Category: Easter

Although I don’t claim to be particularly religious, I do like the surviving private (as in ‘within the home’) rituals associated with food. The day before Lent, Shrove Tuesday, for example, is the day when we blend together milk, eggs,  and flour into pancakes (which we then eat with savoury and sweet fillings). So, the end of Lent, Easter, is marked with dishes that bring back (in rather large quantities) those foods we were not supposed to be eating during Lent. Pascha is one such dish, comprising cheese, eggs, cream, butter, sugar and decorated with dried fruits and nuts. Traditionally it is eaten with its own bread, kulich, but we usually just serve it with a similar Italian Easter bread (Colomba Pasquale, which I don’t make myself). Whilst I don’t own a traditional pascha ‘mould’ (I use a stainless steel conical colander that has lost its handle), I do retain something of the religious signage in the decoration.

Make this on Easter Saturday (i.e. the day before Easter). Use organic ingredients where you can.

500g tvorog cheese (sorry, I don’t have a recommended substitute — visit your local Russian delicatessen)
2 egg yolks
1 egg white
50g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
150ml double cream (whipped)
1 tbsp mixed peel
1.5 tbsp almond flakes
1 cheesecloth
1 conical mould that allows for drainage (I use a colander; others seem to use well-scrubbed flower pots…)
Raisins/sultanas, mixed peel, glacé cherries, blanched almonds for decoration

Whisk egg white until soft peaks are formed.  Whisk egg yolks with half the sugar until light in colour. Beat butter with remaining sugar until fluffy. Combine egg-sugar mix with butter-sugar mix. Beat in tvorog. Fold in whipped cream. Fold in egg white. Fold in mixed peel and almond flakes.

Line the mould with the cheesecloth. Spoon the pascha mixture into the mould. Fold over the cheesecloth to protect the top of the pascha. Place the mould into a suitable dish to allow for drainage. Place saucer or other suitable disc on the top and then add a weight (I use a small but heavy marble mortar). Place in refrigerator and allow to drain overnight.

On Easter Sunday morning remove the weight; the jug with any water; and unwrap the cheesecloth from the top of the mould. Place a decorated plate over the top and carefully flip the mould and place upright. When you remove the remainder of the cheesecloth you should have a white, firm conical-shaped pascha which you can now decorate. It is traditional for the pascha to be marked with the cyrillic letters X and B (abbreviation for Христосъ Воскресe, “Christ is risen!”). Since I don’t have a traditional pascha mould, I do this with raisins or sultanas (this year, soaked in rum). The rest of the pascha is lightly decorated with peel, glacé cherries, and blanched almonds in the Byzantine fashion.

It is our tradition to consume (actually, battle with) dyed eggs for Easter Sunday breakfast. These are eggs naturally dyed in the Orthodox tradition using only onion skins. Although I don’t claim to follow lent in any other way, it is a useful period, after pancakes, in order to collect onion skins; sufficient for dying 15 eggs. I don’t know how many onions we consume over that six week period but there always seems to be enough (even this year, when a week of lent was spent away from home). I mix both red and white onion skins, storing them in a plastic bag next to the kitchen compost bin (the skins don’t go mouldy if only dried skins are retained). As you can see the resulting eggs are a lovely mahogany colour (especially after being polished with a little olive oil).

15 organic eggs
Onion skins from around 15 red and/or white onions
2 tbsp vinegar (helps to prevent the eggs cracking)
Olive oil (for polishing)

Put 15 eggs in a single layer in a wide-bottomed pan, set aside (and allow to reach room temperature if they’ve come out of the fridge). Put the onion skins and vinegar in a separate pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and let cool. Effectively you want to let the dye cool to a temperature where the eggs will not crack when bathed. Pour the dye (and skins) on to the eggs. bring back to the boil and simmer very gently for up to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat. Find and remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place in bowl of cold water (this makes peeling the eggs easier when you come to eat them). If the eggs have not been sufficiently dyed, return them to the pan of onion dye. Do not re-heat but leave in the dye for an hour or so. Remove eggs. Dab a little olive oil on to a paper towel and polish each egg. Arrange on a plate and consume when cold.