. Place them in a pan.
2. Pour in water, add sugar and cook until the apples become mushy and almost boiled.
3. Thoroughly mix flour and sour cream to avoid lumps. Pour into the boiling mixture. If necessary, add more sugar, vanilla or cinnamon up to your taste.
4. Cook until thickened. Serve right away or put away for later in a fridge. Iabchanka works out well both hot and cold.

Recipe sources: its-al-dente.livejournal.com, dreamfood.ua, vzupo.com.
Photo sources: the-most-tasty.blogspot.com, shutterstock.com. All images belong to their rightful authors.