injunjane

Baking margarine - 500g
Sour cream - 100g or half a cup
Raw de-frozen baking yeast (wet, not dry ones!) - 100g (2 cubes)
Sugar - 1 tea spoon
Fine wheat flower - 1 liter (it's easier to measure it by volume, also the exact amount depends on the quality and quantity of sour cream)
Fine powdered sugar - about 1 cup
Dough cutters for pastry

Melt the margarine over low heat in a small saucepan or bowl, then set it aside to cool. In a separate cup, mix the yeast with 1–2 tablespoons of warm water and the sugar. Stir well and let it sit until the mixture becomes smooth and pourable.

Pour the cooled, melted margarine into a large mixing bowl. Add the sour cream and the yeast mixture. Begin mixing slowly (I usually use a stand mixer), gradually adding the flour until you get a smooth, lump-free dough.

Important: Don’t add any sugar to the dough other than what’s mixed with the yeast!

Place the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour—several hours or overnight is even better.
Note: The dough will expand to about 1.5 times its original volume, so make sure your bowl is large enough.

After chilling, knead the dough briefly by hand, then roll it out to about 1 cm thickness. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters and let them rest for about 5 minutes at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 200 °C. Arrange the pieces on a baking tray and bake for around 30 minutes. Baking time may vary depending on your oven; the pastries should remain pale but firm and not wet inside - only lightly baked on the bottom, not brown.

Let them cool completely, then roll them in powdered sugar.

These pastries actually taste even better after sitting at room temperature for a few days. You can store them this way for at least a week.

Yes, this is how it is actually pronounced in Ukrainian - борщ (borshch)!
I would never call it 'soup', it would be the same as calling kuskus 'porridge' or hamburger 'a bun with minced and fried meat'.

But when you prepare it, yes, it's actually a sort of hot soup. Although normally the true Ukrainian borshch is based on meat broth with pieces of meat, my favourite version is vegetarian, based on bean broth (but you can also use mushroom or even chicken broth for it).

So, for about 2.5-3 liters of vegetarian borshch you'll need:

- bean broth, take a cup of any kind of beans and boil them in 2.5L of water with a half-teaspoon of salt until almost ready (soft but not falling apart)
- fresh cabbage (white, not red!), chopped in thin straw slices
- 3-4 average size peeled potatoes (you can slice them or chop into cubes)

When the broth is ready, put the cabbage and potatoes in and boil until ready (completely soft). Do not take the beans out.

While these are boiling, prepare the fried part:

- one middle-size red beet, peeled and chopped into thin straws or cubes (actually, the best borshch I ever prepared I made in New England, USA - they have exceptionally red and juicy beets there. The redder, the better)
- one middle-size carrot, peeled and chopped the same way as beets
- one small onion or a half of a big one, chopped into fine pieces
- sunflower oil (the amount depends on the amount of your fried vegetables, maybe 1-2 spoons but it should not be too oily)
- pepper, salt, garlic

Stew these in a frying pan (oil only, no water!) on a slow fire until the beets and carrots soften. Then add 2-3 large spoons of tomato paste (I often add ketchup, but be careful, the taste of this will determine the taste of your borshch). My mom sometimes puts both tomato paste and fresh tomatoes, but that depends on what you like more. Stew a bit more to get completely soft vegetables.

CAUTION! Stir the fried vegetables all the time, if you burn them even a bit - it's totally spoiled, throw away and start anew.

After the boiling vegetables are ready, add the fried ones (taking they are ready, too) into the saucepan. Stir, add pieces of fresh chopped garlic and boil for another 2-3 min.

Serve with fresh chopped dill or parsley and, of course, SMETANA! (sour cream which we Ukrainians put pretty much in everything)

My version of the quiche recipe.

CAUTION! Sour cream is not used in French cuisine proper. Like, AT ALL. After 3 year of close acquaintance with French people and their culture I found out that sour cream is not even produced and sold in France.
Even the French diary company PRESIDENT which is producing it for the sales abroad does not sell it in their home country.

For an Eastern European it's a nightmare, we put sour cream pretty much in everything.

So, my quiche dough does have sour cream added. French people tasted and approved :)

For the dough:

250g baking margarine (I use 1 brick of HERA)
190g sour cream (approximately 1 cup, I use 1 package of any supermarket sour cream)
sodium bicarbonate, the amount taken by the table knife tip
2-3 cups of fine white flour (you should get a rather stiff dough, so adjust accordingly)

Melt the margarine on low fire, cool down, poor into the kitchen mixer bowl, add sour cream, mix and gradually pour the flour mixed with sodium bicarbonate

For the filling:

2 chicken breasts cut into cubes, 1-2 onions sliced finely - fry in sunflower oil and cool down
250g of any hard cheese, I usually use several types one of which is Cheddar and another Edam or Emmental, grated. Add 150g of any blue cheese chopped into small cubes, mix in a bowl with the fried chicken and onions, add chopped scallions

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