Caviar, snails, oysters and truffles: Ukrainian products we didn’t know about

When ordering the now popular oysters or truffles in restaurants, for some reason we believe that they were brought to our region from other countries. But this is not entirely true, because there are establishments that have begun to actively use unique Ukrainian products, which visitors often mistake for imported delicacies. To understand this issue, the editors of HOCHU.ua asked the chef of a famous establishment to tell us about Ukrainian snails, black caviar, truffles and much more.
The trend of using local products is conquering the planet: chefs, fed up with the opportunity to work with exotic products from anywhere in the world, pay attention to what local farmers produce. Sometimes this approach leads to amazing discoveries and becomes a powerful source of inspiration. We talked to Yaroslav Artyukh, chef of the Kanapa restaurant, about what interesting and at the same time unexpected products can be found in Ukraine.

Ukrainian oysters and snails

It is logical that as a chef of a new Ukrainian cuisine restaurant I work with local products – I search, test, select those that are needed to implement a particular idea. When you start doing this seriously, you make discoveries all the time.

For example, few people know that in Ukraine, in the Kherson region, there is an oyster farm ("Scythian Oysters"). We tested Ukrainian oysters and made sure that it is quite possible to work with them – they have an interesting taste, decent quality. We introduced them to the menu, having previously worked out interesting sauces for serving. For example, in the tasting set we offer them with viburnum sauce, horseradish "snow", sorrel grenade.

Another delicacy is grape snails. Now in Ukraine, farms are gradually emerging that breed them. We have been working with a snail farm in the Vinnytsia region for several years now: we buy snails there, bake them with butter and herbs in the restaurant. This is quite a popular dish.

What else can surprise: from caviar to truffles

There are also a number of interesting products that seem to be popular, but are not always taken seriously from a gastronomic point of view. For example, Black Sea crayfish. Everyone is used to eating them boiled. We tried to make tartare from them - without heat treatment, just carefully clean, chop, serve on buckwheat chips with black caviar.

By the way, there is also Ukrainian black caviar - a large sturgeon enterprise is located literally 20 kilometers from Kyiv. Sturgeons and sterlet are bred here, this is an excellent technological full-cycle production. We buy lightly salted caviar here - it has a shorter shelf life than salted caviar, but a more delicate, natural taste.

We work with Ukrainian sturgeon from time to time, but for now I am more interested in cooking catfish (this is an amazing fish, also underestimated), eel (eels are found in the Shatsk lakes), Transcarpathian trout, and so on.

In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, in Snyatyn, they make wonderful specialties from geese - using French technology. Most of the delicacies are exported to Europe, but we managed to agree on supplies.

In the kitchen, I very actively use morel mushrooms - they require a special approach, but when cooked correctly, they give an amazing taste. In "Kanape" we, for example, serve stuffed morels.
And, of course, vegetables, berries, herbs give a huge space for experiments. In our summer menu, for example, we offer squash flowers with minced brain, sweetbreads and chanterelles. Local farms are appearing that grow microgreens, chard - this is very cool. I plan to make cabbage rolls from Ukrainian chard and, perhaps, vareniki with fern. But this is still only a project.

A few words about Ukrainian cheeses

Cheeses are worth mentioning separately – Ukrainian cheese making is developing more than rapidly. After long expeditions, tastings, and tests, we have collected a collection of more than 30 Ukrainian cheeses. We work with producers in the Transcarpathian region (Selyska Cheese Factory, Zakarpatske Runo), Kyiv region (Semero Kozylat, Domashnyaya Syrovarnya, Babini Kozy), Vinnytsia region (Maurizio Percuoro Cheese Factory), Odessa region (EatLocal), Lviv region (Fromagesd’Elise), and we are looking for something new every day.

We serve cheeses as a set (each guest can put together their own set after a presentation from the fromager – “cheese sommelier”), and also use them in the preparation of many dishes. For example, we fry chalupe cheese and serve it with chokeberries or choose aged Ukrainian cheeses, the mousse of which we serve with white chocolate and cookies.

By the way, the editors of HOCHU.ua have personally seen for themselves that Ukrainian cheeses can compete with Dutch and Italian cheeses. Read about our trip to atypical Lviv, where instead of restaurants and kneipps we visited farms and cheese factories, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

http://hochu.ua/cat-house/cook/article-68122-ikra-ulitki-ustritsyi-i-tryufeli-ukrainskie-produktyi-o-kotoryih-myi-ne-znali/