Christmas is fast approaching, in a moment we will be frantically getting ready to prepare Christmas dishes and Christmas Eve dinner. Basic dishes are common to every festive table, although the recipes for them vary in different parts of our country. The smell of Christmas, which we get to know in childhood, we usually remember throughout our lives and we associate it with the warmth of family gatherings and the magical atmosphere of Christmas. But what creates these characteristic aromas?
Italian peculiarities are a traditional element of Christmas table decorations
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The smell of a fresh Christmas tree is usually one of the important elements, but the main fragrances are of course Christmas delicacies. Everyone who prepares Christmas Eve dishes cannot imagine that there are no vegetables, fruit and aromatic spices in them. After all, they give the main flavor and character to fish, meats, soups and compotes. After the harvest, some of them are stored in cellars, pantries or dugouts, and some of them have long been stored in jars on the shelves of kitchen cabinets.Of course, cabbage plays the main role in the festive cuisine. Harvested in autumn, it lies in the pantry or it is pickled in jars and barrels. Without it, you couldn't make bigos, cabbage with peas, borscht handles or dumplings. These dishes are made of sauerkraut, but also raw, it is readily served as an appetizer in the form of various salads and salads.
Beets are another indispensable vegetable, if we plan Christmas borscht or beetroot salad on the table, they are also an ingredient of fish dishes. Popular vegetables include carrots, parsley root, celery and leek, and these are the basic ingredients of stocks for Christmas soups. They are also an important ingredient of various stews, an addition to baking meat, pates or fish. We often prepare the so-called fish in Greek, it is based mainly on Italian and fish. Beans and peas, although a bit difficult to digest, cannot disappear from the kitchen during the holidays. Without them, there would be no great cabbage with peas or fried beans. The gray eminence of many Christmas dishes is onions. It emphasizes and sharpens the flavors of dishes, mainly those made of mushrooms, cabbage or fish. Garlic also plays a similar role, although its intense aroma is slightly less popular.
We can also decorate dried fruit with Christmas
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Fruits play an equally important role as vegetables and although we usually associate them with desserts, they are not only suitable for them. The most versatile fruit is the plum, mainly dried during the holidays. Its great taste can be found in dried compote, in the inside of a baked pork loin or in a delicious bigos. It is an important ingredient in kutia and poppy seed dumplings. However, the staple winter fruit is, of course, apples. Access to them at this time of the year is unlimited. They are sometimes used as dried compote, addition to baking poultry, ingredient of cakes and salads. They blend in perfectly, for example, in a salad with sauerkraut. We will use a pear similarly, albeit to a narrower extent. It is mainly included in the dried fruit of compote, although it is also added to cakes or desserts. If we had the opportunity to make cranberry jam in the fall, now it will be a perfect complement to any roasted meat. Another irreplaceable addition from the jar is pickled or pickled cucumbers. They can appear on a solo table or as an ingredient of various salads. During this period, we also remember about nuts. The most commonly used are hazelnuts and walnuts, but there are also recipes that take into account other types. Without them, kutia, noodles with poppy seeds or fruitcake would lose much of their taste.
Christmas basket with apples and nuts
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Most dishes will not be without herbs. We could grow some of them on the plot ourselves, such as garden marjoram or common thyme, eagerly added to borscht or stew. We need to buy others in the store. Cloves and cinnamon, with which we season fruit compotes and various types of cakes, unfortunately, would be difficult to obtain in our climate. We can only try to grow a laurel or bay leaf in a pot, but we can also easily buy it in the store together with English herb. Both are an invaluable addition to stew, borscht and even fish dishes.
If we harvested parsley and dill in the fall, we could store them perfectly cut in bags or containers placed in the freezer. Until spring they will be used to season all kinds of dishes, not only the festive ones. Although, of course, Christmas Eve borscht without the parsley is unlikely to have the full flavor.
When the supper or Christmas dinner is over, we are happy to eat something sweet. Desserts, cakes or other sweets will surely taste great with a glass of home-made liqueur. When eaten in moderation, it can not only be tasty, but also aid digestion after heavy meals. It can be made of many fruits available to us. Most tinctures, apart from their taste, also have valuable he alth properties. One of the most popular is chokeberry tincture. The characteristic bitterness of the fruit will disappear after baking them in the oven at approx. 180 degrees. Dereniówka or tarninówka are other known liqueurs. Let's just remember that while preparing them, metal should be avoided.The fruits of these plants do not like contact with it. Rowan is equally great in this role, provided that it is harvested after the first frost. The undesirable tartness of its fruit then disappears.
One cannot forget about the wild rose. Prepare the tincture of fruit that has been previously cleaned of seeds. Not very popular tincture of prunes, may surprise our guests with the taste. Perhaps less tasty than its predecessors, but a walnut tincture is perfect for digestive problems. Recipes for it, as for all the others, can be found in many culinary books, on the Internet or in the notes of our grandmothers and grandparents.
Katarzyna Józefowicz
