Blue Beauty

I have long wished to write a post about poppy seeds because they are fabulously under appreciated and prominently featured in a good many Ukrainian dishes. And, what do you know, thumbing through newly arrived April issue of the American food magazine Saveur, I found a charming article about these blue-black beauties. I felt scooped, of course, but it rekindled my interest in proffering poppy observations.

The perfumey tasting seed of the flowering plant Papver somniferum, poppy seeds (mak) are tiny and actually kidney shaped. They also have high fat content and are a rich source of calcium and manganese. I learned from Gabriella Gershenson’s Saveur article that poppy seeds are ancient and have been cultivated since the Neolithic era in Europe (around 1,000 years BCE). White poppy seeds are common in Asian cuisines and played a fascinating role in the British colonization of Bengali India. The indigo hued variety is more common in western, European dishes.

Often paired with honey, poppy seeds are widely used in Ukrainian fare. Poppy-laced cakes, doughnuts and swirly rolls are everyday treats. According to Culinaria, edited by Marion Trutter, Nicolai Gogol was rather fond of honeyed poppy seed cake, apparently calling it a “paradisaical dish.” Poppy seeds are also stuffed into a sweet vareneky (Ukrainian dumpling) or serve as the base for sweet sauces. Poppy is also the star of kutya (кутя), one of 12 traditional dishes served at Christmas time. Kutia is a kind of wheat porridge, lavender with poppy and sweetened with honey, that is topped with chopped walnuts and dried fruits. The dishes sweetness, I am told, mirrors the sweetness of Christ. And, boy is sweet!

Of course, poppies are also the source of that ancient, Lethean substance opium, which is made from the air drying of the milky, white latex of unripe poppy seed pods. I have heard rumors about poppy cultivation being illegal in Ukraine. A friend even told me a story about a babushka in village in L’viv Oblast that was arrested for nurturing poppies in her kitchen garden. (Pray tell, dear Pickle Project readers, if you know about the legality of poppy cultivation in Ukraine). (Incidentally, through my meticulous web research, I also learned that, indeed, eating large quantities of poppy seeds will contribute to a false positive in drug testing, as was confirmed on an episode of the show MythBusters.)

For more interesting poppy reading, check out Gabriella Gershenson’s Saveur article Flower Power, a range of articles about the interesting poppy research happening at the University of Calgary and tips on poppy seed cultivation at the Washington State University.

Pampushki Holiday: Delicious Doughnuts!

In last Sunday's New York Times, a travel article described L'viv, in Western Ukraine,  as a place impossible to forget. Today, we're pleased to have a blog entry from that memorable place.  Christi Anne Hofland (above, left)  is teaching English in L'viv and shared her observations on the annual Pampushki Festival.  Enjoy!

Today is January 14,  the end of the Ukrainian month-long Christmas holidays characterized by a month of feasting, beginning with St. Nicholas Day on December 19th and ending with the Old New Year celebration on January 14th.  During the holidays, one can find all the traditional Ukrainian dishes, including varenyky,  holedyets,  Christmas kutya, and of course, pampushki.  Pampushki are Ukrainian donuts traditionally served on Christmas Day.  This Christmas season in L'viv's Ploscha Rynok, we celebrated the 4th annual Pampushki Holiday.

 

Living in the city center of Lviv, I walk through the Plosha Rynok everyday but I had never seen so many people in the Plosha Rynok as I did during the Pumpushki Holiday! By evening it was almost impossible to cross the Rynok Square, everyone was there to sample the famous Ukrainian donut and foot traffic was hardly moving. The square was lined with vendors selling their own versions of the tasty fried treats. People lined up (or crowded up, which seems to be more the Ukrainian way) in front of the vendors known for the best pampushki. 

There were pampushkis filled with jam, chocolate, poppy seeds, or cream. Pampushkis were also covered in powdered sugar, chocolate, sweet sweetened condensed milk, or various fruit sauces. Groups of carolers paraded through in traditional “vertep” costumes. A Ukrianian folk band was playing on the stage. Kids were making Pampushki crafts at the children’s booths. Ice skaters filled the outdoor skating rink. A crowd was gathered right in the center of the Plosha Rynok. As I pushed through the crowd I encountered the largest pile of Pampushki I had ever seen! Women dressed in Ukrainian folk costumes were handing out free pampushki to anyone who made it to the front of the crowd. Of course I managed to snatch one too. Soft, fluffy, fresh, sweet and amazing! I think it probably tasted even better because of the effort it took to get my hands on one!

 Photos:  Top:  Christi Anne and friend enjoy a pampushki;  center: a pampushki vendor, 2009;  bottom:  Sarah Crow with a human pampushki, 2009.

A Flying Leap, from Pickles to Doughnuts

Celebrating the practice of food preservation and culture is at the heart of the Pickle Project. And, what better way to celebrate, than with decedent sweets? Although we may not typically associate pickles with doughnuts, preserved fruits and vegetable make their way into every aspect of Ukrainian Foodways.

Pampooshke (пампушка) are the delicious doughnuts of Galicia, a region straddling the Polish Ukrainian border. Traditionally filled with fruit, flower or berry jams, pampooshka are a yeasted, deep fried doughnut. While pampooshke are typically a homemade special occasion food in Ukraine. In Poland, rose-jam filled pącza, as they called in Polish, are an everyday treat, sold in bakeries and from street carts. In eastern and central Ukraine, savory pampooshke, called smazhny or perizhky, are filled with meat, potatoes or cabbage.

Because Galacian pampooshka are one of my favorite treats and are typically filled with homegrown and preserved goods, I asked my friend Halya to teach me how to make them. So, on a snowy Sunday afternoon, I rode the crowded marshrutka from my L’viv apartment to her family’s home in Ivano Frankove (Yanif), a small village north east of the city, for a lesson and lunch with family. Overlooking her small kitchen garden, Halya’s cozy kitchen is easily one of my favorite places in Ukraine.

Lighting the burner on her 1960’s Polish stove with a match, Hayla told me about how she and her mother made doughnuts for the Old New Year, the New Year holiday of the Gregorian calendar. “Every family in Galicia has their own recipe” Halya told me “but it isn’t written down”. Halya’s husband Syrghiv, her son, Sasha, and daughter, Natalia, each pop into the kitchen periodically to check on the progress of the dough. For our pampooshke, we made fillings from homemade apricot jam and cherries preserved in syrup. To each, we mixed in potato flour, which thickens the jam so that it will hold up to the heat of frying. Both the cherries and the apricots are from the garden and are just two of the many fruits and vegetables Halya and her family grow or collect and preserve, sustaining them through the year. Many families in Ukrainian Roztochya still cultivate tea roses in their gardens for making jam (and rose tea) and it remains a popular and special flavor in Galician sweets, especially doughnuts.

Throughout the multi-stage proofing and shaping process, Halya carefully managed the kitchen window, opening or closing it periodically to keep the temperature in the kitchen just right for the dough. Once the doughnuts were golden brown on each side, she carefully removed each one of the browned beauties from oil and placed them on a tin plate lined with paper to drain. When she finally tasted the fruits of her labor, Halya’s brow furrowed.. “Not enough holes” she says “it should be lighter..” I took a bite of cherry pampooshka: it was crispy and crusty on the outside, soft and sweet inside. I smiled at Halya; I could find no fault with such a thing.

After a lunch of steaming solyanka, a spicy Georgian soup of sausage and boiled eggs, flavored with lemon, it is time for dessert. I placed an apricot pampooshka on a small plate for each member of the family; Halya followed me, drizzling a sauce made from melted dark chocolate and heavy cream over each pampooshka. Still warm, the apricot jam was sweet against the bitterness of the chocolate and the softness of the doughnut. A hush, punctuated by delighted sighs, fell over the table as we enjoyed the decadent pastry. I looked over Halya; she couldn’t help but smile.

Recipe

Mix together 50 grams of yeast, ½ liter of warm milk, 2 (table)spoons of sugar, 2 (table)spoons of flour and wait until it gets very big, maybe an hour or two. Halya says that it depends on the temperature in the room.

Then mix together 4 eggs and a glass (about a cup) of sugar. Add 0.1 gram of melted butter, some dried orange peel, vanilla and 2 spoons of horilka (Ukrainian vodka). The horilka prevents the mixture from becoming oily and helps it to become very soft. Wait and allow to rise again. Then, roll out in sheets about ½ inch thick, cutting rounds using the rim of a small glass. Allow to rise once more. Poke a hole in the side of each bun, hollowing the center. Carefully fill with a spoonful of thickened jam, using a pastry bag (plastic bag with a corner cut off at an angle to allow for precise filling) and reseal the sides as fully as possible. Fill a high-rimmed skillet or pot with oil, about an 1 ½ deep; heat over a medium/high flame. When the oil is hot but not smoking, carefully fry each pampooshka, flipping for even browning on each side. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Enjoy topped with powdered sugar, a simple white icing (as they do in Poland) or drizzled with chocolate, ala Halya.