I love the traditions associated with Ukrainian Easter, and especially the Blessing of the Easter Basket, which contains all the food items used at Easter Brunch.

The Easter Basket of special foods (described below) is arranged on Holy Saturday, and taken to church, where a special blessing ceremony with prayers and sprinkling with Holy Water, is performed by the parish priest.  Some churches perform their basket blessing on Easter Sunday, after the Morning Liturgy.

Besides the special foods, the Easter Basket is also decorated with greenery and flowers, as well as colored eggs, and beautiful Pysanky.

Each basket is covered with a hand embroidered cloth cover, with Easter motif of pussy willows and Easter Eggs.

This blessed food may not be consumed until after the morning Resurrection Liturgy on Easter Sunday.

The food in the basket is the only food being consumed at the Easter Brunch, which breaks The Great Lent fasting.

After Easter Brunch, the Easter celebration continues for the rest of the day, with family and friends visiting, and enjoying many other foods and desserts.

Today I will describe all the different foods used to fill the basket, and their Christian symbolism.

Paska - Special Easter Bread (sweet yeast bread, rich in eggs, butter, etc), takes the center stage in the basket.

Symbolic of Christ, who is the True Bread to Christians. Paska bread is always round in shape, and decorated with a dough braid around the perimeter, and a ornamental cross in the middle.  The Cross reminds Christians that Christ died on the Cross for their salvation.

Baked Ham – very popular meat for the Slavs as the main dish, because of its richness.  It is symbolic of the great joy, and abundance of Easter.  Some prefer Lamb or Veal.

Kobasa - a spicy, garlicky, smoked pork sausage.  Indicative of God’s favor and generosity.

Red Beet Vinaigrette (with Horseradish), or plain Horseradish, is symbolic of the Passion of Christ still in the minds of Christians, but sweetened with some sugar, because of the Resurrection.  The bitter-sweet red colored mixture is a reminder of the sufferings of Christ.

Salt is also included in the basket, necessary for flavor, and as a reminder to Christians of their duty to others.

Butter - A favorite dairy product, is usually nicely displayed and decorated with a cross made out of cloves, or allspice grains.  Some prefer to mold it into a shape of a Lamb.  Butter is symbolic of  the goodness of Christ, that we should have toward all things.

Cheese - Creamed cheese, or “Hrudka”, a sweetened cheese ball, decorated with same herbs as butter, indicative of the moderation that Christians should have in all things.

Eggs - are another very important food item in the Easter Basket.  All eggs are hard boiled, and kept in their shell. There should be at least one or two hard boiled eggs per person, for the Easter Brunch.  One of the hard boiled eggs is peeled, as it will be cut to as many pieces as there are attendees to the Easter Brunch, and shared with everyone, accompanied by salt and horseradish.

Wishing you a Happy and Blessed Easter!!

Eastern Europeans love their Easter Ham, along with the Kobasa (smoked pork sausage), eggs, Paska, and all the other goodies, they arrange in their Easter Basket for blessing,  and then feast on it, during Easter Sunday brunch.

I call it Easter Sunday brunch, because by the time all the Easter Sunday morning church services are over (at least 3 hours), and by the time  everyone greets each other with the special Easter Greeting, “Khrystos Voskres – Voistynu Voskres” ( Christ Is Risen, Indeed He Is Risen – in Ukrainian), or “Chrystus Zmartwychwstal – Prawdziwie Zmartwychwstal” – in Polish, you do not get home until about 10-11 AM, if you are lucky to live fairly close to your church.

Also, the fast has not been broken yet, so no one had breakfast yet, until you get home from church, and dig into that Easter Basket (that is why all the food tastes so great on Easter).

Today I will share with you my experience with selecting and preparing my ham for Easter.

My family and I love smoked meats, so of course I shop for smoked ham, rather than honey ham, or glazed ham.

I look for the “butt” section of a ham, rather than the “shank” section, since the butt section has more ham meat, and less bone (remember ham is priced per pound…bone or meat…).

Also, I try to look for ham that does not have too much fat on it, but you do need some, at least on one side, to flavor the ham during baking.  I do not trim the fat before baking, but do it afterward.

All the hams you find in the store, are basically precooked already, and all you have to do is to spice them up to your own taste, glaze them if that is your choice, and bake them long enough to warm them up all the way through.

According to the package directions, if you allow about 20 minutes of baking time per pound, your ham will be totally baked all the way through.

Since most hams are too salty for my taste, I precook it before baking, by placing the ham in a large pot of water, adding a couple of bay leaves,  few garlic cloves, NO SALT, bringing it to boil, and cooking for about 20 minutes.

This process not only draws out some of the salt from the ham, it also provides me with ready stock for my sauerkraut soup, which I always prepare for Easter Sunday early dinner (it tastes great, after eating all “dry” meats and breads for brunch), and of course some more of the same for dinner, plus few additional dishes.

After the ham has been boiled for 20 minutes, I stud it strategically with chunks of fresh garlic, sprinkle some black pepper over it, drip some canola oil over the top,  place it in an open roasting pan, add a cup of water, and bake it per the above instructions per pound, usually at 350  degrees F.

The aroma of the baking ham is very trying, since I usually bake it on Good Friday, a very strict fast day of the 40 day Great Lent,when not even dairy products are permitted,  so you know how enticing this must be to smell something this good, and not being able to taste it.

Once the ham is baked, I cover it with aluminum foil, to keep it from drying out, while it is cooling, to be ready to cut a portion for the Easter Basket arrangement.

I add the juices from the baked ham to the broth I saved from precooking the ham before baking, which adds a lot of flavor to the stock for the sauerkraut soup.

Now you know my method for selecting and preparing my Easter Ham.

Please share your comments, and experiences, with your ham preparations, since I am always willing and ready to learn something new.

Happy Easter!

Easter is one of my favorite holidays, because of its rich traditions.  One of these is the blessing of a basket of special foods which becomes the Easter Sunday brunch, being the first meat meal, after a strict fast on Good Friday and Saturday.  One of the special foods in that basket is a round shaped Easter Bread, called Paska in Ukrainian, or Babka in Polish.  The top of this bread is elaborately decorated with fancy dough ornaments, having a cross as the central motif. Here is my family Paska recipe, which makes two large loaves, or several small ones.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 1 package dry granular yeast
• 3 cups scalded whole milk, lukewarm
• 5 cups of flour
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup melted butter
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbs. orange zest
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 6 cups of sifted all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Dissolve the sugar in the lukewarm water and sprinkle the yeast over it.
2. Let it stand for 10 minutes.
3. Combine the softened yeast with the lukewarm milk and 5 cups of flour.
4. Beat well until smooth.
5. Cover and let the batter rise in a warm place until light and bubbly (I place it on a heating pad, and cover it with plastic wrap, then with towels, to keep it warm).
6. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, melted butter, salt, and orange and lemon zest.
7. Mix thoroughly.
8. Stir in enough flour to make dough that is neither too soft nor too stiff.
9. Knead until the dough no longer sticks to the hand.
10. Turn the dough on a floured board, or other work surface, and knead until smooth and satiny.
11. Place in a bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place until double in bulk.
12. Punch down and let it rise again.
13. Prepare your loaf pans by thoroughly greasing them with shortening.
14. Divide the dough into 3 parts, if you have large enough pans to make only two loaves, and leave the third part for ornamental decorations.
15. If you wish to make several small breads, then fill your greased pans 1/3 full with the dough, still leaving some dough for decorations.
16. To make ornaments, one of them being the cross, you roll out some dough into a rope like shape and form it into an ornamental cross to place in the middle of the top of the bread.



You can also make other ornamental decorations for your Paska, such as a braids, rosettes, twisted swirls, cones, etc.



17. Now that your loaves are decorated, dip a pastry brush in whole milk, and gently brush the bread tops, and ornaments, to give them a nice golden color once baked.  For a darker shade, you may use a wash made out of one egg beaten with 2 Tbs. of water.
18. Set the loaves in a warm place, once more, until almost double in bulk.
19. Do not let the loaves rise longer than necessary, because the ornaments will lose their shape.
20. Preheat you oven to 400 degrees, and bake the bread for 10 minutes.
21. Lower the temperature to 350 degrees, and bake for 30 minutes longer, or until done.
22. For smaller loaves your baking time should be shorter, so you need to use your judgment.
23. To prevent over browning of the tops, you may cover them with loose pieces of aluminum foil, once the Paska is lightly browned.
24. Remove the loves from the pans, and cool completely.
25. You may wrap cooled loaves in aluminum foil, and plastic bag, and freeze until ready to use, to keep them fresh.
26. To thaw, keep covered, to prevent from drying out.

Tip: If you like raisins in your bread, you may add 1-2 cups of golden raisins to your dough, and you need to make sure to push them deeper into the dough before baking, or they will burn if sticking out of the bread.