Easter inspirations of the Hotel Devín****

Easter is the greatest Christian holiday, it is literally a welcome to spring and is associated with many traditions.

In Slovakia, Easter is closely connected with Christianity, but also with various customs or traditions. Today, we are going to look at various gastronomic traditions of the Easter holidays across Slovakia.

The holiday begins with Maunday Thursday, in Slovak literally “Green Thursday” when “green” dishes are cooked all over the country, especially spinach with potatoes and eggs. Good Friday and White Saturday are fasting days when we do not eat and prepare ourselves for Easter Sunday and Monday.  Undoubtedly everyone always looks forward to the great feast awaiting them, which varies greatly depending on the region you are in.

The common basis of meals for the whole of Slovakia is meat, mostly ham. In addition, this period is characterized by egg dishes, cakes, alcoholic beverages, young plants and horseradish. To the east of Spišská Nová Ves, an Easter cake called “Paska” is prepared.  In the area of central Slovakia, traditional festive meals are meat jellies, sauerkraut soup, stuffed lamb or rabbit with potato salad, as well as yeast cake. In western Slovakia, festive meals include roast goat, stuffed veal, smoked meat soup, smoked ham with potato vinegar salad and beetroot with horseradish. Sweet dishes include a popular yeast wreath cake, zopf bread, or cheese and poppy-seed strudel coated with butter.

Our pastry chef Katka and a team of cooks of the Hotel Devín**** have shared traditional recipes and we are happy to bring them to you to fully enjoy these spring holidays.

Slovak Easter cheese with chives

Ingredients:

1,1l of whole milk

10 eggs

20g of chives

1 tsp of sugar

salt

ground black pepper

Method:

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl, add salt, pepper, sugar and finely chopped chives. Mix everything up together.
  2. Pour the milk into the pot and heat. Add the beaten seasoned eggs and cook until the eggs start to lump. Then cook for about 2–3 minutes.
  3. Prepare a strainer in a larger bowl and place a cloth in it. Pour the eggs and milk into a cloth and let it drain. Then push the excess water away. Pull the cloth into the shape of a ball and let it hang or set solid in the refrigerator. After stiffening and cooling, serve the Easter cheese.

 

Easter yeast wreath

Ingredients:

375g of fine flour

375g of semi-coarse flour

280g of cool water

1tbs. of honey

40g of yeast

125g softened butter

150g of sugar

salt

1 egg

raisins

Method:

  1. Add a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of sugar and flour and crushed yeast to the water. Let it aside to rise. Put the remaining flour, sugar, butter, egg and salt in a larger bowl. Add the yeast mixture and prepare dough into which you can also add raisins. Let the dough rise for about 2 hours until it doubles in volume.
  2. Divide the dough into 5 equal parts and roll out the same long stripes. Weave the cake from 5 stripes into a fishbone tail and shape it into a wreath. Put the cake on a tray, let it rise for 30 min. and preheat the oven to 200 °C.
  3. Coat the levelled cake with the egg whipped with a little milk and bake. As soon as you put the cake in the oven, lower the temperature to 180 °C and bake for about 35 minutes.

 

Easter stuffing

Ingredients:

8 rolls

5 eggs

50g of onion

2 tbs of  pork fat

375ml vegetable broth

marjoram

10g of parsley

ground black pepper

salt

Method:

  1. On a medium heat, roast the finely chopped onion on a pork fat until it turns gold and let it cool.
  2. Cut the rolls into cubes, add the eggs, broth, chopped parsley and marjoram. Let it rest for about 15 minutes, during this time stir the mixture about three times so that all the pieces of the rolls are well soaked. Add the onion with the pork fat and season the mixture with salt and pepper to your taste and lightly stir.
  3. Put the mixture on a smaller baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for about 60 to 70 minutes.
  4. The stuffing can be served with smoked meat, roasted chicken, roasted neck or you can eat it just as it is.

 

The team of Hotel Devín**** wishes you Bon appetite and happy Easter holiday!