As we stop in Ukraine on our vegan world tour, we prepare vegan kutia. This Ukrainian Christmas mainstay is made from wheat berries mixed with dried fruits, nuts, honey and poppy seeds. Read on to learn more about kutia and Ukrainian food or jump straight to the vegan kutia recipe.
Jump to Recipe
Ukrainian cuisine
Ukraine, a large Eastern European country of about 30 million people, is famous for its great soil and millennia of agriculture. Good soil combined with a good amount of rain and mild temperatures have created a growing climate which has earned Ukraine the nickname Breadbasket of Europe. As a result, agricultural products form the basis of Ukrainian cuisine which places heavy emphasis on grains, like wheat and rye, and vegetables like peppers, beets, though meat from various sources is plentiful. Different breads have long been a major food group, along with tubers like turnips, parsnips and later potatoes. While the summers are great for growing, Ukraine’s cold winters have forced the development of different preservation methods like pickling, drying and salting which are now natural parts of Ukrainian food.
Among the many dishes popular in Ukraine, you can find Eastern European and Russian classics, such as borshch, a soup made from beetroots and other vegetables, like cabbage. Varenyky and piroshki (different types of dumpling), sauerkraut, pickled cucumbers, and different stews are all popular. Holubtsi are cabbage rolls baked in tomato sauce, not unlike the vegan sarmale we made for our trip to Ukraine’s neighbour Romania. Ukrainian zrazy are another dish that reminded me of an old post. Just like Peruvian papa rellenas, zrazy are fried patties made from old mash potatoes. Where papa rellenas are often filled with minced meat, zrazy are often filled with brazed cabbage or mushrooms (though meat is also common).
Inspired by the season we’re currently in, I decided to make a Ukrainian Christmas dish of particular importance. Joining the blog’s line-up of Christmas dishes from around the world, kutia is the first of 12 traditional dishes eaten during the Ukrainian holy dinner on Christmas eve.
Kutia
The Ukrainian Christmas dish kutia (pronounced coo-tcha) is the first dish eaten during the Ukrainian holy dinner on Christmas Eve. During this feast, 12 dishes are eaten, starting with kutia and followed by a variety of foods, including borshch, varenyky, holubtsi, and potato pancakes. The common theme is that all dishes are free from meat, eggs, and dairy (though fish is still eaten). Today, this holy dinner is a Christian tradition but the tradition of 12 dishes has older, pre-Christian roots. Back then, the number 12 represented the moons of the year, later co-opted to represent the 12 apostles.
Despite being the first dish on the menu, kutia sort of resembles a dessert, though it is not very sweet. The dish is made from whole wheat kernels, poppy seeds, honey, nuts, and dried fruits. The holy dinner is full of symbolism and kutia is no exception. Wheat symbolizes renewal or rebirth, the honey is for health or good fortune, while poppy seeds represents fertility and/or protection against misfortune.
There is a rumour that the first spoonful of kutia is supposed to be thrown to the ceiling to see how many grains stick in order to predict next year’s harvest (many grains sticking is good), but the owner of The Instant Ukrainian says no-one actually does this. A more active tradition seems to be that the last bit of the kutia is left out on the table overnight for the spirits of dead relatives to enjoy, as these are said to visit on Christmas Eve.
How to make kutia
To prepare kutia, the wheat kernels, also known as wheat berries, are soaked and boiled in water (or sometimes milk). The boiling can take hours so there is plenty of time to soak the dried fruits and nuts (or toast them) before chopping them. Additionally, the poppy seeds should be scalded and ground. When the wheat berries are cooked, everything is just mixed together with some honey for sweetness and good fortune. If you have a pressure cooker, you can of course speed up the process, which is what I ended up doing; I soaked the wheat berries before pressure cooking for 30 min.
As with all popular recipes, there are a lot of variations of what you put in the kutia. The only constant is wheat berries, honey and poppy seeds. Some cooks leave it at that but most add nuts, such as walnuts, almonds, or pecans. Dried fruits are typically apricots and raisins but I also came across cranberries and cherries.
Vegan kutia
Creating a vegan kutia recipe is very straightforward. Kutia is almost vegan already, you just have to replace the honey. For vegan honey substitutes, you’d want something sweet with some fruitiness and floral notes. I often see recipes calling for agave syrup instead of honey but I have never tried this.
You can make your own substitute, which is basically a simple syrup (sugar and water) with acidity and fruitiness added in. Apple juice is a popular base for homemade vegan honey, see e.g. Garden Grub‘s or Addicted to Dates’ recipes. A few years back, I tried making my own vegan honey substitute from dandelion flowers. (This was a trend on Instagram back then.) Vegan dandelion honey is made by simmering and steeping dandelion flowers in sugar and water with some lemon. The result was really nice, quite floral and sweet but also very runny.
For this vegan kutia recipe, I used a commercial honey alternative called Hunnie (see photo in gallery below). Just like the homemade recipes above, this product is made from apple juice and adds a nice fruitiness along with the sweetness.
Conclusion
The Ukrainian vegan kutia was a very interesting dish to try. When I first read about it, I thought it would be more akin to a rice pudding or porridge. But it was not at all like these, as there was very little cohesion or stickiness between the different elements. That is, where rice pudding is like porridge where everything sticks together, the kutia elements did not cling to each other. The whole dish was more like a grain salad, like tabbouleh. (Except the flavours were of course very different.) The flavour was sweet, earthy and felt wholesome and healthy. Good addition of sweetness from the dried fruits and honey but not overly sweet with earthiness from the wheat berries and the poppy seeds.
Overall a very interesting dish to try and easy to prepare, though boiling the wheat berries takes quite a while. I can definitely see myself cooking vegan kutia again.
If you don’t want to miss the next post, you can subscribe to my email list and I will send you an alert when the post is live.
Vegan kutia recipe
For my vegan kutia recipe below, I consulted the following sources: Instant Ukrainian, Innichka Chef, Natasha’s Kitchen, Sava’s Kitchen, Olha7397, Snickeat, and Verba School.
Vegan kutia
Ingredients
- 200 mL Wheat berries
- 100 mL walnuts
- 50 mL raisins
- 50 mL dried apricots
- 50 mL poppy seeds
- 1 tsp sugar for grinding
- 50 mL vegan honey substitute See note
- sugar to taste
Instructions
- Soak the wheat berries for 4-24 h. Boil until they obtain a good texture, still with a bit of bite to them. I pressure cooked for 30 min + natural pressure release (after soaking 8 h). Boiling on stove top will take ~60-90 min
- Chop the nuts and slice the apricots.
- Soak the nuts, apricots, and raisins for 20 min in recently boiled water. They can together in a single bowl.
- Separately, soak the poppy seeds for 20 min in recently boiled water.
- Strain the fruits and nuts and set aside.
- Strain the poppy seeds in a fine mesh strainer. Transfer to a mortar, add 1 tsp sugar and grind the poppy seeds until there is white liquid forming.
- Mix wheat berries, fruits, nuts and poppy seeds. Add the vegan honey substitute. Taste and adjust sweetness.
- Enjoy right away or leave in fridge overnight to let the flavours mingle.
Notes
Disclaimer
In other words: these recipes are not authentic but I hope you will enjoy my renditions and veganized versions of this small sample of the world’s different cuisines.
