Kutya is the main Christmas dish. Other 11 meals shouldn’t contain meat, milk, eggs and fat. Man can use only oil while preparing meals.
As usual kutya is preparing from wheat, rarely from pearl barley or rice. You will first need to wash it, fill with cold water and leave for half an hour. Then strain it, pour with boiling water and boil an hour on a small fire. Then add poppy seed, sultanas and dried apricots, also nuts milled in mincing machine. All pour with grape juice and add a spoonful of honey and church wine Cahor.
In the capital of Ukraine Christmas Eve does not have those ritual significance, as it has in western cities. For example, in Bukovina, and Ivano-Frankivsk region on Christmas Eve people put hay under the table – “for cattle and sheep”.
Table sprinkled with corn, then covered with white tablecloth and put garlic on each corner. They say it protects against evil forces and disease.
Before dinner people usually light a candle for the dead and read “Our Father” (Orthodox prayer).
Thick compote with dried fruit consider the second main dish after kutya. It prepared with apples, pears and plums. Some people add blueberries, cherries and raspberries.
The list of 12 dishes which are preparing on the Christmas Eve believing that every month will be generous:
1. Kutya.
2. Compote with dried fruits.
3. Fried fish.
4. Meatless borscht.
5. Cabbage with mushrooms.
6. Stuffed cabbage with rice and stewed carrots and parsnip.
7. Millet porridge with mushroom sauce.
8. Salad of beets and herring.
9. Salad with pickled cucumbers, sauerkraut and onians.
10. Bean cakes.
11. Nippy beaten with garlic, black pepper, green dill, tomato paste and oil.
12. Boiled potatoes.
