Kyivska perepichka was born at a tiny kiosk on Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street in Kyiv in 1981 and has sold essentially one dish ever since, drawing devoted queues for decades. The name plays on perepichka, an old word for a simple baked flatbread, reborn here as the city's most famous fast food.
A shatteringly crisp, golden dough crust gives way to a pillowy interior and a hot, juicy, faintly garlicky sausage at the core. Eaten straight from a napkin on the street, it is greasy in the best way and impossible to stop at one.
Wrapping the sausage in yeasted dough before frying traps its juices and steam, so the meat stays hot and moist while the dough cooks. The hot oil sets a crisp shell almost instantly and the trapped gas puffs the dough into a light crust.
Variations
Classic pork sausage, spicier sausage versions, with mustard or ketchup, a baked rather than deep-fried rendition
On the Palate
Where Kyivska Perepichka sits in the Ukrainian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
8 steps · 25 min
- 110 min
Bloom the yeast in warm water with a pinch of sugar, then mix with flour, salt and a little oil into a soft dough.
- 260 min
Knead until smooth and let the dough rise covered until doubled.
- 310 min
Pan-fry the sausages until lightly browned and just cooked, then set aside.
Watch outBrown the sausages just to set the surface — they finish cooking inside the dough later, so don't cook them hard now or they'll dry out.
- 45 min
Divide the risen dough into pieces and flatten each into an oval.
- 58 min
Wrap each sausage fully in a piece of dough, sealing the seam well.
Watch outPinch the seam tight and seal the ends — any gap and the hot oil rushes in, splitting the wrap and leaking the juices.
- 65 min
Let the wrapped sausages rest a few minutes to relax the dough.
- 78 min
Deep-fry them in hot oil, turning, until the dough is deep golden and puffed.
Watch outFry until the dough puffs and turns deep gold — if the oil's too cool it soaks in greasy, too hot and the outside colours before the dough cooks through.
- 82 min
Drain on paper and serve hot, with mustard if you like.
