Christmas garlic is traditionally prepared on Christmas Day or early in the morning on Christmas Day. The hostess makes a special effort to make sure that the garlic is well prepared for this special day.
In the old days, pieces of dogwood, white and black beans, corn kernels, and pumpkin seeds were put into garlic. The housewife always tried to put as many small things in the garlic as there were children in the house. Garlic is usually made from wheat flour.
All the mentioned customs vary from place to place. In the course of the 20th century, a coin (especially of some precious metal) began to be inserted into the dough for garlic, which was specially kept for this occasion. At the beginning of the Christmas lunch, the garlic is turned three times from left to right, after which all family members break it. It is believed that the person who finds the coin in their piece will be especially lucky in the coming year.* (excerpt from the book Traditional recipes of Serbian cuisine)
Christmas garlic - recipe
Christmas garlic, ingredients:
- 1 kg of flour
- 2 eggs (yolks)
- 100 g of margarine
- 2 spoons of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of salt
- 500 ml milk (lukewarm)
- 1 sachet of yeast
READ: Roasted pumpkin and fruit for Christmas Eve
Christmas garlic, preparation:
- Mix the yeast and sugar in the lukewarm milk and let it rise.
- Pour flour (a little less than 1 kg) into a deep bowl and add one egg yolk, salt, margarine cut into strips.
- When the yeast has risen, pour the milk and yeast into the flour and mix everything well until you get a smooth dough - knead about 50 times.
- I make a slightly smaller one, because there are only three of us in the house, and I shape it as follows.
- Take a baking sheet and put baking paper on it and line it up, so you don't disturb the decorations later in the move.
- Separate half of the dough and knead to form a ball. Divide the remaining dough around it into smaller balls (which should be at the height of the central ball) and arrange them around so that they all touch each other. Let it rise a little, you don't need too much when making garlic.
Leave a little for decoration if you want on the side - braids, roses or whatever you know how to make. - Wrap the steam in foil and insert it into one of the balls. Arrange the decorations.
- Brush everything with egg yolk mixed with a little oil.
- Sift the flour over the cake.
- Place in a preheated oven at 180 degrees to bake for about 20 minutes.
- Wrap in a cloth if you prepared it too early, if not serve warm.
Recipe prepared by: Ana Vuletić
*Text taken from the book (publication) Traditional recipes of domestic Serbian cuisine, all rights reserved. As part of a printed publication, it may not be reproduced, reprinted or transmitted in any form or by any other means without the permission of the author or publisher, nor may it be distributed or reproduced in any other way or by any other means without the permission of the author or publisher, except for short descriptions of the publication.
READ: WHERE CAN I BUY THE BOOK TRADITIONAL RECIPES OF HOME SERBIAN CUISINE?
Read more:
The Recipes and Kuvar online portal is ranked among the TOP 50 websites in Serbia!
Don't miss a recipe - Recipes and cookbook online on Facebook. Stay tuned, follow the Recipes and Cookbook twitter notifications!
