Czila's Holy Saturday dinner

To celebrate the end of lent ( Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday), a traditional festive Hungarian dinner is prepared for Holy Saturday. This includes cooked ham with hard-boiled eggs, fresh milk-loaf and pickled horseradish.Other fresh spring vegetables as lettuce, green onions and cucumber as well as daffodils and tulips as table decoration.

Cooked ham (serves 4)

Ingredients
−1 kg smoked good quality ham
−Bay leaves
−Whole black peppers
−2-3 gloves garlic

Preparation

Soak the ham in cold water for the night to dissolve the extra unwanted salt from the meat. Rinse and wash it. Put the ham with the bay leaves and the garlic, an cook for about 2/3 hours. (Pressure cooking is not recommended as it will dry the meat too much). Let the ham cool in the stock, and use the stock afterwards to boil the festive eggs on (duck, goose, quail...). Slice the ham and serve with the hard boiled eggs, pickled horseradish, milk loaf, green onions and other spring vegetables.

Pickled horseradish

Ingredients
−1-2 fresh horseradish (you can get this white root in vegetable markets)
−salt, sugar
−Broth
−Lemon juice or vinegar

Preparation

Peel the horseradish and grate it (probably in open air). Sprinkle with lemon juice not to turn grey and bitter. To make it less hot, put it in a hot oven or microwave for a while. Add salt and sugar to taste

You can also buy commercial horseradish sauce.

Milk loaf

Ingredients
−300 g flour
−50 ml lukewarm milk with a coffee-spoon of sugar in it
−25 g yeast
−50 g sugar
−2 sachets of vanilla sugar (20 g)
−2 eggs and 1 egg yolk
−80 g butter
−1 coffee-spoon oil
−150 g dried or candied fruits (raisins, prunes, apricot)
−grated rind of a well-washed orange

Preparation

Wash raisins in hot water, drain them and let them soak in rum. Crumble fresh yeast in the lukewarm sugary milk. Sieve flour in a deep bowl and make a small hollow in the middle with the back of your fist.Pour milk and yeast mixture in the hollow, sprinkle some flour on top, cover it with a tablecloth and let it rise in a warm place (takes about 15 minutes).

Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Slightly beat up 2 whole eggs, mix them with 50 g sugar, rum strained from the raisins, and grated rind of a well-washed orange. Add this mixture and butter to the dough and knead it well until you get dough that has an elastic, blistery structure. It also pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It takes some time and it's a great physical exercise.

Butter a baking form. Place dough on a slightly floured board and knead it well. Roll it out to make about a 25x40 cm rectangle. Sprinkle raisins and dried, candied fruits over it. Roll it up and form a ring by sticking together the two ends of the roll. Place the ring in the baking form, cover it with a kitchen cloth and let it rise until it fills out the form (about 30-40 minutes).

Preheat oven up to 220 °C and place a heat-resistant bowl or can with hot water in it on bottom of the oven (the steam is necessary for baking the batter). Cut zig-zag forms in the top of the dough with scissors.

Mix egg yolk with oil and brush dough with the mixture. It’ll give a nice glaze to the milk loaf. You can sprinkle the top with some peeled almonds.

Bake dough in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes at 220 °C, than reduce heat down to 200 °C and bake it for about another 60 minutes. Cover dough with foil should the top start to brown.

Let milk loaf cool a bit in the form then remove it onto a tray. Slice it up and sprinkle it with castor sugar.