Instant Pot – Page 3 – Instant Ukrainian

Instant Pot Sour Cabbage Rolls – Holubtsi

Yet another variant of holubchi (holubtsi, golubchi, golubtsi, Голубцы). There are as many ways to spell cabbage rolls as there are to make them. These are vegetarian-vegan – it’s what I made for Christmas Eve. If you’re looking for meat then check out my recipe for Instant Pot Buckwheat and Pork Cabbage Rolls

This uses sour cabbage which you can either spend a few weeks making in a barrel – or buy a sour cabbage head at a grocery store.

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Instant Pot Ukrainian Compote – Stewed fruit

With all of the hectic activity around the holidays, it’s nice to have something that’s super easy. On Christmas Eve, a fruit compote (or stewed fruit) made with dried fruit is a traditional end to the meal. The Instant Pot makes the dish amazingly easy and much less time consuming than soaking the fruit overnight.

I use prunes, dried apricots, dried apple rings and raisins. But, you can use any combination of dried fruits.

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Pampushky – Ukrainian Donuts with poppy seed and raisin filling

Pampushky are a traditional Christmas dessert. Starting with a bread dough, they are deliciously filled with poppy seeds and dried fruit and deep fried. My grandmother used to make prune pampushky. But, here I’m making poppy seed and raisin filling.

It’s a recipe that only uses the Instant Pot for the rising for the yeast dough. You can also put the dough in a warm place – like an oven. But, this is not a quick recipe.

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Instant Pot Braised Red Cabbage

For Christmas Eve, I like to make braised red cabbage. It’s not a Ukrainian recipe – but what Ukrainian doesn’t like cabbage? (Ukrainians are allowed to not like cabbage)

This braised red cabbage is colourful and easy to make ahead of time. Just refrigerate and reheat when you’re ready to serve it.

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Instant Pot Traditional Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is one of those things that’s special for everyone. This is the way that my baba would serve her chicken noodle soup. First off, she made her own noodles from scratch. But, you can get great egg noodles that have that rustic feel at the store.

The key is that she served the noodles separately from the soup. Everyone could add that they wanted at the table. Plus, serving cold noodles cooled down the soup for kids.

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Vegetarian / Vegan Instant Pot Borscht

Як ви готуєте борщ? (yak veh ho-too-yet-eh borsch) I’ve been learning Ukrainian with Duolingo. It’s been fun and sometimes frustrating. The other day, the lesson asked me Як ви готуєте борщ? How do you cook borscht?

Here it is. This is a vegan borscht with a lot of flavour, and it’s pretty straightforward. I save time by using pre-cooked beans and pre-cooked onions. A quick steam for the beets makes them easier to peel. And, dill and beet leaves (or swiss chard) adds a fresh flavour in the middle of winter.

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An Instant Pot Sviata Vecheria – Ukrainian Christmas Eve Menus

Christmas Eve is coming soon, as they say. I say it’s the most important Ukrainian food holiday of the year. Twelve dishes!

For any cook, Sviata vecheria is an overwhelming meal to make. But, a lot of the cooking time can be sped up using the Instant Pot with the recipes here on Instant Ukrainian. Plus, your vegetarian friends and family members rejoice.

There are a lot of options for making a traditional or more modern version of the Sviata vecheria meal.

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Instant Pot Nachynka – Cornmeal Casserole

For one of my favourite foods, I grew up thinking that “nachynka” (also nachinka or начинка) was the word for cornmeal. It actually means stuffing. Also known as Bukovynska nachynka if it has bacon in it. But, this is a basic but delicious cornmeal side dish at heart.

Nachynka starts out as a basic polenta recipe to which you add eggs and onions and bake it in the oven. I made this an embarrassing number of times trying to get this one right for the Instant Pot – and it’s worth it. Instead of stirring the cornmeal on the stove for 45 minutes, the Instant Pot makes that a quick 9 minutes!

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Saturday Night Noodleburg for the Instant Pot

Cookbooks like Culinary Treasures published by the St. Basil’s Ukrainian Women’s League have been my go-to for figuring out the right proportions for the recipes here. Originally published in 1967, it must have been popular because my copy is a reprint in 1972.

It’s the collective knowledge of the women at St. Basil’s in Edmonton, Alberta as well as women from across Canada. Mrs. A. Hlynski of Toronto, your Saturday Night Noodleburg should be a classic – and it’s an easy casserole for an Instant Pot Saturday Night. Inspired by her 1967 recipe, I’ve adapted it for the Instant Pot and sped up the process a little bit, too.

You can’t go wrong with a casserole that’s topped with corn flakes.

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Instant Pot All-purpose Instant Onions

Onions. They go with everything, don’t they?

It’s the first step to so many recipes – heat oil or butter and saute onions, blah, blah, blah. So simple. But, time-consuming. My baba would simmer onions on low heat in butter for what seemed like hours. They never browned and these aren’t caramelized. They’re just wonderfully cooked onions.

My solution: chop and cook a lot of onions all at once in the Instant Pot. Maybe use some now, freeze the rest to use later. Then you’re covered when you need a fast topping for those frozen perohe (Sure, the box or bag says perogies but you’re stubborn and call them perohe). Or, you just want a head start on filling some traditional cabbage rolls or some summertime beet leaf holubchi. All-purpose onions are here for you.

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