My cabbage recipes




Easier Borscht with Precooked Beets and Beans

December 18th, 2010 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina

One of the challenges when cooking classic beet root soup, borscht, is to get all vegetables (and there are quite few) cooked till perfect readiness at the same time.

Considering different vegetables require different cooking time it is sometimes hard to achieve. For borscht you need to make sure beens are soft, while potatoes are not over cooked and beets don’t lose their color.

So, to make this happen: I cook beens in a separate cooking pot (just until they are soft and ready), cook beets skin on (like for salad) in separate pot in advance, and add these two to the main cooking pot at appropriate times.

By the way, using of canned beets and beens instead of cooking them yourself is an option (which I never did, but it may safe you some time).

Salad Dnister (Cabbage, Peas and Sausage)

September 25th, 2010 in Salad Recipes by Julia Volhina

Salad Dnister (just like a river) is a popular in West Ukraine dish originated in Carpathian mountains region, and made its way to other places as it is easy, not expensive and fast to do and very tasty.

Main ingredient of this salad is shredded cabbage, so you can consider it to be a coleslaw with a sausage and peas dressed with mayonnaise.

A bit of a challenge here would be to find suitable sausage. The closest translation to the kind of sausage you need I could come up with is “half-smoked summer sausage”, however I am pretty sure that sounds weird in english, and if you know how to call it better – please let me know. Krakowska or Ternopil’ska sausage will work here, if you can find any of those in Ukrainian or European shop.

Cabbage and Cucumber Salad

June 19th, 2010 in Salad Recipes by Julia Volhina

This is one of my favorite salads for fresh young cabbage – fast made slaw with eggs and cucumbers seasoned with fresh dill and mayo to taste.

Usually I take small white head cabbage or a half of it, however it will be the same good with red cabbage (the color will look interesting in this case too :) ) or napa.

Don’t forget to cool down hard boiled eggs before adding them to the salad – it is not recommended to mix fresh vegetables with hot ingredients.

Bigos (Cabbage and Pork Stew)

December 19th, 2009 in Pork by Julia Volhina

Bigos, as a cabbage and meat stew, is very popular second course dish in countries of East Europe. I believe it was originated in Poland, however recipes similar to polish bigos can be found in cuisines of Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and maybe some others. In Poland bigos is traditional dish to be served on Second day of Christmas.

Ingredients for bigos vary, some of them may or may not include tomatoes, mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, honey and even prunes; beef, veal, pork, bacon, smoked ham, smoked sausages or a combination of those.

However common parts for each bigos recipe are some kind of meat, white cabbage and sauerkraut.

I cook bigos (by the way it is called “solyanka” in Russia and Ukraine, even though there is a soup with the same name) with pork, a lot of cabbage (fresh and sour), carrots, onions, bay leaves and spice it with whole black peppercorns, just like it was always cooked in my family. Hope you will like it too.

Cabbage Rolls in Tomato Dill Sauce

October 17th, 2009 in Main Dish Recipes, Pork by Julia Volhina

Cabbage rolls (stuffed cabbage) dish is very popular food in Eastern Europe. No wander you can easily find cabbage rolls among traditional recipes in cuisines of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania and many others countries.

Making of cabbage rolls from the scratch (including grinding meat, boiling and separating cabbage and then preparing them one by one) would take some time, so it is better if you start cooking in advance. However you can leave prepared cabbage rolls in the oven with heat turned off for up to 1 hour, so they stay warm if you want to postpone serving.

This recipe describes step-by-step process of preparing cabbage rolls in tomato-dill sauce. Enjoy the taste of traditional dish of Eastern European.

Napa Slaw with Eggs (Cabbage Salad)

July 11th, 2009 in Salad Recipes by Julia Volhina

You can take any kind of cabbage for this salad, however I prefer napa cabbage (one of variants of Chinese cabbage), as it is more soft and tasteful.

In general this salad is easy to make (as I think any slaw is), very fast to do and of course is nutritious: napa cabbage is rich on vitamin A/Carotene and vitamin C.

If you use napa cabbage, don’t make more salad than you will eat for one meal, napa cabbage salads are best to be eaten fresh and loose taste after stored in fridge.

Borscht (Beetroot Soup)

May 31st, 2009 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina

Borscht (borsch, borshch) or beet root soup is very popular in a Eastern and Central Europe countries. Who of you didn’t hear about russian or ukrainian borscht?

It is one of 3 common things which usually come to people minds when they are asked about Russia or Ukraine. Well, other 2 would be: good looking girls and vodka, of course.

As you’ve probably noticed, this blog is about cooking (not about dating or drinking), so I will show you how to make Borscht (Beetroot Soup) in this post, please use Google to find more info on slavic brides or famous russian alcoholic beverages if you feel like this.