Kutia: the Christmas Eve dessert of wheat, poppy seed and honey
One of the oldest Christmas Eve dishes, traditional above all in Poland's former eastern borderlands: cooked wheat berries folded into poppy seed ground three times, with honey, raisins, walnuts and candied orange peel. By tradition every element means something — the grain life, the poppy plenty, the honey sweetness and good fortune. The wheat soaks overnight, the poppy seed is scalded in milk, and the whole thing rests for hours before it is eaten.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Wheat soaking 720 min
- Wheat cooking 120 min
- Poppy seed scalding 90 min
- Combining 25 min
- Resting 240 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSoak the wheat overnight
Rinse the wheat and cover with cold water for 12 hours (or overnight). The grain absorbs water and cooks faster, and more importantly it cooks evenly, with no hard centres.
Ingredients: 250 g hulled wheat berries for kutia · 1500 ml water · 1 pinch salt
TipBuy <b>hulled wheat sold for kutia</b>. Ordinary grain with the husk on has to be pounded in a mortar the old way; the ready kind saves a lot of work.
Twelve hours in cold waterCook the wheat
Drain, cover with fresh water and a pinch of salt and simmer covered 90–120 minutes, until the grains are tender and some have split. Drain and cool completely. Check every half hour: the time depends on the variety and the age of the grain.
TipThe grain should be soft but still separate, not cooked down to porridge. Kutia made from collapsed wheat loses its character.
Two hours, grains tender and separateScald the poppy seed
Rinse the poppy seed in a fine sieve. Bring the milk to the boil, add the seed, cook 10 minutes, then cover and leave 80 minutes. Drain in a fine sieve and press dry.
Ingredients: 250 g blue poppy seeds · 500 ml milk · 6 tbsp honey · 2 tbsp sugar
Ten minutes' boil, then coveredGrind the poppy seed three times
Pass the drained seed through a grinder on the finest plate three times. The first pass is grey and gritty, the third dark and creamy — only then is it ready. The test: rubbed between your fingers it should be smooth, with no grit.
TipThis is the most important step in the recipe. Under-ground poppy seed makes kutia crunch between the teeth and taste dry, however much honey goes in.
Three passes through the finest platePrepare the fruit and nuts
Cover the raisins with rum or warm water for 15 minutes and drain. Chop the walnuts roughly, toast the almonds in a dry pan 3 minutes, chop the candied peel finely.
Ingredients: 100 g raisins · 100 g walnuts · 50 g flaked almonds · 50 g candied orange peel · 2 tbsp rum or spirit
Raisins in rum, almonds toastedCombine and sweeten
In a large bowl mix the cold wheat, poppy seed mass, honey, sugar and all the fruit and nuts. Fold thoroughly until the poppy seed coats every grain. Taste: kutia should be clearly sweet and moist. Too dry? A tablespoon of milk or two more of honey.
The poppy seed must coat every grainRest for hours
Cover and refrigerate 4 hours, ideally overnight: the wheat absorbs the honey and poppy seed and the flavours marry. Serve chilled, in glass dishes. Keeps 4 days in the fridge.
Four hours, a night is better
Before you start
Lenten version
Scald the poppy seed in water instead of milk and leave out the sugar, keeping only the honey. This is how kutia was made in homes where Christmas Eve was a strict fast, the borderlands included.
With pearl barley
250 g pearl barley cooked until tender, about 30–40 minutes, instead of wheat. A variant found in Podlasie among other places; faster and less temperamental.
How much honey
Six tablespoons is the starting point. Buckwheat honey gives a dark, assertive kutia, lime honey a delicate one. Sweeten after combining, never before: poppy seed and wheat are not sweet on their own and it is easy to overshoot.
