Pampushky (пампушки, garlic buns)

Small golden buns are not polite bread. They crowd the tin until their sides press together, bake into one soft pull-apart crown, then take raw garlic crushed into green sunflower oil while the crust is still warm enough to drink it in. The smell reaches the table first. Good. That is their job.

The one thing that decides them is the poolish. Flour, water, and a pinch of yeast sit overnight in the fridge and do the slow work while you sleep, building a deeper wheat smell and a softer crumb than a hurried dough can give you. Aunt Nadia would have written only "leave it until it sounds right," which is comedy if you are thirteen and furious at bread, but by morning you'll see the answer: bubbles at the surface, a loose wobble, a faint beer smell.

These belong beside borshch, and the spelling matters. Tear one open, let the dill-green oil shine on your fingers, and drag the crumb through the beet-red bowl. Make twelve. That is enough for eight guests or one hungry Ukrainian.