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Want to impress your parents with the Ukrainian Aspic recipe? LOL
My husband made this aspic or holodets recipe; mostly because I wouldn’t go near pigs feat with a 10 foot pole. That’s what Ukrainian people use to make the gelatin firm; pigs feet. I fought him hard on this recipe, but he insisted. He secretly purchased the ingredients and I rolled my eyes when I saw them in the freezer. He wasn’t going to let me stop him.
Before you turn up your nose and run off, here are some fun facts I learned about Aspics (kholodets) from Wikipedia:
* Meat Aspics came before Jello (I guess that means we owe aspics a debt of gratitude)
* Cooks used to show off their creativity and skills with inventive aspics (you can too!) lol
* Aspics became popular in the US and were a dinner staple in the 1950’s (now on the verge of extinction in the US, but not in Ukraine).
* Ukrainian people refer to Aspic as Holodets.
You know, in the end, I’m glad my husband made this. It preserves the recipe and helps us remember our roots. (I wasn’t kidding when I said Ukrainian food can be bizarre). This tasted exactly like the one my Mom made years ago. We brought this to my parents house on Sunday and they were so impressed; even my sister ate it and had seconds! Thanks honey for being persistent. I’m just floored that you actually made Holodets. That’s right ladies; my man made holodets. And, he works out. 😉
Ingredients for Aspic/Holodets:
2 lb pork legs, soaked in cold water and refrigerated 3 hours to overnight
5-8 large chicken drumsticks (or any meat with the bone in)
2 medium onions
1 large carrot
1 stick of celery
2 bay leaves
5-10 peppercorns
2 tsp salt + more to taste
Red Horseradish sause/Hren or Russian mustard to serve
How to make Aspic – Kholodets:
1. Make sure you soak the pork legs in cold water (we put them in the fridge overnight which is also a good way to thaw them if you want to make it the next day).
2. In a large pot, Add pork legs, and chicken drum sticks. Add enough water to cover all of the meat. Set over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. As soon as it starts boiling, remove from heat and drain off the water.
Rinse the meat, refill with fresh water (enough water to cover all of the meat, plus an extra 1/2-inch over the meat); Don’t add too much water or it won’t be “gelatiney” enough later.
Cover and bring to a boil again.Reduce heat to a light boil/simmer and set a timer for 5 hours :-O. (I have a much greater appreciation for my mom’s efforts in making holodets after watching my husband make this).
3. After cooking for 5 hours, Add 1 large carrot, 2 medium onions (both ends removed), 1 celery stick, 2 bay leaves, 5-8 peppercorns and 2 tsp salt into the pot and continue boiling on low heat 1 more hour. It should start to look like a nice chicken broth. Now it’s important that you keep the broth (do not discard the broth!) and do not add more water.
4. Remove the drumsticks and carrot from the broth and let them cool. Discard pork legs, onion and bay leaves. Use a fine mesh sieve with 3 bounty paper towels in the colander and filter the broth through the paper towels. You will be left with a clean broth.
5. Peel and press 4 garlic cloves into the broth and do a taste test to see if more salt is needed.
6. Once the meat has cooled, use a fork to separate meat from the bones. Keep the good meat; discard the rest. Thinly slice the carrot. You can make one big holodets in a rectangular pyrex dish or you can make smaller bowls.
7. Start by placing carrots on the bottom and top with some dill if you wish. Next add the meat in an even layer and pour broth over the meat. You need enough broth to cover the meat and add a little extra over the top. Refrigerate 3 hours to overnight or until firm. Serve with red horseradish/hren or Russian mustard. Once it’s set, set the bowl in hot water for a few seconds, then use a slim spatula to release the gelatin from the dish.
Note:
If using varying types or amounts of meat/bones, reader Lena shared a great tip: “An easy way to find out if your liquid is going to freeze or if you need to add gelatin, is to put a table spoon of it into a bowl and put it in the fridge. If it stiffens then you’re safe, but if not, then to add gelatin.”
Ukrainian Aspic Recipe (Kholodets)

Ingredients
- 2 lb pork legs, soaked in cold water and refrigerated 3 hours to overnight
- 5-8 large chicken drumsticks, or any meat with the bone in
- 2 medium onions
- 1 large carrot
- 1 stick of celery
- 2 bay leaves
- 5-10 peppercorns
- 2 tsp salt + more to taste
- Red horseradish/hren sause or mustard to serve
Instructions
- Make sure you soak the pork legs in cold wate (3 hours to overnight - it's also a good way to thaw the pork)
- In a large pot, add pork legs, and chicken drum sticks. Add enough water to cover all of the meat. Set over high heat, cover and bring to a boil. As soon as it starts boiling, remove from heat and drain off the water. Rinse the meat, refill with fresh water (enough water to cover all of the meat, plus an extra 1/2-inch over the meat); Don't add too much water or it won't be "gelatiney" enough later. Cover and bring to a boil again. Reduce heat to a light boil/simmer and set a timer for 5 hours.
- After cooking for 5 hours, Add 1 large carrot, 2 medium onions (both ends removed), 1 celery stick, 2 bay leaves, 5-8 peppercorns and 2 tsp salt into the pot and continue boiling on low heat 1 more hour. It should look like a nice chicken broth. Now it's important that you do not discard the broth and do not add more water to the pot!
- Remove the drumsticks and carrot from the broth and let them cool. Discard pork legs, onion and bay leaves. Use a fine mesh sieve with 3 bounty paper towels over the sieve and filter the broth through the paper towels. You will be left with a clean broth.
- Peel and press 4 garlic cloves into the broth and do a taste test to see if more salt is needed.
- Once the meat has cooled, use a fork to separate meat from the bones. Keep the good meat; discard the bones. Thinly slice the carrot. You can make one big holodets in a rectangular pyrex dish or you can make smaller serving bowls.
- Start by placing carrots on the bottom and top with some dill if you wish. Next add the meat in an even layer and pour broth over the meat; enough to cover the meat and a little extra over the top. Refrigerate 3 hours to overnight, or until firm. Serve with red horseradish/hren (recipe on NatashasKitchen.com) or Russian mustard. Once it's set, set the bowl in hot water for a few seconds, then use a slim spatula to release the gelatin from the dish. Or you can just serve it out of the dish and save yourself a step.
If you are still reading this, do you do anything fancy with your aspics (holodets)? Do you even make aspics??
Is there any other meat that would suffice in place of Pig’s or Rooster’s legs/feet for the gelatin affect? These animal parts are not always easy to find where I live.
I really have not tried with anything else. Maybe someone else has?
If you don’t feel like messing with pig trotters beef shanks will work just as fine. I
Pig trotters… Lol. Great to know! Thanks!!
Hey Natasha, I’m making this right now…do I use the celery or discard it?
Sorry for the late reply. yes, discard the celery. You want to discard everything besides the liquid.
That’s alright. I did end up discarding the celery…I looked more closely thru the pictures and I didn’t see it in the assembly part. 😉 It came out even better than I remember from childhood, so thank you for another wonderful post! This is the first time I ever made kholodets, because I was always intimidated by it, but it was actually fairly simple. Love all your work, thank you so much!!
Thank you for the recipe Natasha,I want to try making this but only with organic drumsticks..do you think it will work out?
I think drumsticks would work well. 🙂
Never say aspic with chicken and pork. i make pigs feet and add some pork but never chicken. I’ll have to give it a try. Thanks.
Let me know how it turns out :).
Why the recipes called for discarding first water, what is rational of douing that?
It helps get rid of impurities from the meat and keeps the gelatin more clear in the end product.
Hello!
Question: I would like to make some holodets, but I cannot use know gelatin as it is derived from an animal (i.e. pig, cattle). Would you happen to know of any gelatin alternatives that would work well?
Please me know!
Thank you.
Dasha
P.S. I will rate the recipe because it looks delicious!
I haven’t tested any alternatives. You might read through the comments. Some readers have reported good results with using chicken, but that is still animal derived ofcourse. Are you vegetarian? Even regular unflavored gelatin powder is animal derived. I’ve never tried anything else like arrowroot which I believe is seaweed derived, so I can’t really vouch for it.
I’ve heard that a good alternative for gelatin is agar agar,it’s not derived from animals 🙂 (I found some in a local Asian market)
Thanks Tania! Have you tried it with Aspic? I wonder how it works without the gelatin from the bones?
Hi Natasha! I just want to say how much I love your site and recipes. I am from Crimea and babulya often forgets to tell me her recipes that I crave so much from my childhood. This holodets looks just like hers, pigs feet and all! I recall her using a pig’s head too for the gello-y consistency. Very traditional 🙂 Thank you for posting.
Oh man a pigs head? Yeah that would be very brave to post that on the blog. lol. I’m so glad you are enjoying the blog and that it brings back memories for you 🙂
Hi Natasha! I am originally from Belgium, and yes, we make aspics! There are 3 famous ones: Jambon Persille (ham and parsley), pork tongue in a tomatoed aspic, and ‘Hennepot’ with a mix of meats in a clear aspic. Traditionally all of these would have been made with aspic from calf’s feet, but these days we just use shop-bought gelatine.
We also make fish aspics: skate wings in aspic (the ‘bones’ of the skate wings create the aspic), and eel in aspic. The fish aspics contain quite a bit of lemon or vinegar, and bayleaves….
Let me know if you would like any recipes!
Love you recipes!
Annemieke
Wow I’ve never heard of fish aspics; sounds brave but interesting. I’d love to visit Belgium some day. Thanks so much for sharing and I’m so happy you are enjoying the recipes 🙂
That is an Authentic Ukrainian recipe for Kholodets. My father made it this way. My father was an immigrant to the U.S. from Lviv and came to the U.S> after WW2. There was a large Ukrainian community in northern N.J. and I attended St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic School in Newark 60’s & 70’s. There was/is also a Ukrainian church in Hillside which we attended. My father would make this stuff. I hated it with a passion as a kid. It stunk up the garage as that was where he would let it cool and kept batches of it. In our household we called it Sulze and not Kholodets. That may be due to my mom being German. Pigs Feet are definitely used if you want to make it the Authentic Ukrainian way. I am not sure why adults would have a problem with pigs feet. As a kid the entire dish was gross to me, all that gelatinous goo. Give me some pierogies with butter and carmalized onions and sour cream and some holobchi instead, Yum.
Thanks for sharing your story with us :). My mom made special ones with very clean meat for the kids. Now I only make it that way myself 😉
Great recipe, but I only used chicken thighs and no pork (since pork is an unclean food). I also used Agar powder (1/2 tsp per cup of liquid) instead of the Knox gelatin (derived from ground pork/cow hooves, bones, etc). The chicken is done in an hour, shortens up the cooking time. Turned out great! Thanks!
You aren’t the first person to mention that Chicken works well. I think I’ll try that next time with the Agar powder like you recommended. I prefer chicken over pork anyway 🙂
Is it ok to add water sometime within those 5 hours?
It won’t thicken correctly if you add too much water. Make sure you cover and cook it so it doesn’t evaporate too much.
My mother always used pork knuckles and pig feet. If she could not find nice pork knuckles then she would use chicken legs and pig feet. I always liked the all pork better.
Ia eshe dobavleaiu kurinie nojki, serdecki I jeludki, pomogaet
I’m afraid I’m just not brave enough. Even as a child, I’d only pick out the most perfect meat parts and wouldn’t go near the other stuff 🙂
I am making my version of this right now. My Polish Grandmother called it Zemina and we had it at Christmas time. I use pig feet and cuts of boneless pork. Oh…it is so good! My Dad and I eat it all up ourselves. We tell everyone it has pig feet in it just so they wont try any and theres more for us.
Sneaky sneaky lol. It is strangely tasty 🙂
have not tried to make this but have to wonder if the chicken meat will not be mushy from having cooked so long. This sounds like something I would really like since I love most anything in aspic
If you read through the comments, some of my readers have had good results with chicken (bone-on) 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe that has wafted me right back to my childhood. My mother made the Austrian version, but I haven’t a hope of spelling the name right, so I won’t try. Her glass cake pan of the jellied pork aspic was skimmed of the fat that rose to the top and was served with fresh homemade bread. We can’t buy jellied sliced meat at the deli any more, so I’m about to simmer pork hocks using your recipe. Wish me luck! M. W.
That’s awesome!!! I hope you love the recipe. Good luck! 🙂
Hi Natasha
I am becoming addicted to your recipes!
They remind me so much of my mom’s cooking.
I have used the fresh, not smoked, pig hocks instead of the pigs feet.
You still get the gelatin that way.
I did try it with the pigs feet last time I made it but I think I’ll stick to the
fresh hocks. Shanks are also be the same thing.
That’s so good to know. Thank you for sharing and I’m so glad you enjoy the recipes 🙂
Very delish. My husband loved it, its one of his favorite dishes and since we’ve bin married over 4years now he’s bin asking me to make it. I always thought it was way more complicated than this. First time tried it and it was yummy. Thank u so much for sharing this recipe. I put half un regular bowls and half in a small square pyrex dish.
That’s awesome! I’m so glad you and your hubby enjoy the recipe!
Hey what’s up all, Natasha how are you, I have a question about the meat, can I use just the chicken because I don’t eat pork, will it be fine if I use just chicken?
Thank you 🙂
There were several people that said in the comments of this post that they use chicken with the bones in to make aspic, so yes you can. 🙂 some even left extra details of how they make it!
Last time mom tryed teaching me and I just bought the ingredient for her and told her ill learn it next time…. Too bed I never got the chance..:( my husband loves holodez! So only for him I would like to try this… All that I got was a whole chicken and 2 big packs of chicken feet….so I am thinking I can use chicken legs instead of pork legs and whole chicken instead of drums … And just folow the rest of ur recepie the same right? U think that would work?!
That should work, my mom-in-law makes it with the whole chicken. Let me know how it turns out :).