Kvasolia z Hrybamy (квасоля з грибами, beans with mushrooms)

This is a steppe dish that smells like the forest. White beans swell in their pot, dried mushrooms darken the broth to the color of old tea, and suddenly a southern kitchen, all tomatoes and sunflower oil and wind, has damp leaves and pine shade sitting inside it.

The beans are the body of the dish, but the mushroom soaking water is its memory. Don't throw it away. Let the grit settle, pour the clean liquor into the pot, and keep the last muddy spoonful for the sink. Aunt Nadia once wrote only, "cook until it sounds right," which was very helpful if you were born inside her kitchen and less helpful if you were thirteen in London. What she meant here is the little thick bubble at the edge of the pot, slow and steady, not watery tapping.

The zasmazhka, onion and carrot sweated slowly in unrefined sunflower oil, goes in near the end. That matters. Add it too early and its sweetness disappears into the bean broth; add it late and it sits brightly through the smetana, softening the mushrooms without making them dull.

Make a big pot. Eat it beside roast chicken, fried fish, buckwheat, or just with black bread and pickles from the loud shelf. Enough for eight guests or one hungry Ukrainian, as usual.