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Eastern European cuisine is the cuisine of Eastern Europe.
Since the cuisine of a country is strongly influenced by its climate, however, the term is of limited usefulness. While Eastern German cuisine, Polish cuisine and Russian cuisine show many similarities, they differ considerably from the cuisines of the Balkan peninsula, for instance.
The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe a region of southeastern Europe. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km² and an approximate population of 55 million people. The archaic Greek name for the Balkan Peninsula is the Peninsula of Haemus (Χερσόνησος του Αίμου). The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia.
Kielbasa is a Polish word for traditional Polish sausage. The word has become a commonly used North American term for Eastern European styles of sausage, including Ukrainian sausage, which is called kovbasa or kubasa.
The term entered English simultaneously from different sources, which accounts for the different spellings. In the United States, the form kielbasa (usually pronounced /kiːlˈbɑːsə/ or /kɪlˈbɑ:sə/) is more often used and comes from the Polish kiełbasa pronounced [kʲewˈbasa] listen "sausage", in turn from Turkic külbastı "grilled cutlet" ). In New Jersey and most areas of Greater New York City, the Czech pronunciation, or possibly a derivative of the Polish word is used, and is usually pronounced "ke-bah-see" or "keu-bah-sah." In Canada, the forms more often used are kovbasa or kubasa, usually pronounced /ˈkʌbɑsɑ/ from the Ukrainian ковбаса kovbasa /kovbɑsɑ/ "sausage".
Sausage is a staple of Polish cuisine and comes in dozens of varieties, smoked or fresh, but almost always based on pork (although in many areas, it is available in beef, and sometimes in turkey, horse, lamb, even bison), every region having its own speciality. Popular varieties include:
· kabanosy, a thin, air-dried sausage flavoured with caraway seed, originally made of horsemeat (but today usually pork or turkey)
· krakowska, a thick, straight sausage hot-smoked with pepper and garlic; its name comes from Kraków
· wiejska (pronounced in Polish /ˈvʲejska/), a large U-shaped pork and veal sausage with marjoram and garlic; its name means "a country one"
In the U.S., "kielbasa" almost always means some form of wiejska (although often not U-shaped and seldom containing veal), which may be unsmoked ("fresh") or fully or partly smoked. Similar sausages are found in other Slavic nations as well, notably the Czech Republic (spelled "klobás") and Slovakia (spelled "klobása"). In Ukraine "kovbasa" is properly pronounced /kovbɑsɑ/, but in English is usually pronounced /ˈkʌbɑsɑ/.
Original kielbasa is also called "Polska kiełbasa" for "Polish Sausage" or "Kielbasa Starowiejska" known as "Old Country Style Sausage". This one comes closest to what is generally known in America as "kielbasa" (Polish sausage, Polska Kiełbasa). Nowadays, many major meat packers across America offer a product called "kielbasa," but it is usually a far cry from the real thing.
Real kielbasa uses only the choicest cuts of tender pork, and often a little beef or veal is added to improve its body and character. The sausage is seasoned with fresh herbs and spices and then gently smoked, just long enough to achieve the right color, flavor and aroma. It is good for breakfast or supper as a cold cut with horseradish or mustard.
In Poland, kielbasa is traditionally served with fried onions, red horseradish (which is blended with beets), and pierogies, which are crescent-shaped dumplings filled with potato, cheese or mushrooms. Kielbasa can be served hot — boiled, baked or grilled. It can be cooked in soups (such as biały barszcz, kapuśniak, or grochówka), baked with sauerkraut, or added to bean dishes, stews (notably bigos, the Polish national dish), and casseroles.
A less widely available variety of kielbasa is the White Fresh (biała), which is sold uncooked and unsmoked, then usually boiled or cooked in a soup in place of a typical meat. This variety of kielbasa taste similar to mild Italian Sausage.


Origins
Pierogi are of virtually untraceable Central or Eastern European origin; claims have been staked by the Polish, Romanians, Russians, Lithuanians, Chinese, Ukrainians, and Slovaks. Similarity to dumplings found in the Far East such as Chinese potstickers fuels speculation, well-founded or not, that the Mongols and Persians brought the recipe to the West.
Recipe variation
Ingredients
Pierogi are semi-circular dumplings of unleavened dough, stuffed with cheese, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, cabbage, onion, meat, hard-boiled eggs, dry cottage cheese (the last two are rather Mennonite-specific), or any combination thereof, or with a fruit filling. Mashed potatoes are the most common filling.
Cooking
They are typically fried, deep-fried or boiled until they float, and then covered with butter or oil; alternatives include the Mennonite tradition of baking and serving with borscht or with farmer's sausage and a creamy gravy called Schmauntfat in Plautdietsch, and the Polish way of boiling, then frying in butter. They are typically served with plenty of sour cream, and the savoury ones are topped with fried bacon or onions. The most popular of the Polish variety are savoury pierogi ruskie, stuffed with farmer's (aka dry cottage) cheese, mashed potatoes, and onion. Varenyky or vareniki (from varyt', "to boil") are the Ukrainian version of pierogi. One variation of the pierogi are the meat-filled, boiled dumplings called pelmeni (пельмени), originating in Siberia, are very popular throughout Russia and in other parts of the former Soviet Union.
National varieties
USA and Canada
In the United States, the term Pierogi is commonly taken to mean Polish pierogi. The pirog (or its equivalent in the various Slavic languages) means pie, which can take the form of a stuffed dumpling, pastry, or two-crusted pie. In Russian, pirogi is the plural form of the generic pirog, which usually refers to a large double-crust pie and not a dumpling (pelmeni or vareniki) or filled bun (pirozhki).
By the 1960s, pierogi were a common supermarket item in the frozen food aisles in parts of the United States and Canada. Pierogis maintain their place in the grocery aisles to this day.
Many of these grocery brand pierogis contain non-native ingredients to appeal to general American tastes. Products include Mrs. T's Potato, Cheddar, and Jalapeño pierogi and Trader Joe's Potato Cheddar or Chicken Pierogi.
The Canadian Prairies in particular have a large Ukrainian population, and pierogi (usually called perogy, -ogies [pəˈroːgi]) are very common in restaurants and supermarkets, and so familiar that some Asian restaurants bill their pot-stickers as "Chinese perogies". Ukrainian-speakers call them pyrohy, which can be misheard pedaheh by anglophones unaccustomed to the fast rolled-r sound, or alveolar trill.
Packed frozen pierogi can be found everywhere European communities exist. Such pierogi are made by industrial machines, often built by Italian companies such as Arienti & Cattaneo, Ima, Ostoni, Zamboni, etc. These pierogi usually weigh around 20 grams each but resemble an oversize half-moon ravioli, since the aforementioned Italian pasta machines are commonly used for industrial production.
In 1993, the village of Glendon, Alberta, Canada, unveiled its roadside tribute to this culinary treat: a 25-foot (7.6 m) perogy, complete with fork.

Russia
In Russian cuisine, pirozhki (also piroshki, or Ukrainian pyrizhky) are small stuffed buns made of either yeast dough or short pastry. They are filled with one of many different fillings, and either baked or fried. The singular form is pirozhok, the diminutive form of the word pirog. The stress in pirozhki is properly placed on the last syllable: [piroʒˈki].
Hungary
In Hungarian cuisine, the pierogi is used as primarily as a festive food for special occasions such as weddings. It was brought to Hungary by the merchant Andras Perl for his wedding with his wife Katalin in 1764. The Banki family, home to Katalin, usually renowned for its ferocity in battle, was so moved by the pierogi that now, pierogi are common at most Hungarian weddings.
Other areas
Pierogi are popular throughout Russia, Central Europe, and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Poland, and in areas of North America where immigrants brought their cuisine. Pierogi at first were a family food among immigrants, but in the post-World War II era, freshly cooked pierogi became a staple of fundraisers by ethnic churches. The Ashkenazi version of Pierogi is known by its Yiddish name, Kreplach.

Latkes
Potato pancakes, also known as latkes or latkas (Yiddish: לאַטקעס), are shallow-fried cakes of grated potato and egg, often flavoured with grated onion. Potato pancakes may be topped with a variety of condiments, from savoury (sour cream, various cheeses) to sweet (applesauce, sugar with or without cinnamon), but traditionalists prefer them ungarnished.
Though commonly associated with the Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine of Eastern Europe, they are not necessarily Jewish in origin. Areas like northeast Poland, for instance, know many varieties. A favorite Polish dish is placki węgierskie (placki po węgiersku) — potato pancakes stuffed with a thick, spicy Hungarian goulash. Latkes are traditionally eaten during the Jewish Hanukkah festival although they play no fundamental part in Hanukkah ritual. The custom probably evolved because of the preference for eating fried foods during the festival that celebrates a miracle involving oil in the Temple of ancient Israel. Variants include cheese, apple, zucchini, spinach, leek, and rice latkes.
The potato pancake in its many varieties exists wherever the potato itself exists. It is often the by-product of leftover potatoes being cooked up by their respective housekeeper in an effort to keep from wasting otherwise perfectly edible potatoes which had not found their way into the main dish. This provides the potato pancake with a truly multi-national/multi-cultural proliferation, stemming merely from natural ingenuity on the cook's behalf.
The potatoes can be roughly grated, cut, or julienned to give a textured cake bearing a distinct resemblance to American hash browns. Some chefs prefer to finely mince the potatoes and drop a form of griddle cake. The French dish commonly known as "potato galette" or "crique" is similar, but in it the sour cream is an ingredient rather than a topping.
The Swedish version of unbound potato pancakes is called rårakor. Prepared with a batter of wheat flour, milk, egg, and potatoes and fried like thin pancakes, they are called raggmunk, which literally translates to "hairy doughnuts" (the grated potatoes make them look hairy). Both kinds are enjoyed with fried bacon and/or lingonberry jam. The commercial brand Hungry Jack Potato Pancake mix (formerly French's Potato Pancake Mix) most closely resembles the Swedish style of the dish.
Rösti, potato pancakes of Swiss origin, are distinct from latkes in that they generally contain no egg or binding ingredient and may be flavoured with thyme.
A similar food exists in Korea called "gahm-ja juhn"(Korean: 감자전), literally meaning "potato pancake". It is usually mixed with finely grated carrot or green onion, which adds color and crunchy texture to the dish. Cheese or ham may also be added. It is traditionally served with a dipping sauce made of soy sauce and vinegar.
Potato pancakes, or just potato cakes (also known as potato scallops in some shops), are very common in fish and chip shops in Australia. This variant is normally a thick slice of potato, dipped in batter, with no additional flavouring added except salt.