The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine (MKIP) has announced the inclusion of the tradition of preparing and consuming "covered cabbage" in the National List of Elements of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukraine. This decision emphasizes the significance of this culinary traditional dish in the cultural context of the country.
This tradition lives on in the villages of Ruda, Hnizdychiv, Oblaznytsia, Livchytsia, Hanivtsi, Pokrivtsi, and the cities of Stryi, Zhydachiv, Zhuravno, and Khodoriv of the Stryi district of the Lviv region. Similar dishes are prepared in other parts of Ukraine, but they have their own characteristics.
To prepare the dish, you need fresh products: cabbage, millet, onions, oil, milk, sour cream, mushrooms and meat. Although there is no unified recipe, the cooking technology has common features. Sauerkraut is boiled until half cooked, drain the water. Then add milk and bring to a boil. Next, washed millet grains are added and cooked until ready.
Next, melt the butter in a pan, finely chop the onion and add it to the butter. When the onion becomes transparent, add homemade sour cream to it and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Then it is added to the cabbage and mixed. If the cabbage is too thick, you can add a little more milk. Some housewives, after removing the dish from the fire, put cherry or currant sprigs on top and leave it for a while so that the dish is permeated with aroma. Cracklings and mushroom sauce are prepared separately, and stuffed cabbage is served with them.
The tastiest, most fragrant "covered cabbage" is the one that is prepared in the oven or in the oven. The secrets of delicious stuffed cabbage are high-quality products and proper cooking, and it is also worth letting the dish infuse after cooking so that the flavors combine better. The culture of eating stuffed cabbage is not only a way of eating, it is a way of life. The dish was prepared for weddings, funerals, weekdays, and holidays.
According to legend, "Soiled cabbage" was Ivan Franko's favorite dish, and it was also loved by Hetman Ivan Vyhovskyi, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytskyi, Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi, Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi, and Olga Bachynska. Solomiya Krushelnytskyi liked her too.
