A New Tradition to Start!

Shortly before the holidays, I published a post about our trip to Lithuania. See it here! As we reminisced looking at the photos, my husband and I were also in the midst of planning our holiday meals. We had decided to host Christmas Eve, so it came to me that it would be fun to try and make a ‘traditional’ Lithuanian dinner!

I use ‘traditional’ loosely because we also wanted to broaden the theme to include Eastern European cuisine in general. My daughters are part Polish, and grew up helping their paternal grandmother make things like pierogis and nut roll from scratch. So we mixed up straight Lithuanian dishes with some of the girls’ Polish favorites.

I think we did a decent job incorporating some these ideas!

Starters

My husband’s family always started their holiday meal with something called oplatek.

In earlier days, you would get this blessed by the church- now they sell it on Amazon, so that says something I guess. 🙄 This is a wafer-like cracker, similar to what you may have if you take communion at church.

The idea is to break a piece, then offer it to others to break off a piece. Whoever breaks your piece is someone, superstition says, you will not fight with in the new year. Who knows! Maybe you can think of someone with whom you want to try this!

Soups. I knew that we had to try borscht, the very traditional Lithuanian beet soup. Thankfully, they sell it in the grocery store! I happen to love beets, they are so sweet and earthy, so I find this soup delicious.

Another soup that is typically served Christmas Eve is lobster bisque. So we had a little serving station with these options as starters to the meal.

Cheese Tray. Lithuanian breakfast buffets always had a selection of cheeses, and they are particularly known for something called Farmer’s cheese. It’s not our favorite, so I subbed in some more standard cheese varieties for a simple charcuterie.

Check out these little Lithuanian flag toothpicks I put out for self service.

Mains

Keeping with tradition, we served at least twelve dishes (including soups and cheeses) for this meal. With so many selections, we tried to keep them as light and simple as possible so as not to be totally stuffed from all this food.

Potato Pancakes (latkes). Hooray again for the frozen section of the grocery store. I knew I’d find pierogis here, but was doubtful I’d find this less popular dish. Maybe because of where we live but they had them frozen! I was thrilled.

This photo below is actually of a latke I ate at a restaurant in Lithuania. They are often served with sour cream and/or applesauce.

By the way, almost everything for this meal is served with sour cream, even the beet soup. So be sure to have a big bowl on hand!!

Kielbasa. My daughter loves any kind of cured pork, and her grandmother (Amma) always had fresh kielbasa at most holiday gatherings. People like it pan fried so it’s nice and greasy (not my thing, but ok!). Check out how nice it looks on the plate here.

Pierogies. Believe it or not, I had not eaten pierogis until I moved to the northeastern part of our state. From never having had them to a place where we have multiple pierogi festivals each year! I’m sharing this in case you don’t believe me!

They are big in the Polish culture, fried up with some butter and onions.

Fish. The traditional fish that is served in Lithuania is herring, something we don’t exactly love. So we replaced it with some battered cod, calamari and shrimp. Three dishes checked off!

Cabbage. Either a sauerkraut, seasoned cabbage or coleslaw is a must. It adds a bit of crunch and tartness that this meal needs. Cabbage is a staple in Polish culture. My mother-in-law always made ‘piggies’- ground meat wrapped in cabbage. A favorite of my daughters.

Potato Salad. So you already have potatoes in the pierogis, potato pancakes (obviously)…you need more potatoes? I guess!

Breads

Challah bread. This sweet, soft and delicious bread is, thankfully, on the Eastern European menu. It’s known for being served at Jewish holidays, but is a popular bread in Lithuania as well. I love this with some sweet butter. Yum.

Nut Roll. I’m including this in breads and not desserts, although some consider it a dessert, I suppose. It is somewhat sweet, but more nutty and flaky like a heavy pastry. Getting it freshly made is really important! We were lucky, someone at our local farm makes it, and it was so worth it.

Desserts?

Eastern European desserts, to me, are never very sweet, so it’s hard to think of them the way we know desserts in the US (sickeningly sweet). We did see this post about kuclukai, a Lithuanian pastry. We didn’t go looking for them, but I guess we could have if we really wanted to be authentic!

We just put out leftover Christmas cookies and chocolates and made a hot chocolate bar (see my post on this!), and that was the perfect ending to our meal!

This meal took us right to Lithuania, and brought back such nice memories of an amazing trip.

It doesn’t need to be holiday-time to try your hand at making your favorite ethnic meals! See my posts on hosting Asian, Mexican, and Greek dinner parties!

Let me know how it comes together!