September 24, 2010

From Russia with Love: Paskha for my second Project Food Blog Challenge



I think it’s pretty obvious to say that I am very happy I passed the first challenge of the Project Food Blog Competition. Of course I’m happy because I can advance with the competition but most importantly because I have been thinking about the post for the second challenge since when the competition started. Why am I so excited about the second challenge? Because it gives me a chance to share with you a recipe that is very dear to me. Not because it is a family recipe or because I have made it many times before and really mastered it. Quite the opposite! I had eaten it a couple of times (and loved it) but never made it. The challenge gave me the opportunity to make it for the first time in my life and to do some research about it.


Paskha from the top: I loved topping it with sliced almond and little pieces of orange peel. A simple decoration made me appreciate more the taste and texture of the paskha


The dish I’m talking about is the Paskha: a traditional Easter Russian dessert made with cottage cheese, cream, hard-boiled eggs (yes, you’ve heard me! Hard-boiled eggs! Speaking of going out of my comfort zone!), almonds and sometimes other things.  In Russia, it is made in a four-sided, truncated pyramidal mold but it can be made in a cheesecloth-lined metal mold, which is what I did it, or even in a clay flowerpot (what a cute idea). The name of the dish comes from “Pascha“, the Eastern Orthodox celebration of Easter and it’s usually served with Kolach or Kulich, a braided egg bread.

This recipe is very dear to me because of the story behind it and I’m very excited about sharing both the recipe and the story.

During the summer I turned 9 years old a cute, interesting-looking girl of around my age came with her family to visit a friend of mine in our little town (2,000 people! Yes, that’s “little” even in Italy!). She was Russian, when Russian was still part of the USSR. For me, a little, provincial but super curious kid, that was a turning point in life! That was my first REAL encounter with “the diverse”. Up until that day, I had only dreamed of meeting “a foreigner”. My sole knowledge of a different culture was through the tv and through the countless books I was reading at local public library every Saturday afternoon after school. (Yes, we do go to school on Saturday in Italy! And yes I was already a nerd! A cute nerd J )

I actually made two small size pashka instead of a single big one. If you make two you can decorate them in different ways and make everybody happy!


At that time, I could only dream of a true encounter with “the foreign” and I was constantly creating entire movies in my mind about what was going to happen in that moment of encounter. And then one day one of my friends showed up at the park with this girl. Being the curious of the group of friends (and being the only one that could at least say “hello, what’s your name” in English!) I was immediately drawn to her. I could not say much more than that in English and she could not even say that! However, as every child of this planet, we were able to play together and communicate as no grown up could have done in the same situation. We spent two weeks playing together unnameable games and saying so many wordless things. Those two weeks were a lot of fun and they opened my mind as few other things did in my life. That’s when I decided that, as a grown up, I would have been a touristic guide, spoke at least 10 languages and visited all the country of the world! Of course, that did not happen but it’s irrelevant to this story J

What is relevant is that, the very same day my new friend left, I started to develop a real obsession for all things Russian. I spent months with an atlas on my desk, learning the name of every city, river, lake, mountain of Russia and I borrowed a little book from the local library to teach myself Russian. I did not go farther than the alphabet (man, the Cyrillic alphabet is hard!). As with many other things, my obsession with all things Russian faded away eventually but one thing stuck to my mind until these days: the taste of the paskha that my little friend’s parents made for their last dinner in our little town.

Since then I had paskha only one other time, while I was living in London (you can really find anything in London) but I never knew the recipe. So for this challenge I started looking around for a recipe that could be close to the original. I found several recipes in books and online but many were a simplification of the real one. For example, only cream cheese was used instead of a combination of cream cheese and cottage cheese and hard-boiled eggs were left out. But at that point, what’s the difference with a cheesecake? So I asked a friend of mine, whose grandparents are Russian, if she could find me a family recipe. I trust family recipes much more than recipes found online. Of course, every family has its own recipe, with minor variations from the original one as much as every Italian family has slightly different tiramisu recipes. But all in all, I felt this was the closest to the original I could get.

Do you want to see how it looks inside? Boy it was hard taking this picture. The paskha was starting to melt :( 


Working with cottage cheese and above all with hard-boiled eggs was very weird for me! Not that these two ingredients are foreign to me but for sure I would have never thought of putting hard-boiled eggs in a dessert! (when I told my husband how the recipe was supposed to be he commented with a loud “Ewwww, I’m not going to eat that!” but then he ate almost half of it!) And making a Russian recipe was totally out of my comfort zone because I know nothing about Russian cuisine. But now I can say I have made paskha!

Paskha
Ingredients

450 gr (16 oz) cottage cheese
113 gr (4 oz or ½ cup) cream cheese, cubed and softened
200 gr (7.1 oz or 1 cup) granulated sugar
3 large hard-boiled egg yolks, crumbled
175 ml (6 fl oz or 3/4 cup) heavy cream
25 gr (0.8 oz or 1/3 cup) almonds
30 gr (1 oz or 1/4 cup) raisins
2 gr (1/4 tsp) lemon zest
5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract
sliced or chopped candied fruits (optional)


Place the cottage cheese, the cream cheese, the sugar and the egg yolks (already cooked, cooled and crumbled) into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until smooth. Add the cream and continue to pulse.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Add the almonds, the raisins, the lemon zest, and the vanilla extract and stir until the ingredients are well combined.

Line a paskha mold or a clean terracotta flowerpot or a metal mold with a double layer of cheesecloth. Add the mixture to mold. Cover with an additional cheesecloths over the top of the paskha and weight down with a soup or vegetable can.

Place the paskha in the refrigerator with a large plate underneath, allowing liquid to drain, for at least 12 hours or overnight.

To serve, carefully invert the mold and remove the cheesecloths. Decorate with additional nuts and/or candied fruit.

Have a sweet day!

Source: family recipe of my friend Zsuzsanna

58 comments:

  1. This is a very very adorable story. Kids are just too funny, but adults can learn a lot from them. I've never had Paskha, but when I was shooting ideas around my brother suggested it. He studied in Russia for 4 months and said it was quite good. Now I'd really love to try it!

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  2. What a great post - loved the story and loved the paskha! I'll be sure to cast a vote for you when it opens.

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  3. Sara.... this is wonderful! What a beautiful memory this is! I love your obsession for all things Russian! Very sweet - Never have had Paskha... but would love to try it. Beautiful! - Megan

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  4. Beautiful photos and interesting dessert. I never heard of it. The post was a fun read :) Good luck!

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  5. I love the photographs, simply yummy! You'll have my vote and good luck!

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  6. I had so much fun reading your story and leaning what a paskha was! Who would have thought hard boiled eggs were in a dessert? Your dessert looks really delicious and the pictures are beautiful. Great job with the second challenge and congrats!

    I'm bookmarking your blog! I can't wait to read more of your posts. :)

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  7. I meant to say learning! Sorry for the spelling mistakes! and the double post. :)

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  8. Sara, what a wonderful and CUTE story! and what an impressive looking recipe to have undertaken. You totally get points (and a vote) for going out of your comfort zone!
    good luck:)

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  9. Congrats, Sara! You tied things together well with your story and the recipe. It's funny, I took an interest in the cyrillic alphabet recently and I gave up because I kept getting confused! Your paskha is beautiful and I'll definitely vote for you to move on to round 3. :-)

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  10. Congratulations! I'm so glad you've made it to the second round. Thank you too for this amazing dish and the story behind it. The paskha is beautiful and looks like it was a challenge that you met like a professional!

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  11. What a cute story! I've always been obsessed with other cultures and languages, so I can totally appreciate your fascination with all things Russian, especially the desserts! This looks delicious!

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  12. I'm glad you guys did not fall asleep with my long story. I had a lot of fun with this challenge! And I loved trying the hard-boiled eggs in it. It was a bit scary but it tasted the way I remembered it

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  13. Sara: Congratulations advancing to the next round of the PFB contest! :) I enjoyed your post...I was hoping at the end you were going to reveal that you stayed in touch with your friend. I've never heard of a Paskha. This would be a great challenge for the Daring Bakers! I'd luv to try a slice, it looks so delicate and spongy-like. All my best for the next round...I'm rooting for you!

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  14. Cristina, I guess I left you with the suspence hehe. I actually stayed in touch with my friend until I was around 20 yo. After that I started moving so frequently from country to country and from continent to continent that our updates became very infrequent...sad, I know :(

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  15. Lovely story! I've never had Paskha but yours looks delicious. Family recipes are the best!

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  16. Congrats! So glad you got to make this for us, I've never had Paskha, but am familiar with the Orthdox holidays. I'm going to have to ask my husbands family if they have a recipe. But at least I have yours now.
    -Gina-

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  17. What a wonderful dish! I have never heard of this before..so I learned quite a bit! This is my first time visiting your blog too, and I'm very happy that I found it! You are doing some great things. The best of luck in the competition!

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  18. Very nice. I also had an obsession with things Russian as a kid, then it went away. I had never heard of this dish. What you made looks absolutely beautiful. Congratulations on moving on to the next challenge.

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  19. Congrats on going to the next round. This is a great post! I was thinking of going Russian too for round #2 (but I didn't move on, sigh)...but this dessert looks fabulous! It's exotic, unique, and definitively out of your comfort zone. Nice job!

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  20. Sara - I can only imagine - researching, making a wonderful dish AND packing... You're amazing!! Congratulations on making it to the 2nd round :-) Kate @kateiscooking

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  21. Cute story. Best wishes for continued success! I think the paskha sounds awesome.
    LL

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  22. This recipe looks so interesting! I have to agree... this would certainly take me out of my comfort zone... but it looks completely worth it.

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  23. Sara, what an interesting recipe. I have never heard of this before. Looks soo good! Well done!

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  24. A cute story and a gorgeous dish to undertake for this challenge. Well done, it's impressive! Good luck moving forward!

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  25. congratulations on making it to round 2

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  26. have to admit i haven't tried anything russian but thanks for this classic, i finally learned one from their cuisine. congrats for making it to this round :) looking forward to more. cheers!

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  27. Congrats again on making it to the next round! What an interesting dish.. I'm intrigued as to what the flavor would be and a lovely story as well :)

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  28. Congratulations on making it to the second round and on this lovely pashka which looks professionally made:)

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  29. Dishes with a story almost always taste better :) I think the cottage cheese and eggs combination would also be out of my comfort zone. Well done, it looks beautiful. Good Luck moving forward.

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  30. This is such a new recipe to me...I love the story and it looks delicious :) Double goodness!

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  31. Congratulations on making it to the second round! That's a wonderful story, and an intriguing dessert :)

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  32. thanks for sharing your story with us!! Pashka seems like such a wonderful dessert, its the first time I am hearing about it, but I can bet it won't be the last!! I am sure you will inspire many to give it a try!

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  33. Ooo~ I learned something from your post, too! I loved the story- and the writing was wonderful! You have my vote!

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  34. Great story! I love the looks of the Pashka. Congrats on making it to the 2nd round, and good luck!

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  35. What a gorgeous dessert, looks stunning. Good luck in this round! have a great week.

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  36. I'm overwhelmed by all your support guys! I'm glad you liked the post and I really hope to inspire somebody to try some of the things I make, like this paskha, as Chef Dennis says :) Love to you all! Your comments make me very happy

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  37. i loved the story, but i have to admit the pashka looks wonderful though maybe something i wouldn't eat. Doesn't make this anything but a very nice post.

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  38. Congratulations on moving forward! This looks delightful!

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  39. Truly what the challenge was intended to be. Very interesting first hand report. Good luck to you!! Good information in your post :)

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  40. @Sara: I love hardboiled eggs. I have to say this paskha is like nothing I have ever seen, and I am extremely curious to know what it tastes like! Thanks for the intro.

    @maybelle's mom: People said that about mine, too. Strange.

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  41. haha @ maybelle's mom: that's exactly what my husband said! I practically forced him to try this dessert and at the end he liked it. I also could not believe that a dessert I like was maybe of hard-boiled eggs but hey that was the fun part of the challenge, right?
    @Ben: at this point, I would have to try yours too :)
    @Shelly @Sommer: thanks!

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  42. Hey sara...loved your post,every word, and the paskha...looks incredible,
    From Bologna, with love.

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  43. when I was in culinary school I studied Russian cooking and this was one dessert I always wanted to make! you have my vote!

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  44. Fantastic post! The pashka looks delicious and makes me want to try it! I'm off to vote for you right now :o)

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  45. Very pretty!! I love your artistically arranged toppings ;) My entry was the Indian dessert Gulab Jamun -- click on over and see!

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  46. Wow, I'm with you, I would find it hard to make, let alone eat, a dessert made of hard-boiled eggs and cottage cheese. But you did make it look good! What a challenge. You definitely got my vote!

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  47. I have to say that I would baulk at a dessert involving hard-boiled eggs, but this post has me intrigued. Even though I've been to Russia, I've never had paskha and now I would be very curious to try!

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  48. Totally out of my comfort zone that's for sure! Great choice, you've certainly got my vote! :)

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  49. How interesting! I hadn't heard of Pashka before.

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  50. adorable story!!! and interesting dish too.
    You have one of my votes. (See my entry here: http://www.foodbuzz.com/project_food_blog/challenges/2/view/869)

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  51. Grew up with my Grandmother making this every year for Easter with the Pyramid mold (though her recipe did not have the hard boiled eggs in it). Have bought mine from a Russian deli for the last several years, but think that I will try your recipe this year. Looks amazing!!

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  52. Your pashka is gorgeous! It is truly unique. Hard boiled eggs sound so strange - but it wouldn't stop me from eating it! Good luck in this round!

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  53. This is just beautiful. Looks delicious and I'll have to try it. Best of luck i ne competition.

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  54. It looks amazing! Good luck - I cast a vote for you.

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  55. Oh I just love this entry! I love your story especially :D It just made me smile inside and out. I've heard of pashka before and it sounded very interesting--and it's very beautiful! I love how you decided to decorate it. It just looks like something that would be such a blessing to eat. You've got my vote!

    XOXO best of luck!

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