Hrybna Pidliva (грибна підлива, mushroom gravy)

The first spoonful should taste like the forest floor after rain: dark, savoury, a little damp in the best way, then rounded by smetana until it turns glossy and brown-gold. This is not a polite cream sauce. Hrybna pidliva is the thing you drag across buckwheat kasha, boiled potatoes, deruny, mlyntsi, or plain varenyky when the table needs feeding and the pot has to stretch.

The mushrooms do most of the talking, especially if you use dried porcini or mixed forest mushrooms. Their soaking liquid is not dirty water, it's the stock. Let it settle, pour it carefully, and leave the grit behind. Aunt Nadia wrote only "cook until the smell changes," which is annoying until it happens: the raw mushroom sharpness disappears and the pan smells deep, almost nutty.

The one why is the zasmazhka, the slow-sweated onion and carrot flavour base. It goes in near the end so its sweetness sits brightly on the gravy instead of flattening into the mushroom stock. Make a proper pot. There is no tradition of a small one.