Kulesh

Kулеш (pronounced cool-YESH) is a camp fire soup. It originated as an army food of the Cossacks in Zaporozhye, but has since spread to camp sites everywhere. It's simple, cheap, and comforting, much like chicken noodle soup. Let's learn how to make it together. A Ukrainian will tell you that it is mandatory to make this soup over a fire, but honestly there's no reason why you can't make this on the range. Well, maybe there's one reason, but it's not a deal breaker. We'll come back to that in a minute.

Starting at the beginning, you'll need:

• 1.5 kg Russet potatoes
• 500 g cooked meat (Feel free to use any sort of leftovers you have around the kitchen. We used pulled pork, but chicken is also very popular.)
• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 200 g millet
• 3 bay leaves
• salt/pepper
• 1 cup greens (parsley, dill, green onion)

To hang the cauldron, Sergey cut some green branches, two with forks in them to be pounded into the ground and one a bit sturdier from which the pot could reliably hang. That metal wall was set up to protect the fire from the wind. We got the fire up, then started to boil the water. The onion goes in peeled but otherwise inatact. The bay leaves should be added as well.

Once the water is rolling, it's time for the potatoes. They should be peeled and cut into small cubes.

When the potatoes are done, It's time for carrots, cut julienne, and millet. If you are like me and have no clue what millet is, you could use a comparable grain like barley or even oatmeal. If you do know what millet is, good for you, but you're probably one of those gluten-free loonies, so bad for you. If you live in Ukraine and want to find millet, ask at your rinok for пшено (ударение на втором слог).

When the millet is soft, add the meat and greens. Boil for 5 more minutes and then serve. It's that simple. We actually used this seemingly disgusting boiled-pulled-pork-in-a-jar product. It's not as bad as it sounds. Or looks.

The only reason this must be done on an open flame, other than tradition of course, is the final step. Sergey took another green branch, peeled the bark off it, and then put the raw wood in the fire. Once the wood was blackened, He actually stirred the soup with the charred branch. It didn't make everything taste like cigarettes, as I expected it would. It just added the illusion that we had grilled the meat. Therefore, if you actually grilled the meat that you used, I think you could approximate the smokiness fairly well.

So, that's kulesh! Of course there are lots of variations. One of the more popular ones involves less water and a few beaten eggs at the end, yielding porridgy results similar to Korean juk. We, however, just stuck with the original, and it was both fun to make and filling to eat. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we did!