The Christmas Eve celebration occupies a special place in the Bulgarian ritual calendar.
All the family members come together for a holiday dinner in the evening before Christmas. They make wishes for fertility and prosperity throughout the year.
7, 9 or 11 meatless dishes are traditionally prepared. They consist of boiled beans, peppers stuffed with rice or leaves, boiled corn, pie, pumpkin, dried fruit, garlic, honey, walnuts, wheat, fruits, ritual bread (bread with a golden coin).
People believe that to whom the golden coin from the loaf falls, there will be health and success for him throughout the year.
To prepare the bread you need: 1 kg flour 220 g butter 200ml milk 130g yoghurt 5 eggs 1 teaspoon of sugar 1 teaspoon of salt hard yeast, as big as a box of matches
Preparing: 1. Bolt the flour and mix with the fresh milk and the yoghurt. 2. You beat 4 eggs with 1 tea-spoon of sugar and salt; dissolve the yeast using a little bit of the fresh milk and add it into the egg`s mixture. 3. Put both the mixtures together and kneed. 4. You divide the dough into 7 even pieces. Use a rolling pin to roll out them in circle 40cm/diameter/. The last one / 7th/ you roll out 30cm, grease soft butter and wind as a “snail”. 5. Put the “snail” in the middle of the dish you`ll use to bake the bread. 6. The other 6 pieces you put together, so you`ll make a circle of 6 pieces. Don`t forget to grease butter between them.
7. Divide this circle into 12 triangles. Wind and put them round the “snail” 8. Leave it to raise for about 30 min. 9. You bake in the oven /170 degrees temperature/ until the bread is ready.
To prepare it you need : 400 g flour 100 g fresh butter 4 – 5 eggs 300g white brine cheese salt
Preparing:
Make a doughnut out of the flour, some water and salt.Roll out in sheets. Smash the cheese and beat the eggs.Put it together and mix. Sprinkle over each sheet some melted butter and put on it the mixture, then put another over it-until you finish the sheets and the mixture. Bake at normal heat. The dish is served warm with youghurt.
Stuffed capsicum with beans
Ingredients: 20 dried capsicum 1/2 kg. dried beans 2 onions 3 cloves garlic 50 gr. flour 1 carrot 1 bunch of parsley Red pepper Salt
Preparation and serving: Put the capsicum in warm water and leave it for 1 hour. Cook the beans. Chop fine the carrot and the onion, then add them to the cooked beans. Add as well the fine chopped parsley and the flour. Stir the mixture to make it homogeneous. Fill in the capsicum with the mixture and put in a baking tin, covering the capsicum openings with flour to seal it during the baking. Bake it for about 30 min. at 200°С.
To prepare it: 100 g vegetable oil The leaves of one middle -sized salted cabbage 200 g rice - cleaned and rinsed tomato paste – 1 spoonful chopped onions red pepper, black pepper, salt Stew the onions with the oil until it gets soft. Put the rice and stir. Add the red pepper and the tomato paste. Salt the mixture ,add some water and leave it to cook for 5 -10 minutes. The rice must remain semi-cooked. Fill the leaves of the cabbage with the mixture. Put all the pieces – sarmi - in a pot , add some
lukewarm water, press with a dish and leave it in the pot. Cook at low heat. Serve the sarmi hot with a yoghurt dressing or parsley.
sprinkle with
To prepare it you need : 1kg flour 4 eggs 400 ml oil 500 g sugar 10 g baking soda 200g marmalade harmless coloring - yellow and rose
Preparing: Beat the eggs with the sugar. Carefully add – without stopping the beating- the oil and the flour mixed with the baking soda. Shape small balls from the doughnut. Bake them and glue them in pairs with the marmalade. Dip the cookie from one side in the yellow coloring and from the other in the rose. Roll the cookies in crystal sugar .
To prepare it: 400 g flour 200g sugar 2 eggs 70 g fresh butter 60 ml milk Salt, baking soda, cinnamon, citric acid
Beat the butter with the sugar to obtain a fluffy cream. Add the eggs and the milk and then the flour with the citric acid and the baking soda and also add the cinnamon and a bit of salt. Roll out of the doughnut a single sheet. Take a cup, cut with it round biscuits and bake them in a heated oven.
Dried fruit compote To prepare it: 300 grams dried fruit (prunes, apples, pears, quince) 4.5 beans cloves sugar or honey to taste 2-3 pieces of geranium
Preparing:
• Dried fruit can be soaked in cold water the night before or boil with sugar. • geranium leaves are finally added for flavor.
Bulgarian cuisine is part of Southeast European and Balkan cuisine. In its basics it is Slav with interferences from the Near East and Mediterranean. The beneficial climatic influence makes it possible to use a great variety of quality fresh vegetables, fruits, spices and herbs. It is famous for its salads, soups, cooked meals, relishes and also for its wines and brandies. One special feature is that most of the products get cooked simultaneously. This is true especially for the baked meals. Another special feature is that it needs lots of fresh or conserved vegetables that get cooked along with the meat. It uses many spices like onions, garlic, red and black pepper, allspice and laurel leaves.
/TRADITIONAL SALAD FROM
SOFIA - REGION/
To prepare the salad you need: 500g tomatoes 250g cucumbers 150g onion 1 green pepper 150g olives 150g Bulgarian brine cheese 30ml oil, parsley, salt, olives
Preparing the meal and serving:
You cut the tomatoes in pieces, the cucumber in slices and the onion into slices. Add the oil and mix gently. Split the mix in 2 – 3 salad plates. You grate the cheese and put it over the vegetables as a “snow hat”. Cut fine the parsley and sprinkle the portions with it. You put some olives to decorate the salad.
Serve cooled. Enjoy the meal!
To prepare the soup you need: 200g beef – milled 100g yellow cheese 100g carrots 30g celery 50g onion 100g рерpers 100g tomatoes 30g flour 2 eggs 1,5 l hot beef – tea Oil, black pepper, salt, parsley
Preparing the meal and serving: You cut the onion, carrots and celery in a small pieces, add oil and boil them in the beef – tea for a 15 -20 min. You grate the yellow cheese and mix it with the beef – mille. Break one of the eggs and put it together. Add black pepper, stir and prepare small balls of it. Roll them in the flour and put to boil together with the vegetables. You cut the tomatoes and peppers into small pieces and add them in the pot. Boil the soup for 10 min more.
When the soup is ready cool it a little bit. Prepare mix of the yoghurt and the another egg. Make sure that the temperature of the soup and the mix is the same, so you put it together. Add the parsley and the soup is ready. Enjoy the meal!
Ingredients: 2 kg. potatoes 4 eggs 300 gr. white pickled cheese 2 tsp. dry mint 1 tbsp. salt 125 gr. butter
Preparation and serving: Peel and grate the potatoes. Add salt and leave them to drain. Crush the cheese and mix together with the eggs and the mint. Add the drained potatoes and stir well. Melt the butter and put the half of it in a baking tin, then pour over the potato mix and make it even. Pour
over the rest of the butter. Bake in an oven at 220°С for about 20 min. The dish could be cooked in a pan turning it on the both sides, instead of baking
in
oven.
Serve hot.
To prepear the dish you need: 500g
pork meat 150g
450g
leek
600g red or green peppers 4 eggs Savory paprika , salt
Preparing the dish and serving Bake and peel the peppers. Cut the pork meat and bacon into small pieces (1 - 1.5 см.) too and fry with little oil until they turn red and then pull them out.
bacon
Cut the leek into slices. In the rest of the oil you fry the leek until it turns softer . Add the peppers along with the spices. You cook the mixture 1-2 minutes more and after this you add the meat and cook for another 1-2 minutes. You divide the mixture in 4 ceramic pots and put them in the oven at a normal temperature .They are baked for 10 minutes and after this you break and put an egg in each pot so that it can bake and after this you sprinkle the meal with paprika and savory. The dish is served hot. Enjoy the meal!
Ingredients:
500 gr. mince 2 kg. potatoes 2 onions 5 cloves garlic 1 carrot 3 tomatoes Red pepper Black pepper 70 ml olive oil Salt
For the crust: 1 egg 250 ml yoghurt 2 tbsp. flour 1/2 bunch parsley
Preparation and serving: Chop fine the carrot and the onion, then stew them in the oil in a deep pan. Add the mince, fine chopped garlic and the grated tomatoes, then stew all together for about 7 min. Peel the potatoes and dice with a size of 1 cm. Put the potatoes and the stewed mixture in a baking tin, add the spices and the fine chopped parsley. Pour on water until it slightly covers the potatoes. Bake in an oven at 250º for about 30 min. To prepare the crust, mix and stir together the eggs, yoghurt, flour and a bit of water. Pour it over the potatoes and bake until the crust turns to gold-brown. Serve hot.