For years, people have been talking about the need for food to have a story behind it.
I’m not sure that’s always true. Often people just want a burger or chicken sandwich. It should be convenient, tasty, and well-priced.
But a good story can certainly help sell a product, and sometimes it’s important for a chef to explain why they did what they did.
That’s certainly true with Kalyna, a dish by chef Karyna Moskalchuk, who operates catering company Sushi Garden Miami.
Moskalchuk has been cooking in professional kitchens since she was 16, starting in her native Ukraine and then moving to Poland, where she worked in premium sushi bars. She then returned to Ukraine and developed her own food businesses, “and gradually developed my own style, combining Japanese techniques with European and Ukrainian flavors,” she said in an email, I assume with the help of AI since she told me her spoken English is limited.
In October of 2024 she arrived in Miami and started developing her own catering business.
Karyna Moskalchuk | Photo courtesy of Karyna Moskalchuk
Kalyna is a highlight of her repertoire, and last month it won first place at the annual FusionFest Culinary Arts Contest at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management in Orlando. She won $1,000.
Normally I wouldn’t care, but it’s actually a really cool dish, which is why I’m sharing it with you.
FusionFest requires that competitors incorporate ingredients and techniques from at least two cultures. Arguably that includes every menu item ever made, because neighbors have been sharing recipes since the dawn of time. I bet as hunter-gatherers crossed paths 100,000 years ago, provided they didn’t try to kill each other, they shared recipes.
But Moskalchuk really dug in to both Japanese and Ukrainian cuisines with Kalyna.
The name is that of a plant with small clusters of red berries.
“For centuries, the kalyna has represented the homeland, family roots, beauty, strength, and resilience. It appears in Ukrainian songs, poetry, embroidery, and folk traditions. Today, it is also closely associated with the song “Oi u luzi chervona kalyna,” which has become a symbol of Ukraine’s determination to endure and rise again,” she said.
At its core is a Japanese ingredient, short-grain sushi rice, colored with the juice of beets, a central ingredient to Ukrainian cooking — if you tell Ukrainians that the beet soup borscht is Russian, they’ll be quick to correct you.
The sushi roll also contains shrimp, marinated cucumber, cream cheese, mango, masago (capelin roe), and glazed fresh-water eel. It’s topped with a thin potato crisp, dill, little popping soy sauce bubbles colored dark red, and horseradish foam.
Let’s break that down:
Potato is a staple of Ukrainian cooking (and its crispness brings texture to the dish), marinated cucumber reflects Ukraine’s pickling customs, dill is an essential herb in much of Ukrainian home cooking, and horseradish is a beloved condiment.
I’m not sue about the mango, to be honest, but Moskalchuk does live in Miami, home of mango salsa.
Also, the chef said its sweetness and that of the eel glaze balance the acidity of the cucumber and the sharpness of the horseradish.
The colored rice and dark-red soy mini-boba give the dish its resemblance to Kalyna clusters.
Kalyna | Photo courtesy of Karyna Moskalchuk
Moskalchuk told me the judges were dubious of the dish at first and wondered whether the guests would be receptive to it, but she said she got a standing ovation.
“After the official tasting, people came back and asked whether I had any additional portions left because they wanted to try the dish again,” she said.
“That was one of the most meaningful moments for me.”
The Kalyna roll sounds delicious to me, and it seems like a story worth telling.