One of the main symbols of the Nativity of Christ is kutia. There are many options for its preparation. We invite you to consider the most basic ones, as well as learn the subtleties and secrets of this ritual dish.
Recipe contents:
Kutia is an indispensable dish on Christmas days, as well as during Lent and on the days of remembrance of the dead. This ritual porridge has many names: eve, kolivo, sochivo, satiate. Kutya is served as a funeral dish on Old New Year's Eve, Christmas Eve and Epiphany. It is also cooked on other Orthodox holidays. Conventionally, kutya can be divided into several options:
- Rich lean porridge with many different components. They prepare it on Christmas Eve.
- Generous kutia- a quick dish with milk, cream and butter. It is served before the New Year.
- Hungry Kutya consists of a grain base and a sweetener. They cook it for Epiphany.
Kutya can be prepared from different cereals and grains. The correct one is considered to be made from wheat grains, which are first pounded in a mortar with a small amount of water and separated from the chaff. However, in different regions they use pearl barley, barley, rice, oats, and buckwheat. Grains languish in the oven for a long time, sometimes for about 3 days. In modern conditions, not everyone can adhere to tradition, so they use the usual stove or oven. To speed up the cooking process, the cereal is pre-soaked, because it should be soft and well cooked.
How to separate the wheat from the chaff?
There are 2 ways to free the wheat grain from the shell. First - fry the wheat in a frying pan, place it in a piece of cloth or a mitten and beat it, then sort it out, freeing it from the husk. Second, pound the wheat in a mortar with a wooden pestle, adding water. Then peel, sift and rinse.
Additional components
Chopped steamed or boiled dried fruits, frozen fruits and berries, jams, compotes, uzvars, nuts, poppy seeds, spices and spices are placed in kutya. Sometimes lollipops, candied fruits, sweets and marmalade are added, but this is a departure from tradition.
How to cook uzvar for kutya?
Most often, kutya is seasoned with uzvar. To prepare it you will need 200 g of dried apricots, apples, pears, prunes, cherries and raisins. Rinse the ingredients, pour 2 tbsp. water and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes over low heat. Infuse the uzvar, cooling it to a warm temperature. Drain the liquid through a sieve and put honey in it. Stir until dissolved. Dried fruits are consumed on their own. When using uzvar for ritual porridge, you should put less sugar and honey in the kutya.
Traditional gas stations
On Christmas Eve, Lenten kutia is served with milk made from poppy seeds or almonds, hazelnuts, Greek nuts or a mixture of nuts. To prepare poppy seed milk, you need to crush the poppy seed in a mortar and steam it, you can turn it through a meat grinder several times to release a white liquid. Nut milk is cooked in a similar way: the nuts are doused with boiling water, ground in a mortar or minced with a meat grinder until a white liquid is released.
Fast porridge is seasoned with milk, butter, and cream. The traditional dressing for porridge is liquid honey or syt. To prepare the latter, honey is dissolved with warm boiled water. If desired, kutya is also filled with jam, sugar syrup or diluted water.
- According to the Orthodox calendar, Christmas comes on January 6, so kutia should be cooked on the eve of this day. You need to have time to prepare the ritual porridge before 5 am, before sunrise.
- When cooking kutya, the house should be quiet and calm. Selected wheat is used, spring water is used, and clothing is clean.
- Proper kutia consists of 3 components: base, dressing and additives.
- To prevent the cereal from burning, use thick-bottomed cooking utensils, or better yet, cast iron.
- Having combined all the components, they need to be heated for 10 minutes, preferably in clay pots.
- Dilute the thick kutya with boiled chilled water, a decoction of cereals or uzvar.
- Raisins in porridge swell and lose their taste, so add them as you eat the kutia.
- Do not store porridge for a long time, since honey has the property of fermentation. Therefore, it is not recommended to put fresh fruit. It is better to add honey to food before serving.
- Do not throw away the leftover kutya. You can use it to remember the departed at your next meal.
- Usually ritual porridge is blessed at the morning service. But if you forget to do this, sprinkle it with holy water at home. If there is no such thing, then pray and God will hear you.
Nowadays, not many housewives prepare Christmas kutya, and some don’t even know what it is. We are reviving the ancient traditions of our ancestors and preparing the most mysterious and amazing dish for our relatives on Christmas Eve.
- Calorie content per 100 g - 232 kcal.
- Number of servings - 4-6
- Cooking time - 3-3.5 hours (of which 2.5-3 hours for steaming poppy seeds)
Ingredients:
- Wheat - 2 tbsp.
- Water - 4 tbsp.
- Poppy - 200 g
- Raisins - 150 g
- Walnuts - 200 g
- Honey - 3 tbsp.
- Sugar - to taste
- Dried apricots, dried figs, prunes - to taste
Step-by-step preparation:
- Place the wheat in a cooking pan, add water and cook over low heat until cooked and soft. If necessary, add boiling water. The porridge should come out crumbly.
- To prepare poppy seeds, steam them in boiling water for 2-3 hours. Drain the water, and thoroughly grind the poppy seeds in a clay vessel (makitra) or hand coffee grinder until white poppy milk is released. To make the poppy seed grind faster, knead it with a small amount of sugar.
- Put honey into the mashed poppy seeds, add sugar, crushed nuts, raisins and fill everything with water, or better yet, with dried fruits. Let sit for 5 minutes and season the boiled porridge.
Rice kutia (funeral)
Kutya or kolivo is an Orthodox funeral dish that symbolizes the faith of the living in the kingdom of heaven, eternal life and resurrection. Kutya is cooked from rice for funerals, but it can also be prepared for Christmas Eve and other Orthodox holidays. Today it is very popular.
Ingredients:
- Rice - 1 tbsp.
- Drinking water - 2 tbsp.
- Salt - a pinch
- Raisins - 150 g
- Honey - 2 tbsp.
- Marmalade - 100 g
- Rinse the rice under several waters to remove the starch. Then it will become crumbly.
- Fill it with water, close the lid tightly and turn on the gas. Cook the cereal for 3 minutes on high heat, after 6 minutes on medium and again 3 minutes on low.
- Then steam the cereal for 12 minutes under the lid. The rice should be soft and crumbly.
- First pour boiling water over the raisins and leave to swell for 10 minutes. Then tip it onto a sieve to drain the water.
- Cut the marmalade into 1 cm pieces.
- Add raisins, marmalade and honey to the finished rice. Stir and serve.
Note: Rice can be cooked in steam or milk. However, it should be remembered that cereals in milk may not boil well. When preparing generous kutya, use a mixture of water and milk.
Christmas kutia is one of the 12 traditional dishes of the Christmas feast. It is no less tasty from millet cereals, raisins and almond milk.
Ingredients:
- Millet cereal - 2 tbsp.
- Sugar - 1 tbsp.
- Kishmish raisins - 1 tbsp.
- Ground cinnamon - 2 tsp.
- Almonds - 1 tbsp.
- Honey - 4 tbsp.
- Pour boiling water over the raisins and let sit for half an hour. Drain the water.
- Rinse dark millet under cold water, add water in a ratio of 1:2 and cook for 10 minutes until half cooked. Drain off the excess liquid and fill it again with cold water, but with less water. Cook it over low heat until done. The water should completely evaporate without the porridge burning.
- Prepare almond milk. Soak almonds in 3 tbsp. cold water for 4 hours. You can first peel the nuts and pour boiling water over them, then the milk will be beige in color. But this option is not required.
- Grind the nuts in a blender until smooth.
- Pour the milk through several layers of gauze and mix with honey. Store it in a glass jar in the refrigerator for 5 days.
- Add raisins, sugar, cinnamon to the prepared wheat porridge and stir.
- Before serving, top it with almond milk.
Video recipes:
All followers of the Christian faith definitely know what kutya is. On the night before Christmas, on the last day of the Nativity fast, this dish is the first to be eaten by all believers after a long abstinence from fast food. Each person eats exactly three spoons of wheat kutya in honor of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as required by Orthodox tradition. Read more about this dish.
What is kutya?
This is a traditional ritual dish that is always prepared on Christmas Eve, for funerals, and sometimes on other Christian holidays. Traditionally, kutia is prepared from wheat, but in the last ten years, cases of simplifying the preparation process have become more frequent: it began to be prepared from crushed grain (instead of whole grain, as in the classic recipe), bulgur and even rice. This is what those who are not familiar with the symbolism of this dish do, because in ancient times everything had a hidden, secret meaning and deep background, and kutia was already known in the twelfth century, according to the Tale of Bygone Years.
Wheat kutya, or sochivo, made from whole grains, with the addition of honey, nuts, dried fruits and poppy seeds, was a symbol of the coming year; the more diligently the housewife was involved in preparing it, the more generously she flavored it, the richer and happier the new harvest year would be. Wheat traditionally symbolized the birth of man and the obligatory upcoming resurrection, the poppy was a symbol of wealth (money, like poppy seeds in a head), and honey was a companion to health, a happy and easy destiny.
Required Ingredients
To prepare kutia from wheat according to the recipe of our ancestors, you need to prepare the following products:
- 2 cups whole grain wheat;
- 100 grams of poppy seeds, raisins or other dried fruits, shelled walnuts;
- 3-4 tbsp. spoons of honey; the addition of this product to the finished dish is purely individual due to taste preferences, so the indicated amount is average.
Wheat must be whole, but peeled. Nowadays you can often find in stores a special variety of purified wheat, called “For Kutya,” but you can also ask at markets or in vegan and eco-food stores.
How to properly prepare wheat?
Many people do not know how to cook kutya from wheat, as well as all the intricacies of preparing a sweet dressing, so they initially reject wheat, replacing it with rice. In fact, the process of preparing grain is quite simple: you just need to soak the wheat overnight in cold water. During this time it will swell, become much softer, and cook in literally forty minutes. You should soak it in plenty of water, and in the morning rinse it under running water, fill it with clean water (two to three fingers above the level of the grain) and put it on fire. When the porridge boils, turn the heat to minimum, just wait while adding the sweet addition. If it turns out that all the water has boiled away and the wheat is still a little hard, then you can add a little heated water, mix and continue heat treatment. Ready wheat is soft in taste and easy to chew, although it has a rather specific taste.
Step-by-step preparation
In wheat kutya, poppy seeds play an important role, so it also requires special attention: pour a small amount of water over it and let it boil, and then let it stand in the same water for at least an hour. During this time, the poppy seed will also swell, and it will be easier to pound it in a mortar, after straining it through a strainer. You can also try grinding it in a coffee grinder until a whitish liquid appears - milk of poppy, which will be an indicator of high-quality grinding of the product.
Grind the walnuts, but do not crush them into powder, lightly fry in a dry frying pan until a characteristic nutty aroma appears. Pour boiling water over the raisins and leave for half an hour, then drain the water and mix the swollen berries with nuts. If dried apricots or prunes are used, they are also briefly soaked in water and then cut into thin strips, mixed with other products.
When the grain is cooked until soft, drain the remaining water (if any), combine with kutya: mix wheat, poppy seeds, dried fruits and nuts, add honey and mix thoroughly with a spoon. This should be done with the wheat still hot, so that under the influence of its heat, the remaining ingredients will give off their taste and aroma. Let the juice sit for a while and then you can serve it to your guests.
A simple version of crushed cereals
How to prepare kutya from wheat if you can’t get whole wheat anywhere, but you really want to follow the traditions of your ancestors? It doesn’t matter, you can make it from crushed grain - this is ordinary wheat cereal, you just need to choose a coarsely ground product.
For 1 glass of such cereal, take two and a half glasses of water and immediately boil the porridge without soaking. Next, the process for preparing the sweet dressing is the same as in the recipe above, with the same amount of ingredients.
What is this dish usually served with?
Christmas kutia made from wheat is the main dish of the festive table on Christmas Eve, the first of twelve Lenten dishes. Most often it is served with uzvar: a compote of dried fruits, which is generously poured over the kutya in a bowl. Preparing uzvar is very simple: for every liter of water, use two hundred grams of dried fruits (preferably pears), 2 tbsp. spoons of honey or granulated sugar. All these ingredients are boiled for ten minutes, then the liquid is strained and poured into a jug.
When serving kutya on the table, everyone pours a convenient amount of uzvar on their own, sincerely asks the Lord for the generosity of the future harvest, thanks for the past year and enjoys the taste of rich kutya, glorifying the birth of the baby Christ.
cooking method:
First of all, let's cook the wheat. Rinse the grains under cold water. Place the water in a saucepan on the fire until it boils. For 2 cups of wheat, take 6 cups of water. Add 1 tsp to boiling water. salt and pour in the washed wheat. Stir with a spoon and cook over low heat for about an hour. If desired, you can add a piece of butter to the porridge.
Let's prepare other products.
Wash the raisins and soak them in warm water for half an hour to swell and become softer.
Place in a colander to drain the water.
Boil the poppy seeds for at least half an hour in a small amount of liquid. Thanks to this, it will become softer and tastier.
Now add sugar and grind in a mortar or grind in a meat grinder.
Peel the walnut from the shell.
Lightly fry in the oven to make it more aromatic. Chop a little using a rolling pin, first wrapping it in parchment paper.
We taste the wheat, if it has become soft, turn off the heat. If you want the porridge to be crumbly, you can rinse it with cold boiled water over a colander.
Pour in honey and stir. Add poppy seeds, nuts, and raisins to the porridge.
If desired, you can add more: dates and dried apricots. They also need to be prepared: soak for half an hour in warm water. Remove pits from dates. And then chop it with a knife.
Rozhdestvenskaya is an ancient ritual dish of the Slavs, which is a mandatory attribute of the holy evening. Kutia from wheat, just like its other varieties, for example, kutia from rice, millet or other cereals, is prepared for Christmas and Epiphany. In addition to cereals, to give kutya a taste, products such as poppy seeds, raisins, honey, nuts, uzvar, milk, jam, candied fruits, and dried fruits are added to it, as a result of which it becomes not only tastier, but also more satisfying. There are many recipes for making Christmas kutia in different countries.
A classic is being prepared Christmas kutia made from wheat with honey, poppy seeds and walnuts. It is interesting that each of the ingredients of both lean and rich Christmas kutia has its own symbolic meaning. Thus, wheat symbolizes the resurrection of the soul from the world of the dead, honey, in turn, is associated with sweetness, and therefore with the sweet life, poppy in kutya is a symbol of prosperity, since there are very, very many poppy heads in the head of the poppy.
It is generally accepted that the richer and tastier the housewife prepares Christmas food, the happier, more successful and fertile the new year will be. Now let's move on to the recipe and see how wheat kutia is prepared for Christmas step by step with photos.
Ingredients:
- Wheat – 2 cups,
- Poppy – 100 gr.,
- Raisins – 100 gr.,
- Walnuts – 200 gr.,
- Natural honey – 3-4 tbsp. spoons,
- Uzvar – 1-1.5 glasses,
- Dried fruits: apples, pears, prunes, dried apricots - optional.
Wheat kutia - recipe with photo
Cooking kutya begins with soaking the wheat. Wash the wheat. Fill with warm water like this. So that it covers it completely. Leave it for 5-6 hours, or best of all overnight. After standing in water, the wheat grains will gain moisture and become softer, which will significantly reduce the cooking time.
After the cereal has sat for a certain time, drain the water. Boil water in a saucepan. One glass of wheat will require approximately two and a half, three glasses of water. Be sure to salt the water. Boil the cereal over low heat for about one hour. Stir during cooking.
If necessary, add a little water. Wheat for kutya should be hard and not overcooked. If you want a softer wheat porridge, increase the cooking time.
Drain the water by draining the wheat in a colander.
Unlike rice, there is no need to rinse it. Place the cereal back into the pan.
Now for the kutya, let’s prepare the remaining ingredients – poppy seeds, nuts and raisins. Fill the poppy seed with cold water. Place in a colander lined with gauze and let the water drain.
Place the washed poppy seeds into a pan of boiling water. Cover with a lid. Leave for about 20 minutes. Steamed poppy seeds will become more aromatic and soft. Drain it again in a colander lined with gauze. To grind poppy seeds, you can use a mortar as they did in the old days, or grind it in a blender bowl or in a coffee grinder. Add poppy seeds to kutya.
Fry the walnut kernels in a dry frying pan for about 2 minutes. Chop them with a knife, but not too finely.
Nuts should be felt in the Christmas wheat cake. Add chopped walnuts to kutia.
Wash the raisins. Place it in a bowl of hot water. Leave for 10 minutes. Drain the water.
Place the raisins in the pan with the rest of the ingredients.
Now the kutya needs to be mixed and seasoned with uzvar.
Uzvar (brew) is nothing more than a concentrated dried fruit to which honey is added. In the old days, uzvar was prepared from home-dried pears, apples, plums, grapes, apricots, and rose hips.
The word “uzvar” comes from the verb “to brew.” The prepared fruits were dipped into boiling water, and after boiling, the pan was immediately removed from the heat. Honey must be added to the finished hot uzvar, after which the pan with the uzvar is closed with a lid and cooled at room temperature for 3-5 hours. Prepare the uzvar.
Add honey to the hot uzvar. Stir.
Pour the uzvar into the pan with the kutia.
Stir. The amount of added uzvar can be adjusted at your discretion. Christmas kutia made from wheat with poppy seeds and walnuts is ready. It is advisable to serve it on the table after cooling, since once it has been soaked in all the ingredients included in its composition, it will become much tastier. I think that many will agree that on the second day any kutia becomes even more delicious than the day before. I wish you a pleasant and merry Christmas holiday. I will be glad if this Christmas wheat kutia recipe will be useful to you.
Kutya made from wheat. Photo
Kutya is the most favorite dish among children at Christmas, and if this traditional Christmas dish is served in an original way, you can surprise the invited guests.
On the holiday, housewives set a festive table and try to prepare everything that is most delicious and satisfying. So, for example, it would be appropriate for the Christmas table, or hearty. Of course, kutia takes center stage at the Christmas meal. This dish is most often prepared from wheat, but popular options are made from rice, pearl barley, and less commonly prepared from spelled.
This dish is not only tasty, but also very healthy, since every component included in kutya is extremely healthy - honey, wheat, raisins, nuts, dried fruits.
Well, preparing Christmas kutia is not difficult. The main thing is that the mood is good. Have a good mood and Merry Christmas!
Christmas kutia made from wheat
What do you need:
- glass of wheat
- a glass of shelled walnuts (or any other, you can use a mixture),
- 120 g raisins,
- 100 poppy,
- honey - to taste.
How to cook kutya for Christmas from wheat - step-by-step recipe with photos:
Today we will prepare wheat kutia. For kutia it is better to use walnut kernels. If you don't have them, you can get by with peanuts.
You can add hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, if you have them. The ratio of components can be taken to your taste: you can take more of something, less of something.
We'll sort out the wheat. If there are low-quality grains, we will remove them.
Pour water over the wheat and let it cook. After boiling, reduce the heat. Cook the wheat under the lid for a long time until it is ready.
Place the finished wheat in a colander and rinse.
Steam the raisins with boiling water.
We will also steam the poppy seeds, and then pass them through a meat grinder twice.
Place wheat, ground poppy seeds, and raisins into a saucepan, having previously squeezed out the moisture. Let's clean the walnuts.
Add nuts and honey.
Let's mix.
Christmas kutia is ready for the festive table! Merry Family Christmas!
Christmas kutia recipe made from rice and raisins
Ingredients:
- rice – 150 g;
- poppy – 30 g;
- dried apricots – 6 pcs.;
- raisins – 30 g;
- nuts – 3 pcs.;
- honey - to your taste;
- sugar – 60 g;
- other dried fruits (dried cranberries, currants, cherries if desired)
- mint for decoration.
How to cook Christmas kutya from rice with raisins - step-by-step instructions:
Pour washed rice into 500 ml boiling water, cook over low heat for 20 minutes, then drain in a colander.
Pour boiling water over the poppy seeds for one hour, then drain the water and mash with sugar until milk appears. Pour boiling water over raisins and dried apricots for 15 minutes, then squeeze. Grind dried apricots for kutya.
Chop the nuts and dry in a frying pan or in the oven.
Combine rice with raisins and dried apricots.
Add previously prepared poppy seeds.
Place honey and nuts in the middle.
complete the decoration with mint leaves or decorate the Christmas cake at your discretion. That's it, just like that, the most delicious kutia for Christmas with honey and nuts is ready.
How to cook Christmas sochivo with uzvar - a classic recipe
Ingredients:
- wheat – 150 g;
- dried fruits – 100 g;
- apple – 1 pc.;
- smoked prunes – 5 pcs.;
- honey – 50 g;
- poppy – 100 g;
- raisins – 50 g;
- nuts – 150 g;
- sugar – 100 g.
Preparation:
Boil the wheat. Cook compote (uzvar) with the addition of sugar from dried fruits, apples and prunes.
Pour boiling water over poppy seeds for 1 hour, then crush. Scald the raisins with boiling water. Finely chop the nuts.
Combine the prepared wheat with poppy seeds, raisins, nuts, add honey...mix.
You can serve kutya in two ways: fill the kutya with uzvar and serve it on the table, or the kutya is served on a plate laid out in a heap and the uzvar is served in a jug. Bon appetit!
Video: how to cook uzvar for the Christmas table
