Sessie
In the Brooder
Mine's mixed Russian/Polish/Ukrainian.
Hubby's first ex-wife is Ukrainian-American. His second ex-wife is Polish-American. I self-identify as Russian-American because I was told, all my life, that we were Russian-American… didn't find out 'til last year, when I started digging in my ancestry in order to try to make a family tree, that my father's family was primarily Russian (but turns out that it had some Ukrainian as well), but Mother's was mixed - Polish on her mother's side and Russian on her father's side. I don't know why I was lied to, and now I'll never know because I lost my mother December 26, 2014 and my father January 14th of this year (2016).
So, since I'm the family's best cook and the one who best loves to entertain at home… I'm cooking for the holiday. (very well blended family) I am making everyone's favorites.
Table Centerpiece - huge bowl containing dyed eggs and pysanki and the Easter bread… well, in my case, breads, plural - each of the three ethnicities have very specific specialty bread of essentially the same recipe, but very different shapes, for Easter in particular. Everyone wants their won that they grew up with. Since the bread is the same recipe (plus or minus some dried fruits), I can accommodate by making triple batches of the sweet egg yeast bread, adding or withholding the dried fruits, and doing them in the required shapes, before baking them all together in the oven.
Kulich - Russian Easter Bread (a sweet egg bread similar to challah or brioche, with raisins, candied dried fruits, plenty of whole eggs, sugar and honey, and whole wheat and white flours - the tall, cylindrical loaves are baked in tall soufflé dishes or - often - simply in old cleaned-out 2- to 2.5-lb coffee cans, decorated with fluffy white frosting and colored sugar sprinkles)
Paska - Ukrainian Easter Bread (similar type of sweet egg bread, but more like Greek Easter Tsoureki - shaped into a three-strand braided ring with a very, very dark red dyed egg backed into the center or shaped like a swaddled baby and the same very, very dark red dyed egg is placed where the baby's face would be… and no frosting or sugary sprinkles, just glazed with sugar-laden egg wash)
Babka - Polish Easter Bread (the same kind of bread as above, but braided (sometimes more or less strands than three) and no dyed red egg baked into it at all)
Course I:
Borsch (beet soup) with tiny pirozski (pierogies, in Polish - if you don't recognize the Russian word for them)
Course II:
Roasted Smoked Kielbasa
Salat Olivier (a Russian salad sort of like a cross between potato salad and Italian antipasto - potatoes, carrots, peas, hard-boiled eggs, chopped pickles, and chopped cooked meat (chicken - or beef, or maybe salmon) and mayonnaise and sour cream - it's molded or piled into a platter over crisp lettuce leaves, and lightly covered with more fresh homemade mayonnaise as a cake would be frosted with frosting)
Course III:
Easter Smoked Ham in Dough (done similarly to Wellington)
- with horseradish, beet horseradish & mustard sauce (coz Russians overdo everything, lol)
Kurnik - Russian Chicken Pie (not like American pot pie, quite different)
Cucumber-Radish salad (thin cucumber slices and radish slices in mayonnaise and sour cream with plenty of scallions and dill)
Carrot salad (thinly julienned carrots with raisins, dried dates, currants, dried apricots, walnuts, sour cream & honey)
Course IV:
Pashka (Russian cheesecake-like dessert that is unique to Easter only)
Makowiec (poppy seed filled struedel-like pastry roll)
Perekladanets (Ukrainian 4-layer torte with layers of poppy seed filling, cinnamon sugar walnut filling, sugary date filling and sweet apricot filling… just like the Russians make, only the Russian version includes also a meringue topping… did I not already say that we Russians overdo everything? lol lol)
Russian tea - (smoked) black tea, brewed very strongly, and taken through a sugar cube held in your teeth or with a spoonful of fruit preserves or jam stirred into it - served from my paternal grandmother's family antique brass samovar, brought over with them to the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century
Hubby's first ex-wife is Ukrainian-American. His second ex-wife is Polish-American. I self-identify as Russian-American because I was told, all my life, that we were Russian-American… didn't find out 'til last year, when I started digging in my ancestry in order to try to make a family tree, that my father's family was primarily Russian (but turns out that it had some Ukrainian as well), but Mother's was mixed - Polish on her mother's side and Russian on her father's side. I don't know why I was lied to, and now I'll never know because I lost my mother December 26, 2014 and my father January 14th of this year (2016).
So, since I'm the family's best cook and the one who best loves to entertain at home… I'm cooking for the holiday. (very well blended family) I am making everyone's favorites.
Table Centerpiece - huge bowl containing dyed eggs and pysanki and the Easter bread… well, in my case, breads, plural - each of the three ethnicities have very specific specialty bread of essentially the same recipe, but very different shapes, for Easter in particular. Everyone wants their won that they grew up with. Since the bread is the same recipe (plus or minus some dried fruits), I can accommodate by making triple batches of the sweet egg yeast bread, adding or withholding the dried fruits, and doing them in the required shapes, before baking them all together in the oven.
Kulich - Russian Easter Bread (a sweet egg bread similar to challah or brioche, with raisins, candied dried fruits, plenty of whole eggs, sugar and honey, and whole wheat and white flours - the tall, cylindrical loaves are baked in tall soufflé dishes or - often - simply in old cleaned-out 2- to 2.5-lb coffee cans, decorated with fluffy white frosting and colored sugar sprinkles)
Paska - Ukrainian Easter Bread (similar type of sweet egg bread, but more like Greek Easter Tsoureki - shaped into a three-strand braided ring with a very, very dark red dyed egg backed into the center or shaped like a swaddled baby and the same very, very dark red dyed egg is placed where the baby's face would be… and no frosting or sugary sprinkles, just glazed with sugar-laden egg wash)
Babka - Polish Easter Bread (the same kind of bread as above, but braided (sometimes more or less strands than three) and no dyed red egg baked into it at all)
Course I:
Borsch (beet soup) with tiny pirozski (pierogies, in Polish - if you don't recognize the Russian word for them)
Course II:
Roasted Smoked Kielbasa
Salat Olivier (a Russian salad sort of like a cross between potato salad and Italian antipasto - potatoes, carrots, peas, hard-boiled eggs, chopped pickles, and chopped cooked meat (chicken - or beef, or maybe salmon) and mayonnaise and sour cream - it's molded or piled into a platter over crisp lettuce leaves, and lightly covered with more fresh homemade mayonnaise as a cake would be frosted with frosting)
Course III:
Easter Smoked Ham in Dough (done similarly to Wellington)
- with horseradish, beet horseradish & mustard sauce (coz Russians overdo everything, lol)
Kurnik - Russian Chicken Pie (not like American pot pie, quite different)
Cucumber-Radish salad (thin cucumber slices and radish slices in mayonnaise and sour cream with plenty of scallions and dill)
Carrot salad (thinly julienned carrots with raisins, dried dates, currants, dried apricots, walnuts, sour cream & honey)
Course IV:
Pashka (Russian cheesecake-like dessert that is unique to Easter only)
Makowiec (poppy seed filled struedel-like pastry roll)
Perekladanets (Ukrainian 4-layer torte with layers of poppy seed filling, cinnamon sugar walnut filling, sugary date filling and sweet apricot filling… just like the Russians make, only the Russian version includes also a meringue topping… did I not already say that we Russians overdo everything? lol lol)
Russian tea - (smoked) black tea, brewed very strongly, and taken through a sugar cube held in your teeth or with a spoonful of fruit preserves or jam stirred into it - served from my paternal grandmother's family antique brass samovar, brought over with them to the U.S. in the early years of the 20th century
