Patychky (aka Ukrainian Meat on a Stick)

My mom's family never made this Ukrainian food, but my uncle's wife makes an absolute killer version of this for major holidays. While I wasn't able to get her recipe for it, and armed only with my description of "meat on a stick", I was eventually able to track down this recipe online. I'd repost it here, but the originating guy asked for people to write him about their own experiences with the recipe, so I will just send you along to his site. Be sure to write him if you try it!

Apparently it is called patychky, and is traditionally served for major holidays. I know it will be part of my festivities from now on! This recipe is equal in total deliciousness to my aunt's, so I'm so thrilled I found it! Thanks mister anchovy! And thanks also to Anna H. who wrote me wanting to know if I was familiar with the recipe - it got me off my duff and out looking for it, after years of meaning to but never getting around to it!

Patychky

All the meat, cut up in small cubes, sitting in its marinade of 30 (THIRTY!) cloves of garlic, chopped, and a bottle of Dave's Premium Homebrew (not available in stores). ;) Looks good!

It recommends that you marinate overnight. I thought I'd go the extra mile and marinate it for two nights. DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE A VERY TIGHTLY SEAL ABLE CONTAINER. I had it in what I thought was a well-sealed container, and still had to put it into 2 groceries bags, tied up, followed by a Glad garbage bag (the kind that's supposed to suppress odor). And STILL the whole fridge stank. Badly. Now, while I thought it smelled delightfully like kielbasa, my Irish-background boyfriend Dave did not appreciate its bouquet beyond the 24 hour mark. So keep this in mind - best stick to just 24 hours marination. :)



After a long marination, the meat is skewered. I had to break the ends off my sticks by a couple of inches (the blunt end, not the sharp end!) to make them fit my roaster pan (you'll want to measure before you put the meat on). And don't forget to soak your skewers in water the night before.



Dip the meat sticks in beaten egg.



Then dip the meat sticks in seasoned bread crumbs.



Time for the fryin'! In a generous amount of canola oil, over medium high heat. Startin' to get a nice deep brown color, which is what you want.



This is the way I laid out the celery bed. DO NOT do it this way! The point is for the celery to keep the meat sticks off the bottom of the pan. However, the way I've done it, some meat sticks sat inside the curves of the celery, and got soggy because the juicy run-off pooled in the celery. Make sure your celery is turned so the curve is facing the bottom (the concave side is down, with convex facing up). Hope that makes sense. Just don't do what I did in the photo and you'll be fine. Of course, you could use a whole lot less celery and just put 3 or 4 small pieces across perpendicularly, which would support the sticks and not create any juice pools. Your choice! :)



The finished product, out of the oven and ready to eat! SOOOO DELICIOUS!!!!

Seriously, if you are a fan of garlic AT ALL, MAKE this recipe. You will be so very glad you did! I can't even describe the flavour, aside from amazing!

Try it! Try it now!

:D

EDIT: As much as Dave didn't like the smell coming from the fridge on day 2, he really loved the finished product! :) Even now, he's looking over my shoulder, saying "Hey, that was really good, you should make that again!") :D