Ukrainian eggs or Pisanky are the eggs specially decorated for the celebration of the Orthodox Easter. So, in this article I would like to give you some tips on how to make Ukrainian eggs.

Now Pisanky are the painted eggs, decorated with some symbols painted on them. Even though these eggs are a part of Christian holiday, but the symbols most commonly used for their decoration come from pagan times.

To make a Pisanka you should take an egg and soak out the white and the yolk out of it. To do it make two small holes on both ends of the egg and soak out its white and yolk. Then wash the shell and leave it to dry.

Get some dye and color your egg with it. The most commonly used colors are red and brown. Or, else you may leave the egg undyed, but decorated with various symbols.

You may also use some natural dyes for coloring the Easter eggs, such as beets, carrots or onions skins. To do that you need to boil the eggs with one of the mentioned ingredients in water. The beetroot will turn eggs pink, carrots – orange and onion skins – brown.

Finally, the last tip in our how to make Ukrainian eggs “manual” is decorating them with different symbols. The most commonly used ones are circles (the symbol of the sun), stars and trees.

When you learn some easy methods on how to make Ukrainian eggs, you may make your own designs for the Easter table.

Even though Ukrainian cuisine has long history and traditions, most of its modern dishes were developed only when local farmers began to grow such vegetables as potatoes, beets, carrots, eggplant, etc. All these vegetables are widely used in Ukrainian cuisine. Here I would like to provide you with three simple recipes of Ukrainian food.

Here we go:

1. Beetroot salad
Take several beets, boil them till they get soft and edible. Grate the beets and add several grated cloves of garlic to them. Take up to ten prunes, cut them to small pieces and add to your beet salad. Mix it all up and add some olive or corn oil or mayonnaise, and some salt and pepper.

2. “Squirrel” salad
Take 1 processed cheese 100 grams (3.5 ounces), 2 eggs, 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and mayonnaise. Boil eggs and grate them or crumble them with your food processor, add cheese and garlic and grate it some more. Add mayonnaise and thoroughly mix it all together.

3. Dumpling soup
Make broth from any kind of meat. Add several potatoes, fried onions and carrots. Add some salt, black, red or white pepper and bay leaf. Take a cup of flour and one egg. Mix it up together, so the pastry would be pretty thick. When all the vegetables in your broth get cooked well, take the pastry in your hand and with the other hand nip off little pieces and throw them into your boiling soup. Stir it and wait until the dumplings come up to the surface. Boil for 5 more minutes.

Those are three very simple to cook and pretty popular dishes of the Ukrainian cuisine.

Easter in Ukraine is the main religious holiday. There is no fixed date for celebrating Orthodox Easter. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon (after March 21st) in the Georgian calendar. Basically there is a 35 days time frame of possible dates for celebrating Orthodox Easter. On different years it can be celebrated anywhere from March 22nd to April 25th.

Many believers do not sleep on Easter night. They go to Orthodox temples for the over night service to pray and to sanctify various foods, such as painted eggs called Krashenki, special Easter cakes called Paska, meat, cabbage rolls and even Salo (pig’s fat).

A long 40 days fast precedes Easter in Ukraine. So, when people finally return home from church, they can start eating and drinking anything they want and cease fasting. But Easter dinner here must always start with tasting Easter cakes called Paski.

There are many different religious and folk traditions, beliefs and games that can be used as a part of Easter celebration. For example, it is believed that if a girl washes her face in water with Easter painted egg (Krashanka) in it, she will be as beautiful as that painted egg. Kids also play with Easter eggs. They take eggs and crush them together; those whose eggs don’t crush, win the game.

When celebrating Easter people greet each other with the words: The Christ has arisen! And they receive the answer: Truly He is risen. Such are the traditions of celebrating Easter in Ukraine.

Ukraine is famous worldwide for its special Easter Eggs design. These decorated Easter eggs are called Pisanky or Krashenki. They symbolize the new life and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The art of decorating eggs for Easter is quite ancient.

During the Soviet times it was not allowed to create a design for Ukrainian eggs; it was a prosecuted type of art. Though, lately during the years of Ukraine’s independence this art has been revived and gained popularity among the younger generation of Ukrainians.

Even though Pisanky or Easter eggs are the part of Christian religious celebration, many people use pagan symbols in creating a design for Ukrainian eggs. Most popular and commonly used symbols for decorating Easter eggs are circles (they symbolize the sun), stars and various tree and vegetable ornaments.

When celebrating Easter, most people create their own design for Ukrainian eggs. People color eggs at home. Most popular colors for Ukrainian Easter eggs are red or brown.

Many people do not buy dyes for painting these eggs, but rather they use natural elements for dyeing them, such as onions’ skins. They put eggs into the boiling water and add onion skins there. Then they boil eggs for some 20 minutes. The eggs get dyed into rich brown color. They might also use beetroot or carrots for dyeing eggs in red and orange colors.

Such is the tradition and methods of creating a design for Ukrainian eggs as a part of Orthodox Easter celebration.

Ukrainian cuisine consists of a variety of dishes made of meat, pastry, vegetables and fruit. First Ukrainian professional cooks were found in large Christian monasteries back in the 11th century. That is why authentic Ukrainian recipes include many dishes, especially the pastry ones, which are cooked for various religious celebrations.

Among the most common and popular authentic Ukrainian recipes could be listed such dishes as Borshch (beet soup), Vareniki (sort of ravioli), Pampushkas, Golubtsi (cabbage rolls), Nalisniki (pan cakes), Ukrainian pork sausages, stewed cabbage, Zarkoe (roast meat), etc.

Even though some of the authentic Ukrainian recipes were created back in the beginning of the last millennium, most of the traditional Ukrainian dishes, such as Borshch for instance, were created only in the 19th century. Back at that time Ukrainian farmers began to grow tomatoes and some other vegetables, such as beets and eggplants, which became core ingredients for many Ukrainian traditional dishes.

Ukrainian cuisine is well known for its diversity and not only in the number of dishes cooked, but in the variety of recipes for the basic traditional specialties such as Borshch. In fact, there could be found over 30 recipes of traditional Ukrainian Borshch (at least one recipe for every region of Ukraine).

And of course, the story of authentic Ukrainian recipes would not be complete without mentioning the Salo. Salo is a pig’s fat widely used in Ukrainian cuisine. Ukrainians eat both cooked and fresh Salo, plus they use it as a main fat ingredient in their cooking.

Such is a brief story of Ukrainian cuisine and authentic Ukrainian recipes.