On Christmas Eve, a strict 40-day fast ends. At the festive table you can talk and eat fast-food dishes again. But the church charter prescribes to start a meal with kutya.
Pick your recipe
By tradition, the Orthodox Christmas table must certainly have kutya - a ritual dish of various types of cereals and whole grains with the addition of honey, nuts, raisins, poppy seeds. In different places, kutya was called ostrich, satiety, eve, colive and most often prepared for the memorial table.
Kutia ingredients have a certain symbolic meaning: grain - abundance and eternal life, honey - health and family well-being, nuts and poppy - wealth and fertility. In the old days there was a belief that the tastier and nourishing kutya, the higher the wealth in the family and the richer the harvest.
For the preparation of kutia, any cereals and grains are suitable, including barley, barley, oats, buckwheat, but tradition provides for wheat as the main component, and today rice is most often used. Wheat and rice kutia have some cooking features, while with respect to the set and quantity of products you can follow the classic recipe, but it is quite possible to determine the composition and proportions to your taste.
For wheat kutya, take 400 g of grain, 100 g of honey, 200 g of poppy seeds, 200 g of peeled walnuts. Sort the wheat, rinse well, add it to boiling water, bring to a boil, fold on a sieve and pour over with cold water.
Then transfer the cereals into a clay pot or pan, pour water and boil. Cover the dishes and place in the oven for roasting. Periodically check the readiness of the grain, and when it becomes soft, remove and cool.
Rinse poppy with boiling water, rinse with cold water. Pound the seeds in a white mortar, mix with honey and wheat. Lastly, add finely chopped walnuts.
To cook rice kutia, you need 400 g of cereal, 200 g of raisins, 100 g of honey and cinnamon. Sort and rinse the rice, fill with cold water, bring to a boil, recline on a sieve and rinse well again. Pour the cereal with cold water again and cook until tender, without stirring, finally drain the remaining liquid.
Dilute honey with water in a ratio of 1: 2, add to rice, mix with raisins and cinnamon. When serving kuti, you can sprinkle with powdered sugar or ground nuts.