My dill recipes
January 28th, 2012 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina Layered liver cake, dish of traditional Ukrainian cuisine, is often served as appetizer on various celebrations, in fact I tried it first time on a wedding.
For this recipe I used chicken liver, but beef liver will work good as well.
Carrots and onions stuffing can be skipped all together – it will decrease cooking time and reduce amount of mayo to be used (since layers will not need that much mayo to stick together). However carrots go great with liver.
How many layers you get from this amount of ingredients depends on the size of the frying pan you use. I think 11” frying pan is the best – not too big not too small. The ideal amount of layers for this recipe is about 12; if you get more split them in half and assemble 2 cakes.
Tags: appetizer, carrot, dill, egg, flour, garlic, liver, mayo, milk, onion, parsley, snack, ukrainian
November 26th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina My mom usually cooked big zucchini like this: stiffing it with ground beef and rice mince.
However I wasn’t able to find an “adult” zucchini in any shop here in US to cook it. It seems that they don’t survive long enough to grow big here (maybe green piece should look into that, I don’t know).
Anyway, I believe spaghetti squash is a good substitute for this recipe: it serves the purpose by being squash and providing a cavity to cook stuffing, and it also brings nice unique texture to the dish with its “spaghettiness”.
The taste here is similar to cabbage rolls (as if they were made of squash 
), however the amount of work you need to put into this one is considerably smaller.
Tags: beef, boiled rice, dill, dinner, ground beef, ground meat, lunch, onion, squash, stuffed, tomato
October 8th, 2011 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina Beef broth with vegetables is easiest liquid food to make, easiest to consume, good for your digestive system. Why not to cook it yourself instead of pouring it out from a can or a box?
All you need is beef with bones (I find shank cut very suitable for soups and broths), roots (carrots, parsley, celery), onion, fresh greens and this recipe.
Clear beef broth is nice to accompany any food prepared from that boiled meat cooked in the broth (since you don’t need it after broth is cooked), such as crepes with boiled meat stuffing, savory pies or fried dumplings.
Tags: beef, boiled meat, broth, carrot, celery root, dill, onion, parsley root, russian, soup
July 30th, 2011 in Appetizers & Snacks by Julia Volhina These campari tomatoes stuffed with fresh quark cheese, chopped greens and garlic can be nice addition to any celebration table or a cookout: they look festive, taste good and can be easily eaten with fingers.
If you can’t find quark cheese (sometimes called farmers cheese, or fresh white cheese, or tvorog in russian) it may work with feta cheese, but I like it more with quark.
Seeds and pulp from tomatoes as well as top parts – once removed – are not needed for this recipe. You can discard them, or use in some other dish.
Many kind of stews and soups would only benefit from fresh tomatoes. I used seeds and juice from this batch to marinate a nice ribeye steak.
Tags: appetizer, cookout, dill, finger food, fresh cheese, garlic, green onion, mayo, no meat, parsley, snack, spicy, stuffed, tomato, vegetables
June 18th, 2011 in Hot Soups, Soup Recipes by Julia Volhina Sorrel and pork soup, or as it is called also green borscht (obviously because of the color), is one of these dishes you can rarely eat in US, unless you are ukrainian, poland, russian family or visiting one of those .
I was a bit unlucky in buying sorrel this time. Sorrel is very seasonal (meaning available only on spring), and for some reason WholeFoods (the only place where I was able to find it) carries it in herbs section – read this as 2-3 branches per a pack.
I ended up getting last 3 packs they had in their stock, but even that was less then needed for this soup (I am actually still wondering, who buys sorrel in WholeFoods in such packs and for what?).
Anyway, if you are more lucky than me and either know where to buy enough of sorrel or growing it by yourself, you can safely use more, and by more I mean much more: 3-4 cups is good. If you want to make it’s sour taste a bit less intense – fry it before adding to the cooking pot or/and use more water when cooking broth.
Tags: borscht, carrot, dill, green food, hard boiled egg, onion, parsley root, polish, pork, potato, rice, russian, sorrel, soup, sour cream, ukrainian
May 28th, 2011 in Salad Recipes by Julia Volhina It is time for summer cookouts yet? I bet it is! Who said cookouts should be all meat and bread – add a bit of vegetables and crab sticks
Napa gives this salad tender filling; however you can substitute white cabbage for napa – it will work fine, just remember to tenderize shredded cabbage with your hands.
If you use frozen crab sticks, make sure they unfreeze completely and all extra liquid is removed before adding them to the salad.
Tags: cabbage, corn, crab sticks, cucumber, dill, green onion, hard boiled egg, mayo, salad, sea food, vegetables
March 19th, 2011 in Beef, Main Dish Recipes by Julia Volhina Lazy cabbage rolls, or “lenyvi golubtsi” how this dish is called in ukrainian, is an easier version of ukrainian cabbage rolls.
Since it doesn’t require assembling of rolls it is much easier to prepare, and taste is very similar to cabbage rolls.
Lazy cabbage rolls taste great when seasoned with a bit of chopped garlic and a bit of mayo.
Tags: beef, cabbage, carrot, dill, dinner, ground beef, ground meat, meat, onion, russian, tomato paste, ukrainian, vegetables
