Top 10 Lenten Recipes from the Most Famous Monasteries in Ukraine

This is ecumenism I can endorse! More Eastern Lenten recipes, this time from Ukrainian Orthodox Monasteries in the various regions.

From the Union of Orthodox Journalists

Lent is a special time for repentance, the most favorable time to start life afresh. How we keep fasting and how we meet Easter entirely depend on us.

How to fast? In fact, there is nothing complicated. Just try to limit yourself in food, first of all, fighting with yourself, with your own passions, which make themselves felt in food-limited environment.

Fasting is not a diet, it is a way to diagnose a spiritual disease. For example, when a person goes to do ultrasound of the stomach, they shouldn’t eat anything for a certain period of time to make it possible for the doctor to diagnose the disease using a probe. Likewise, fasting is the conditions in which our spiritual problems most clearly show themselves.

But fasting can be different. Lenten dishes may be restricted to barley porridge for some, while exotic squid salad is an option for others.

We offer you the TOP 10 lean dishes from the most famous monasteries in Ukraine, which will help you fast in a simple but delicious way.

Recipes from the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Kyiv city

1. Potato pancakes with mushrooms

Ingredients:

• potatoes – 1 kg

• flour – 250-300 g

• onions – 3 pcs

• mushrooms – preferably white

• sunflower oil – for frying

• salt and pepper – to taste

Cooking:

1. Mushroom stuffing.

In the evening soak dried mushrooms. In the morning boil them and drain the water. Sauté the mushrooms and onions. Grind the staff in a mincer or a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

2. Grate the potatoes and 2 onions and mix them. Add flour, salt and pepper to taste.

3. Pour some oil into a heated pan. Spread the potato mixture in a form of pancakes. Put 1 teaspoon of the mushroom stuffing on the top and cover again with the potato mixture. Fry on both sides.

If there are no mushrooms, stewed cabbage can be added to potato pancakes.

Potato pancakes taste delicious if you serve them with lean mayonnaise and some minced garlic.

2. Lean pizza

Ingredients:

• flour – 1 kg

• water – 0.5 l

• yeast – 50 g.

• sunflower oil – 100 g

• salt – 1 tsp

• sugar – 3 tbsp

Topping: mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, canned corn, beans in tomato sauce or grated soy cheese

Cooking:

1. Mix water, sugar and yeast. In this mixture add flour and salt. Mix the dough, add the oil and continue kneading the dough until it doesn’t stick to the sides of the baking sheet. Then cover it with a towel and leave it to rise.

2. When the dough has risen, roll it thin, put on a baking sheet and make a raised edge.

3. Grease the dough with some ketchup diluted with water. Put the topping. Bake in the oven.

Recipes from the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, Pochayiv town, Ternopil region

3. Crouton salad with mayonnaise

Ingredients:

• carrots – 500 g

• corn – ½ can

• garlic – 2 cloves

• croutons – 100 g

• salt, lean mayonnaise – to taste

Cooking:

1. Grate carrots or cut into strips.

2. Mix all the ingredients well.

4. Borsch

Ingredients:

• beet-roots

• cabbage

• onions

• carrot

• tomato juice

• tomato paste

• salt and pepper – to taste

Cooking:

1. Chop the beet-roots, fry in a deep frying pan at low heat with tomato paste, tomato, vinegar and salt. Stir regularly.

2. Grate and boil the carrots.

3. Chop the potatoes and the cabbage into small pieces and add them to the boiling water in a pot/saucepan. Add the stewed beet-roots, salt, pepper, onion and cook until it is done.

Recipes from the Holy Dormition Sviatogorsk Lavra, Svyatogorsk town, Donetsk region

5. Squid cutlets

Ingredients:

• squid – 10 pcs.

• potatoes – 3 pcs.

• onion – 1 pc.

• semolina – 3 tbsp. l.

• salt, pepper – to taste

• breadcrumbs – for coating

Cooking:

1. Grind the squids, the potatoes and the onion in a meat mincer.

2. Mix all the ingredients.

3. Form cutlets, roll in breadcrumbs and fry in vegetable oil.

6. "Larks" – baked in Sviatogorsk bakery to honor the memory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

Ingredients:

• water – 1 L

• pressed yeast – 100 g

• salt – 1 tbsp

• sugar – 400 g

• lean margarine – 200 g

• vanilla – 2 packs

• powdered rind – 1 tbsp

• raisins – 200 g

• flour

Cooking:

1. Knead the sponge dough.

2. Bake at 180 ° C.

3. Remove ready “larks” from the baking sheet and sprinkle with sugary water. To make it mix 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of water, a little vanilla and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Recipes from St. Nicholas Gorodok convent, Gorodok village, Rivne region

7. Mushroom soup

Ingredients:

• mushrooms –1 kg

• potatoes – 3 pcs

• carrots – 1 pc

• onion – 1 pc

• pearl barley – 1/2 cup

• vegetable oil – for frying

• salt to taste

Cooking:

1. Wash the pearl barley; add water of room temperature and leave to swell for 2-3 hours. Then boil it.

2. Wash the mushrooms, dry and cut them into small plates. Boil the mushrooms in salted water, drain and fry in a frying pan with vegetable oil.

3. Wash onions and carrots, peel and cut them into small cubes. Fry the onions in the oil until golden brown.

4. Wash the potatoes, peel and cut them into cubes. Add the potatoes and the mushrooms in the mushroom broth (bouillon), in which the mushrooms have been cooked. Boil at medium heat.

5. When the broth with mushrooms and potatoes boils, add the barley and sautéed vegetables and leave to simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

6. Let the mushroom soup draw.

8. Stewed cabbage with mushrooms and beans

Ingredients:

• cabbage – 600 g

• mushrooms – 300 g

• small canned beans – 200 g

• onions – 1-2 pcs

• vegetable broth –100 ml (can be replaced by water)

• greens

• allspice peas

• salt to taste

Cooking:

1. Wash the mushrooms, cut into small pieces. Wash the cabbage and chop it.  Peal the onions and finely chop. Wash the greens.

2. Put the onions and the mushrooms in a deep frying pan and simmer for 5-6 min.

3. Add the cabbage and season with salt and pepper. Add the broth and simmer under the lid at low heat for 15-20 min. Add the beans 5 min. before it is done.

4. Add chopped greens to the cooked dish.

Recipes from the Holy Trinity Derman convent, Derman village, Rivne region

9. Mkheli

Ingredients:

• cabbage  – 3 medium heads

• nuts – 1 cup

• garlic – 1 clove

• salt, pepper, coriander powder – to taste

• vegetable oil

Cooking:

Boil cabbage with nuts and mince it. Then mix everything well and add spices to taste. Use as spread on bread or toasts.

10. Pancakes

Ingredients:

• wheat flour

• yeast – 100 g

• water – 1 L

• salt – ½ tsp

• sugar – 1 tbsp

Cooking:

1. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in warm water and leave it for 10 minutes.

2. Slowly add the flour to the mixture. Keep stirring until smooth. The flour should be enough to keep the consistency neither weak nor strong.

3. Leave the dough to rise for 2 hours.

4. Fry pancakes until golden brown.

5. You can serve them with jam or garlic.

Tasty Lent and salvation to your soul!