Tag: glossary


  • Nalysnyky vs Blintzes: Two Filled Crepes, Two Kitchens

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. Put nalysnyky and blintzes side by side and they look like the same dish twice: a thin crepe wrapped around white cheese, cooked once as a pancake and again after it is filled.…

  • What Is Farmer’s Cheese? The Fresh Curd Behind Blintzes and Nalysnyky

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Farmer’s cheese is a fresh, pressed curd cheese, made by draining most of the whey out of soured milk curds until what remains holds its shape. It ends up firmer…

  • Pierogi vs Varenyky vs Uszka: Three Dumplings, Two Kitchens

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the dishes, ingredients and techniques of Eastern European cooking. Put a plate of pierogi, a bowl of varenyky, and a ladle of barszcz with uszka floating in it on the same table, and a stranger to the region could be forgiven…

  • What Is Kasha? Buckwheat, Porridge, and a Word With Two Meanings

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Kasha is the Ukrainian and Russian word for cooked grain porridge: millet, buckwheat, barley, semolina, whatever a household had on hand. It names a category, not a single dish. Cross…

  • Holubtsi vs Gołąbki: One Cabbage Roll, Two Names

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. Put a plate of holubtsi next to a plate of gołąbki and almost nobody could tell you which is which. Both are cabbage leaves blanched soft, wrapped around rice and minced pork, braised…

  • What Is Salo and Shkvarky? Ukraine’s Cured Pork Fat and Its Crispy Cracklings

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Salo is cured pork back fat, cut into thick slabs and rubbed with salt, often with garlic, rather than cooked down right away. Shkvarky are what happens when you fry…

  • Jewish Borscht vs Ukrainian Borscht vs Polish Barszcz: Three Beet Soups, One Root

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the dishes, ingredients and techniques of Eastern European cooking. Three tables, three bowls, the same crimson color – and three genuinely different soups. Ukrainian borscht, Polish barszcz czerwony, and Jewish beet borscht all start from the same root vegetable, grew up…

  • What Are Kneidlach? The Matzo Balls Behind the Soup

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Kneidlach are the soft dumplings that give matzo ball soup its name – round balls made from matzo meal, beaten eggs, a fat such as schmaltz or oil, and a…

  • What Is Zakwas? The Fermented Starter Behind Poland’s Sour Soups

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Zakwas is a Polish fermented sour starter – grain or vegetable left to sour naturally in water over several days until lactic fermentation gives it a clean, tangy acidity. It…

  • Latkes vs Placki Ziemniaczane vs Deruny: Three Potato Pancakes, One Region

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the dishes, ingredients and techniques of Eastern European cooking. Ask for a potato pancake in Warsaw, Kyiv and a Jewish home in either city, and you will get three different answers that look almost the same on the plate: placki ziemniaczane,…

  • What Is Schmaltz? The Cooking Fat of the Ashkenazi Kitchen

    Skip to main content Part of our Heritage Kitchen Glossary – short guides to the ingredients and techniques behind Eastern European cooking. The short answer Schmaltz is rendered poultry fat – almost always chicken, historically goose – that served as the primary cooking fat of Ashkenazi Jewish kitchens for centuries. Where French cooking reaches for…