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17 recipes

TereréIced yerba mate

In Asunción the hottest part of the day stops for tereré: a horn or cup packed with yerba mate, topped up again and again with ice water infused with crushed herbs, and passed round the group through a metal straw. It was recognised by UNESCO as part of Paraguay's cultural heritage, and the herbs (yuyos) change with the season and the drinker's mood. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so it isn't one for small children. The common mistake is pouring water straight into loose yerba, which then clogs the straw; tilt the yerba to one side first. Chef's tip: for tereré ruso, swap the water for cold orange or grapefruit juice.

10 min

Paraguayan Drinks

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Postre MassiniCustard sponge with burnt sugar top

Montevideo's birthday cake of choice since the early twentieth century, the Massini is two thin layers of sponge sandwiching a thick filling of whipped cream folded with egg-yolk custard, crowned with a thin glassy crust of torched yolk and sugar. Bakeries across Uruguay sell it on Sundays. Traditional versions sometimes add a sweet fortified wine to the custard; this one is alcohol-free. The custard is cooked to a safe 71 °C. The common mistake is assembling with warm custard, which melts the cream into a puddle. Chef's tip: if you don't have a blowtorch, put the sugared top under a very hot grill for a minute and watch it closely.

80 min

Paraguayan Baking

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Cocido quemadoBurnt sugar mate drink

Cocido is how Paraguay starts the day: in Asunción, in the villages of Guairá and Itapúa, and in school kitchens, a pot of burnt yerba is brewed and poured into cups with chipa, the cheesy cassava bread, or with a hard galleta. The old way is to drop a glowing piece of charcoal into a pot with yerba and sugar and stir until the sugar burns. On a home stove you caramelise them together in a dry pan instead, which is safer and gives the same smoky, toffee-like taste. The drink is clear amber-brown, with roasted, slightly bitter mate notes over burnt-sugar sweetness; with milk added it becomes cocido con leche, creamy and coffee-coloured. Yerba mate contains caffeine, so treat it like a cup of coffee. The common mistake is letting the sugar go black: it turns acrid and bitter. Pull it off the heat when the caramel is deep amber and the yerba smells toasted, not burnt. It is ready when the liquid is a clear dark amber and tastes of toffee and smoke. Chef's tip: the water will spit fiercely when it hits the hot caramel, so pour it in from the side, at arm's length.

14 min

Paraguayan Drinks

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Mandi'o chyryryFried cassava with onion and egg

Mandi'o chyryry means 'fried cassava' in Guaraní, and it is what rural Paraguayan families make from yesterday's boiled mandi'o: chunks crushed and fried in a big pan with onion until crisp in places, then scrambled with eggs. It comes out for breakfast with cocido or for a quick supper, and costs next to nothing. Use sweet cassava, the kind sold in supermarkets. The mistake is stirring constantly, which turns it to mush; let the cassava sit and brown. Chef's tip: the best chyryry starts with cold, day-old boiled cassava, which fries crisper than freshly boiled.

45 min

Paraguayan Sides

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KnyshiPotato-filled yeast buns

On Poltava farms knyshi came out of the stove alongside the bread on baking day: rounds of soft milk dough with their edges pinched up like a little open basket, so the filling shows in the middle. Potato mashed with plenty of onion fried in sunflower oil and a handful of dill is the everyday version, and the buns are eaten warm with a bowl of soup or cold on the way to the fields. Some cooks fill them with curd cheese or poppy seed instead, especially for Christmas Eve. The dough should be pillowy and the potato soft and peppery. Most people go wrong by spooning in warm, wet mash, which steams the dough from inside and makes it soggy; let the filling cool fully. Chef's tip: brush the baked buns with melted butter the moment they come out of the oven, then cover with a towel for 10 minutes so the crust turns soft and silky.

120 min

Ukrainian Baking

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Beet kvass

Before lemons and vinegar were easy to buy, Ukrainian cooks soured their borscht with beet kvass, a ruby-red brine made by leaving sliced raw beetroot in salted water for a few days. It is lightly fermented, so it contains no more than a negligible trace of alcohol, and it tastes earthy, salty and pleasantly sharp. In Poltava and Chernihiv villages a jar always stood by the stove; a splash went into the soup pot and a small glass was drunk in the morning as a tonic. Some families add a crust of rye bread to speed things up, which makes it no longer gluten-free. The mistake most people make is leaving the beetroot floating: anything above the brine can grow mould, so keep it weighed down. Discard any batch with fuzzy or coloured mould, a slimy texture or a rotten smell. Chef's tip: a few slices left in the jar from the previous batch start the next one in half the time.

30 min

Ukrainian Drinks

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RohalykySour cream crescent cookies

Around Christmas and Easter, tins of rohalyky pile up on the sideboards of Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil: little horns of tender dough wrapped around thick plum butter or sugared walnuts, then buried in icing sugar. The dough is made with sour cream and lots of butter, so it bakes flaky and light rather than crunchy, and the filling stays sticky inside. They keep for a week in a tin and are offered to every guest with tea or coffee. Where most people go wrong is using runny jam, which bubbles out and burns on the tray; you need very thick povydlo-style plum butter or a jam that holds its shape on a spoon. Chef's tip: keep half the dough in the fridge while you roll the other half; warm dough tears and the crescents lose their neat layers.

75 min

Ukrainian Baking

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RyazhankaBaked fermented milk drink

Ryazhanka starts with topleny moloko, milk baked slowly until it turns beige and smells of toffee, which was once done overnight in the cooling clay stove after bread day. Cultured with a little sour cream, it sets into a thick, spoonable drink with a mild tang and a soft caramel note that kefir never has. In Poltava and Sumy dairies it is sold in tall glass bottles, and people drink it at breakfast or with a slice of rye bread as a late snack. Use pasteurised milk, a clean jar, and refrigerate it as soon as it has set. Where most people go wrong is fermenting it too hot or too long, which makes it sour and watery with whey; check it after 4 hours. Throw away any batch with mould or an off smell. Chef's tip: let the brown skin form and break it back into the milk two or three times during baking; that skin is where the colour and flavour come from.

480 min

Ukrainian Drinks

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PliatskyApple and walnut meringue tray cake

Walk into any Lviv cukiernia and the glass counter is lined with pliatsky, the flat tray cakes Galicians buy by the square for Sunday coffee and name-day visits. This one is a house favourite across the region: a crumbly butter shortcrust spread with sharp blackcurrant jam, piled with cinnamon apple and topped with a crisp-crusted, marshmallowy walnut meringue. Each slice should have three distinct layers that still look neat when cut. Serve at room temperature with coffee or a glass of cold milk. The classic error is putting raw, juicy apple straight on the pastry, which turns the base soggy; cook it briefly first and let it drain. Chef's tip: grate half the cold butter into the flour rather than rubbing it in, and the base bakes up short and sandy like the ones from the Lviv cake shops.

120 min

Ukrainian Baking

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Pickled watermelon

When the melon fields of Kherson and Mykolaiv end their season, the small, late watermelons that never got properly sweet go into barrels of brine. A few weeks later they come out fizzy, salty and sour, with the pink flesh still faintly sweet and the rind crisp like a pickled cucumber. Southern families eat them through the winter with boiled potatoes, buckwheat or a plate of fried mushrooms. A big glass jar works just as well as a barrel for wedges. The classic error is using a ripe, soft watermelon, which turns to mush in the brine; pick small, firm ones with pale pink flesh. Keep everything under the brine and throw out the batch if fuzzy or coloured mould appears or it smells rotten rather than sour. Chef's tip: slip a horseradish or cherry leaf into the jar; the tannins keep the rind crunchy for weeks.

30 min

Ukrainian Basics

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Pickled green tomatoes

In southern Ukraine the first cold nights of October leave every garden full of hard green tomatoes that will never ripen, and rather than waste them, cooks around Odesa and Kherson slit each one and stuff it with a punchy paste of garlic, dill, parsley and hot chilli. A week in brine turns them sour and fizzy, with a crunch and a slow burn from the chilli. They are the pickle everyone reaches for at the winter table, next to potatoes fried with onions or a bowl of buckwheat. Most people go wrong by cutting the tomatoes right through, so the filling falls out; slice only two-thirds of the way. As with any ferment, keep everything below the brine and discard the jar if it grows fuzzy or coloured mould or smells rotten. Chef's tip: pick tomatoes that are just starting to blush pale; fully hard dark-green ones stay bitter.

30 min

Ukrainian Basics

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HusliankaFermented Hutsul milk

High in the Hutsul villages around Verkhovyna and Kosiv, milk was boiled, cooled and left to sour in a wooden keg called a berbenytsia, which held the cultures from the last batch and gave the drink its name and its gentle tang. The result is huslianka: thicker than kefir, smooth like loose yogurt, with a fresh, clean sourness that shepherds drank with mamalyha and new potatoes. Today you will find it bottled at Carpathian markets, but it is easy to make in a glass jar at home. For safety, always start from pasteurised milk, use a scrupulously clean jar and move it to the fridge as soon as it sets. The usual slip is adding the starter while the milk is still hot, which kills the cultures, so cool it to body temperature first. Discard any batch that grows fuzzy or pink mould or smells unpleasant. Chef's tip: keep two spoons of each batch to start the next one; the flavour gets rounder with every round.

1440 min

Ukrainian Drinks

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UzvarDried fruit drink

Uzvar is the dark, smoky-sweet drink brewed from dried apples, pears and plums that closes the Holy Supper on Ukrainian Christmas Eve, Sviat Vechir, where it is one of the twelve meatless dishes alongside kutia. In villages across Podillia and the Carpathians the fruit is dried in the oven or over smoke in autumn, which gives uzvar its distinctive campfire note; market stalls sell ready-mixed bags in December. It is drunk warm in winter and chilled in summer, and is naturally vegan when sweetened with sugar instead of honey. Chef's tip: simmer gently, then let it steep for several hours; common mistake is boiling it hard, which turns the fruit to mush and the drink cloudy.

30 min

Ukrainian Drinks

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ChajáSponge, peach and cream cake

Chajá was created in 1927 at a bakery in Paysandú, a city on the Uruguay River, and named after a local bird whose feathers look as fluffy as its crumbly meringue coat. Today it's Uruguay's birthday and celebration cake: layers of light sponge soaked in peach syrup, filled with whipped cream, peaches and dulce de leche, then covered in crushed meringue. It's sweet, soft and crunchy at once, best on the day it's assembled. Chef's tip: soak the sponge but not too much; it should feel moist, not wet, or the layers slide.

90 min

Paraguayan Baking

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PampushkyGarlic bread rolls

Pampushky are the small, pillowy yeast rolls that arrive in a basket next to borshch in any Ukrainian restaurant, from Kyiv to Poltava, glistening with a raw garlic and dill dressing. They are baked tightly packed in one tin so they pull apart with soft sides and golden tops, and the sharp garlic is the perfect partner for sweet, sour beetroot soup. Sweet pampushky, fried and dusted with sugar, also exist; this is the savoury baked kind. Chef's tip: brush on the garlic oil while the rolls are still hot from the oven, so they drink it in; common mistake is brushing them before baking, which burns the garlic bitter.

50 min

Ukrainian Baking

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MedovikHoney layer cake

Medovik, the honey cake, is the birthday and name-day cake of countless Ukrainian homes, from Dnipro to Zaporizhzhia, and is shared with kitchens across the former Soviet Union. Eight thin layers of honey-caramel dough are baked like biscuits, then stacked with a tangy sour-cream frosting and left overnight, when they soften into a tender, moist cake. The crumbs from trimming coat the outside. Because it is made with honey and eggs, it is vegetarian but not vegan. Chef's tip: cook the honey, sugar and butter until it turns a deep amber before the bicarbonate goes in; that caramel is the whole flavour of the cake. Common mistake: cutting it the same day, before the layers have soaked up the cream, when it is still dry and hard.

120 min

Ukrainian Baking

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Kyiv cakeHazelnut meringue cake

Kyiv cake was created in 1956 at the Karl Marx confectionery factory in Kyiv, and for decades a round box tied with string, bought at the station kiosk, was the souvenir every visitor carried home from the capital. Two crisp, chewy layers of nut meringue are sandwiched with a rich vanilla and cocoa buttercream and decorated with more cream. It contains no flour, so it is naturally gluten free, and no gelatine. Our home version uses hazelnuts, as the original did before cashews became the norm. Chef's tip: dry the meringue long and slow and let it cool in the switched-off oven; common mistake is pulling it out too early, when it is still soft inside, and then it turns sticky and collapses under the cream.

210 min

Ukrainian Baking

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