UKRAINIAN - Spring 2022 (Apr-Jun) Cuisine of the Quarter

Ukrainian Easter Breads, known as Paska or Kulich can be astonishingly beautiful

https://annavoloshyna.com/softest-paska-kulich-sweet-easter-bread/

Some Ukrainians and other people from Central and Eastern European cultures make a Paska/ Paskha cheese spread to serve with the bread

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There are ukrainian Greek catholic and ukrainian orthodox rites. Some catholic churches in Canada have switched to the Julian calendar. We are celebrating Easter today. I baked my pasta yesterday in a 10" angel cake pan simply because I like even slices. I weighted the pasta and it’s 5oz. So light. Embroidery is by my late mil and Easter eggs are in my collection. I did one oof them

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How gorgeous! Do you have a recipe for the bread? The last time I tried to make one (my mother’s recipe called it kulich, but I’ve been told they are the same?) mine was a disaster. (Also, we used to eat something with it called paschka - a delicious cheese spread flavored lightly with lemon. Do you all make something similar?)

edited to add: yes, I see above the bread often goes by both names! phew. Also, I missed the other link to the recipe for the paschka that I was talking about. Whoops! Would still love to know which recipe you used!

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Cookbook-worthy picture.

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I’ll get back to you soon

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Thanks for posting links to the Ukrainian paska recipes. I had planned to bake the plainer, Slovakian style of my heritage this year for the first time. But spring garden cleanup won’t wait.

Hoping I can make time this coming week to prepare Ukrainian style paska. Then I can be on time for Ukrainian Orthodox Easter. That works!

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Sauerkraut soup with smoked trout. Might not be strictly Ukrainian, but all the ingredients are probably part of the Ukrainian diet. I had some doubt about this, but I really liked it!

saurkraut soup

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(post deleted by author)

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It was kind of scary getting to Warsaw in spring 1983. My friend didn’t have a telephone (few did back then) and I sent telegrams about when I’d be arriving from (west) Berlin by train to Warsaw. She got all the telegrams except the last, my arrival train and time. I got to the train station and no one could help me since she’d didn’t meet me (I don’t speak Russian or Polish), so I got in a cab and used all my West German Mark coins to pay the cab driver to get to her apartment address. Way over paid the cab driver, as I found out later. Got there, elevator was broken. Walked up 8 floors or so and knocked on the door and she was shocked to see me but glad as well. She never got that last telegram.

It was an amazing experience. My son is taking a Cold War class now and I try to explain it to him (we adopted him at age 7 when we were 51).

It was still strange to me to be handed these full menus and then hear only one or two items were available. I walked with her around Warsaw and the only fresh foods available were apples and other fruits.

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A few years ago I had dinner with some people that had vacationed in Poland just a few months previously. One of their party was injured and had to be hospitalized in Warsaw. They thought the medical facilities were still appallingly behind and it was somewhat scary being treated there.

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After the Soviet Bloc dissolved, there was a lot of catching up to do in all areas of human life in all parts of the world that the Soviets controlled. I’m not at all surprised that the health care isn’t at US standards (which aren’t always the best, though we have the technology).

It does seem that the food supply for home consumers as well as restaurants caught up fairly quickly, given the past constraints when people in the early 1980s lined up for hours when hearing rumors that bananas or other such foods might be available. I haven’t been back since 1983, but I am sure I’d rather go to a restaurant or shop a local food market in Warsaw now than get medical treatment there.

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Mushroom, cabbage, bacon “ pie”. I used the dough from the Ukrainian Gusinie Lapki cookies, a/k/a Goose feet cookies. This is a flaky, tender dough that works well for either a sweet or savory galette. One batch of the sugarless cookie dough will make two tart crusts. This is the third time I’ve utilized it for a savory galette but I’m looking forward to trying it for a fruit galette. We enjoyed it with an endive salad.

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I’m totally unaware of how the original post got deleted, it’s a mystery to me?

In my family when we said kulich it meant challah. Here is my recipe which I scaled-down, my mom use to make 3 at once. Dozen eggs, lb of butted, etc… without a mixer.
PASKA
1 cup milk, 4 egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar, pinch of salt, zest of 1 lemon, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 65 grms softened butter, 2 teaspoons vanilla, 3 cups of flour.
Simmer the milk and bring to room temperature. If you are using traditional yeast you can activate it in the milk with 2 teaspoons sugar. Rub the zest into the sugar.
In a bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle mix egg yolks, sugar,salt,butter until light and fluffy. Stir in milk and vanilla. Change to hook, add 2 1/2 cups flour, sprinkle instant yeast and mix. Add flour by tablespoon as needed. You want a soft dough that comes away from the bowl and wraps around the hook. Proof dough in greased bowl until double. Deflate and knead the dough a couple of time. Prepare your pan. I use a 9" angel food pan because I find my paska hardly ever cracks. Give it a 2nd rise until it reaches about 1 1/2 inches below the rim.
Bake at 325f for about 40 to 45 minutes.

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Thank you!!

Oh my I should have said gregorian calendar

Your welcome. Hope it works out for you. It’s just something I tried to duplicate that my mother did without a recipe

So interesting. I know kulich as Russian Easter bread because I have a family friend who bakes it each year, as his mother did before him, although it was his father’s heritage, sort of (his father’s family was of Georgian and Armenian origin, and his father came to the US as a young man after WWI to escape suffering in the revolution, due to the family’s noble status). His mother’s kulich was somewhat similar to your paska, light and sweet with golden raisins. His is heartier and infused with almond paste. It makes delicious toast and bread pudding. He bakes many small loaves in the traditional cylindrical shape to give away.

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So here is an explanation about paska and kulich. No such word as kulich in ukrainian language. It’s Russian. My folks came from western Ukraine. On Saturday eve before Easter I always went with my mother to have the Easter brunch basket blessed which would contain the paska, eggs, cheese butter, kolbasa and syrnik(cheesecake). Never did I see any icing on anybody’s paska

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