Happy Easter, everybody!

My Easter Chick and a tray of beautiful Easter eggs, naturally dyed with yellow onion skins.

Happy Easter!

Sherbet-coloured eggs dyed with hibiscus/karkade flowers, Tandoori curry powder, matcha tea and mate tea.
For last year's eggs see this post.

Marbled Beetroot Eggs

Our Easter chick and a beautiful marbled beetroot egg.

Remember these gorgeous pickled red beet eggs from last year? Yes, that lovely photo that won the award for originality in April 2007's DMBLGIT contest. Well, I was thinking about making them again this year. But then few months ago I saw an article about the Chinese marbled tea eggs and then it suddenly dawned upon me that I could use that Chinese tea egg marbling technique to dye my beetroot eggs.

And so I did. And boy, it worked! As the eggs are 'soaked' in beetroot juice for an hour only, the eggs (unfortunately) don't really pick up much of the beet flavour.

Remember to make these just a few hours before you want to serve them - once you take them out of the beet juice and peel them, the colour will fade after a few hours. Leave them for too long in the beet juice, and they'll be just purple (nothing wrong with that, of course, but they're not marbled beetroot eggs then).

Marbled Beetroot Eggs



eggs
beet juice
salt

Boil the eggs using your preferred technique (I simply bring my eggs to room temperature, then boil them for 7 minutes; but you can follow Alanna's or Kalyn's or Elise's or Thredahlia's instructions instead).
Cool under a running cold water for a few minutes, then drain.
Tap gently on a wooden cutting board to break the egg shell (I tried to roll first, but that breaks the shell too much). Do not peel!!!
Place the eggs in a bowl, fitting them snugly next to each other. Pour over enough beet juice to cover, then sprinkle with some salt to season the beet juice.
Cover and place in the fridge for an hour or two. Leaving them too long will result in simply red beetroot eggs.
Drain the beetroot juice and discard.
Carefully peel the eggs to reveal the gorgeously marbled beet eggs.
Enjoy! (We simply ate them with some mayonnaise).

The Greek Easter Bread Tsoureki, 2007

Pretty, isn't it? It's the traditional Greek Easter bread tsoureki, using the little known spices mastic and mechlebe/mahlepi (you can see them both here) and usually garnished with red eggs*. I've made tsoureki before (twice, actually), to a great acclaim from a number of Greeks, and it has become a regular feature at my Easter table.

The recipe I've used on the previous occasions was an adapted from Paul Hollywood's book 100 Great Breads, and it (the adapted version, that is) worked just well. But as a kind friend had sent me a copy of Theodore Kyriakou's widely acclaimed book, The Real Greek at Home: Dishes from the Heart of the Greek Kitchen, then I decided to test another recipe for tsoureki instead this year. After all, Kyriakou is the Chef of the The Real Greek restaurant in London and hailed as the Greek chef and expert on the Hellenic cuisine in the UK. So his recipe should definitely please, no?

Well, it failed to do that. I should have got suspicious about the amount of spices. Whereas Hollywood used two pieces of mastic and a pinch of mahlepi per half a kilogram of flour, then Kyriakou used 3 pieces of mastic (that's fine), but a whopping 1.5 tsp of mahlepi - that's quite a difference from a pinch! This meant that these spices (plus the addition of star anise infusion) didn't just give a hint of musky spiciness to the bread, but utterly and totally hijacked the flavour, especially mahlepi. And whereas I love the subtle hint of mastic and mahlepi, then too much is simply too much. Also, Kyriakou's version asked for the inclusion of six whole eggs in the pastry, which may have explained the toughness of the resulting bread. Ok, I may have slightly over-kneaded the pastry, which explains why the bread looks a bit stretched on the photo above, but believe me, this was the least of the problems. It was just, blah, as some foodbloggers would say..

The moral of the story? Well, when something doesn't need fixing, then leave it alone. As simple as that.. Next year I'll try my old and trusted (that is, tested) recipe again :-)

The read egg on the photo was provided by the 5-year old Gretel. See here for more details.

Beetroot Easter Eggs (aka pickled red beet eggs)

Click here to view the photo on Flickr

This recipe started off as a copy of Alanna's perfect hard-boiled ruby eggs*. However, as I couldn't figure out how to get hold of beetroot juice, I decided to use finely grated boiled beetroot instead (yep, vacuum-packed ready-made stuff). And just before gently nestling the eggs in the beetroot mush, I decided to add a bit of caraway seeds and a clove of garlic as well. And a little dill. And just a tiny pinch of salt...

The resulting ruby eggs are utterly pretty, especially with this well-travelled Easter chick (whom you all surely remember from this photo taken in Edinburgh a year ago) keeping an eye on them. And the beet-caraway-garlic combination yields just enough flavour to the eggs to make them special and interesting.

Beetroot-dyed Easter Eggs
(Peedimunad)



8-10 freshly boiled eggs**, peeled

500 g beetroot, boiled and finely grated (keep the juice!)
2-3 garlic cloves, finely crushed
2 tsp of caraway seeds, slightly crushed
1 tsp salt
a generous squeeze or two of lemon juice
dill, finely chopped

Mix all ingredients and put in a small bowl or plastic box with a lid. Push the peeled eggs gently in the beetroot mush, so they'd be covered. Put the lid on and place the bowl/box into the fridge for about 12 hours (or up to 24 hours. The eggs above were subjected to the 12-hour treatment).
Remove the eggs from the beetroot***, wipe clean with a moist kitchen paper. Cut in half lenghtwise and serve on a bed of chopped dill.

* See here for yet another pickled red beet eggs recipe.

** Experiments inspired by Harold McGee's McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture that took place in our kitchen on an early Saturday morning (while the owner of this blog was still fast asleep) revealed the best eggs to be the ones cooked in a barely simmering 80-85C water for 10 minutes :-)

*** Oh - and the leftover seasoned grated beetroot? Serve this in a small bowl as a salad, maybe with a tablespoonful or two of added mayonnaise stirred in..

Other beetroot dishes @ Nami-nami:
Beetroot & Blue Cheese Risotto (January 2007)
Beetroot & Garlic Salad (December 2005)
Beetroot & Goat's Cheese Sandwich (February 2006)
Beetroot Salad Full of Vitamins (March 2007)
Beetroot Tzatziki (April 2006)
Filo Tartlets with Beetroot & Cheese (August 2006)
Savoury Muffins with Beetroot and Blue Cheese (October 2006)

Easter Egg Art, April 2007

I told you there'd be loads of eggs:

Easter Egg Art, originally uploaded by Pille, pictures by K.

Eggs decorated by (from top left; click on each link to see an individual image):
1. Our friend Peter, 31 years; 2. Gretel, 5 years, using a Russian egg wrapping paper; 3. Gretel, 5 years, using egg colours; 4. Pille, using onion skins (wrapped around the egg); 5. A chick and daffodils; 6. Pille, using onion skins (wrapped around the egg); 7. Pille's grandma, 86 years, using onion skins (thrown into the boiling water); 8. K, using saffron; 9. K, using hibiscus tea (also known as karkade/flor de jamaica).

Waiter, there's something in my ... Easter basket!

The third round of Waiter, there is something in my... is hosted by my dear friend Johanna, and the theme is Easter basket. Johanna wants us to share

"with us and the wider food blogging community anything that yells "Easter!" at you, be it that honey-glazed ham or herb-crusted spring lamb that is traditionally made in your neck of the woods, a gorgeous chocolate torte that you've tucked into every year since you can remember, your granny's famous hot cross buns or a brioche loaf sprinkled with rock sugar..."

So, what will be in our Easter basket here in Tallinn, Estonia? Of course there will be the Estonian Easter pudding pashka, a pressed milk curd dessert with raisins, which I prefer to make with dried cranberries (or 'craisins') instead, as these make the pashka look like it's studded with red jewels:) Here's what I made a year ago in Edinburgh:



As I wrote last year, then Easter indeed means eggs in Estonia, but not necessarily of the chocolate kind. Indeed, it's barely over a week until Easter, and I haven't seen any prominently placed over-sized chocolate eggs in the supermarkets at all!! Still, there will definitely be lots of eggs on the table - mostly dyed lovely brown with the help of onion skins (see the photo above) - I much prefer those to the bright artificially coloured eggs. If you've got visitors during Easter, then you exchange coloured eggs with them - the prettier, the better, of course.

There's also a special game we play with those eggs - munakoksimine. First you make a wish - and keep it to yourself, of course. Then you hold an egg in your palm and tap the top of the egg against the top of the other person's eggs, trying to crack the opponent's egg. If you succeed, then you win the game and your secret wish comes true. It's essential, however, that your own egg stays intact and uncracked!!! There are lots of tricks how to enhance the changes of your egg not cracking (I've learned them from my dear dad), but I'm not sharing them here, as I've got plenty of secret wishes to make in the upcoming weeks :)

[PS Just read from Johanna's entry that this activity is called "egg dumping" or "egg jarping" in England (see Wikipedia). My Estonian-English dictionary was obviously outdated. Oh well... (30.3.2007)]

I may also have some soft-boiled quails' eggs, seated on a carpet of chopped dill and dopped with some lightly salted whitefish/bleak roe (on the left). The combination of runny egg yolk and popping fish roe in your mouth is quite outstanding, as we realised again when snacking on these on Monday night..


In addition to having eggs in every size and colour in my Easter basket, there are quite a few baked Easter goodies I can see myself making this year.

For the last two years, I've baked a Greek Easter bread, tsoureki, which is a heavenly scented plaited bread with the unusual gum mastic and crushed mechlebe. As I've still got some of those spices left, I'll be making it again:


I'm also hoping to make the high Russian Easter bread kulitch this year. My Nordic neighbour Antti made a tempting kulitch last year, and I need to catch up with him. (Antti, maybe we should have a kulitsa cook-off?? :)

I think that's all I'll be arranging into my Easter basket this year..

UPDATE 3.4.2007: Check out Johanna's round-up post.

----------------
Here are links to my previous Waiter there is something in my ... entries:

February 2007 (PIE, hosted by Jeanne) : a great Russian puff pastry and fish pie, Salmon Kulebyaka - which would also look great on the Easter table.

January 2007 (STEW, hosted by Andrew): my version (in collaboration with Anthony Bourdain:) of the French lassic Boeuf Bourguignon - which is probably too hearty now that Spring is in the air, but I'll be definitely making it again, and again, when the days will start getting shorter and darker.

Mail order tsoureki: kaló páscha

I celebrated Easter last weekend with paskha, the typical festive dessert back home in Estonia. This weekend I helped a Greek friend in need to celebrate Orthodox Easter. On this occasion the Greeks eat a special sweet bread - tsoureki. I baked a rather nice one in Edinburgh last year, devoured in minutes by a bunch of Greek students, and consequently got a mail order request to make one again for this Easter. The large and beautifully aromatic tsoureki was flown to an undisclosed destination in mainland Europe. Thank you, C.D,. for acting as a courier on such a short notice!

The recipe is based on two Paul Hollywood's recipes - one from his book 100 Great Breads and another from UKTV Food. I keep having problems with Hollywood's recipes and I'm not sure they have been double-checked properly by the pastry chef himself. His recipe for mint & halloumi bread seemed also a bit awkward, though the bread I ended up baking was delicious. His two tsoureki recipes are even more confusing. The only constant seems to be the amount of flour (500 grams) - the amount and list of other ingredients vary rather wildly. Hollywood cannot really decide whether he wants 2 eggs in his tsoureki or none, whether to use 30 grams of dried yeast (!!!) or 15 grams of fresh (it should be other way around, surely!?). And adding 15 grams of salt to 500 grams of flour seems also a wee bit too generous. I want my guests to come back for more, so I've tweaked the recipes accordingly.

For example, I've omitted the raisins altogether, as according to my Greek sources there should be none in a tsoureki (raisins may be a Cypriot twist). I've reduced the amount of salt and butter. I didn't use the red eggs that are traditionally used to decorate tsoureki - although this is strictly necessary only if you eat the tsoureki on the Easter Sunday. This time I also managed to get hold of mastic and mechlebe - two new spices in my kitchen. Although I don't know how to describe them, they did give a very pleasant and unusual flavour to the end product. You should be able to find them from health food shops or shops specialising in Greek and Middle Eastern produce.

But definitely one beautiful sweet bread.

Greek Easter bread TSOUREKI
(Kreeka lihavõttesai "tsoureki")
Makes one large plaited loaf



500 grams strong white flour
75 grams golden caster sugar
50 grams softened butter
1 large orange, zested
0.5 tsp salt
a pinch of mechlebe (sour cherry pits - about 10), pounded finely
a pinch of gum mastic (ca 2 pieces), pounded finely
a generous pinch of ground cinnamon
1 egg
25 grams fresh yeast
150 ml lukewarm water
150 ml lukewarm milk

For brushing:
1 egg, beaten

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, orange zest, cinnamon, gum mastic and mechlepi and soft butter in a large bowl. Crumble the butter into the dry ingredients.
Mix the fresh yeast with a small amount of lukewarm water until combined, add to the dough.
Add the egg, lukewarm milk and water and mix everything together with your hands.
Dip the dough onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, until the dough doesn't stick to your hands anymore (you may have to add some more flour).
Put the kneaded dough back into the bowl, sprinkle with some flour and cover with a clean kitchen towel.
Leave to rise for one hour in a warm place, until the dough has doubled in size.
[Or, if you insist, leave to rise at room temperature, go for a cocktail with friends at Dragonfly @ Grassmarket and then for a meal at Hanam's, a new Kurdish & Middle Eastern restaurant @ Tollcross. Return 4 hours later and continue].
Knock the dough down and dip onto a slightly floured surface again and divide into three. Roll each dough piece into a long strip and plait the strips together. Lift onto a large baking sheet and leave to rise for an hour, until doubled in size again.
Brush with beaten egg and bake in the middle of 200˚C oven for 25-30 minutes, until tsoureki is nice and golden brown.

Happy Easter, with pashka

Paskha, 2011

When most Brits were busy buying chocolate eggs - apparently a mind-blowing 80 million chocolate eggs were to be eaten during Easter alone, then Estonians were having troubles buying chicken eggs. You see, whereas people prefer brown chicken eggs most of the time, then this week they wanted them white - so they could be painted bright and colourful for the Easter table. And white eggs were nowhere to be found.. If only the chicken knew and act accordingly!


Paskha, 2009

In addition to colourful Easter eggs (the chicken, not the chocolate kind), another dish on Estonian tables this weekend is paskha - or "pasha" - the sweet curd cheese dessert originating in Russia. Here is my version, originally from the Finnish Pirkka-lehti, that I've adapted and tweaked a bit over the last few years. The main divergence from the original is the omission of the egg (and I can't see a difference in texture or taste), and replacing the almonds and raisins with pistachios and dried cranberries (or "craisins"). I know that orange-cranberry-pistachio work well together tastewise. But these three make the pashka so much more colourful, almost like it's been studded with ruby and emerald jewels! If you don't have access to curd cheese, then a mixture of ricotta and quark will work just as well.

Paskha, my way
(Imemaitsev lihavõttepasha)
Serves 8


Paskha, 2006

100 g of butter, softened
85 g golden caster sugar
400 gr curd cheese
1-2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
100 ml blanched pistachios*, roughly chopped
100 g dried organic cranberries
100 g candied orange peel, chopped
200 ml whipping or double cream, whipped

For decoration:
cape gooseberries
blanched and finely chopped pistachios

Cream the soft butter with sugar until light and fluffy - best done with an electric mixer. Soften the curd cheese with a wooden spoon, then add to the butter and sugar mixture and combine.
Add the cranberries, pistachios, candied orange peel, vanilla and juiced lemon, mix to combine. Finally fold in the whipped cream.
There is a special mould for making paskha, but an ordinary colander (on the right) or coeur a la crème moulds (above) can be used as well - just line them with a moist cheesecloth/muslin beforehand. Pour the paskha mixture into the mould, cover with a suitably sized plate for an extra pressure and put onto a tray (to catch any liquid).
Put into a fridge for overnight.
To serve, flip the paskha onto a plate, remove the cheesecloth and decorate.
Serve and enjoy.

* To blanch pistachios, just cover them with boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain and rub off the skins.