Festive dinner on Christmas Eve completes fasting before Christmas. Traditionally, the menu of Christmas Eve dinner consists of 12 meatless dishes.
Menu of gala dinner on Christmas Eve usually depends much on the regional characteristics and the abundance of a family. So wealthy families usually counted as dishes only 12 hot main courses on Christmas Eve and nobody counted snacks like mushrooms or herring neither beverages (Uzvar).
Traditionally, the main attributes of Holy Meal in Ukraine are kutia (a poppy seed, honey and wheat dish – video-method see here) and uzvar (a drink made from reconstituted dried fruits). Other typical dishes are meatless borshch or in some regions kapusniak (saurkraut soup), varenyky and dishes made of fish, mushrooms and vegetables and oil – are optional, depending on the abundance of family and culinary skills of the hostess.
Here are some options for menu on Christmas Eve:
- Borshch with Vushka or Mushroom soup or Saurkraut soup
- Dumplings (with beans, potatoes or sauerkraut)
- Sauces with dried mushrooms
- Holubtsi – Stuffed cabbage with potatoes or cabbage rolls with rice and mushrooms
- Herring (in oil, spicy, on apples in honey sauce)
- Fried fish or Stuffed Fish.
- Knish with buckwheat or Zavyvanets Bean or Braised cabbage (with buckwheat, mushrooms or peas)
- Salad with mushrooms or pidpenok or Salad with mushrooms and beet or Salad with beans or Stuffed mushrooms or Fried mushrooms (chanterelles) Vushka to Borsch
- Bread (and optionaly Pletenka)
- Salty doughnuts with honey or Dumplings with poppy seeds
- Uzvar (compote)
- Kutia (with video)