Tsar's dranik, a restaurant dish of Ukrainian folk cuisine

Recently I remembered one interesting dish of grated potatoes. I love potatoes in different forms. So here we are talking about the Tsar, Barsky, or else there are variants of the name ... dranik, first look at the finished product, then move on to the recipe.

Ingredients composition:

Potatoes (preferably with a high starch content) 1.2 kg.
Carrots 2 medium carrots 200 gr.

Flour 3 tablespoons

3 eggs

salt, pepper to taste

baking soda at the tip of the knife

Onions 3 large onions

rast oil for frying 50g

For filling:

Boiled meat will suit any, in my case, pork 350 gr
2-3 onions
1 tbsp. spoon flour without slides
3-4 Art. spoons of milk
garlic 2 cloves
ground black pepper to taste.

For pouring sauce
thick sour cream 250 gr.
tamat or ketchup 1 tbsp. spoon (or grated ripe tomato)
meat broth 130 gr.

If you want to understand the potato starch content which one do you have? Cut the washed potato in half and just rub one half on the other with rotational movements, starch will stand out for 30 seconds, and if one half is stuck to the other and under its weight does not fall, then this potato with enough starch content for our dish. (if there is little starch, you can add 1 tablespoon of potato starch, but this is not necessary)
First, we prepare the mixture for dranik, three on a large grater of potatoes (some cooks say that it is better to rub it into small ones, I don’t do that, you can try 2 options) After three, you can rub the carrot and onion with a grater, or you can rub the garlic clove too 2 cloves. Salt to taste, add eggs and flour with soda, pepper. Mix everything thoroughly.

In my case, I made two large pancakes, with a thickness of up to 0.7-0.8 cm. With a ladle I spread the cake onto a red-hot frying pan, spread it out. Fry for 3 minutes over medium heat and then turn over. So roasted three pancakes.

Now proceed to the filling. Boiled meat chopped, cut on the board. In a skillet where I cooked the pancakes in vegetable oil, pass the onions to transparency, add flour, milk and meat before. It turns out the meat in a sauce like Bechamel. The filling is ready.

Now we make sauce for pouring, mix 200 g of sour cream with a tablespoon of homemade tomato, you can ketchup tomato a little salt, mix everything thoroughly. You can add 100 grams. Milk if sour cream is thick.

On half of the pancake we put the meat filling with the sauce, close the pancake as an envelope and place it in a deco, in my case 2 pancakes in one deco. Under the bottom always lie the leaves of white cabbage, so as not to burn and not stick to the deck of my dish. Pour over sauce for pouring and put in preheated 200 gr. Celsius oven for 20 minutes, after 5 minutes the temperature is 160 degrees and bake the pancakes. You can also add a little (100 - 150 gr.) Broth or water in the deco, it does not hurt. Steam will make draniki more tender.

Turn off the oven and let the pancake stand in it for 5-10 minutes, then remove and lay on the dish.

The weight of one dranik is about 800 - 900 grams, in restaurants of Ternopil this is a traditional dish. Very tasty and satisfying. Tsar's name is not only for its size and weight, but also for its meat filling. Try it, maybe you will like this big tasty meat dish. Cooking is not as difficult as it may seem.

This dish is very tasty to eat with sour cream, other sauces will suit as well.

@anri-avgustino