Khrustyky

By WalterKish

On the day before Sviat Vechir, or Ukrainian Christmas Eve, my hands were deep into the innards of a large salted herring, picking out the bones and separating them from the succulent fishy flesh that, together with finely chopped green onions, was to form the filling for miniature doughy dumplings called kraplyky that are added to the borscht for the meatless Sviat Vechir meal. 

In most parts of Ukraine, they are otherwise known as vushky (little ears!) and the filling is made with mushrooms instead of herring, but my wife’s grandmother, for reasons known only to her, always made herring kraplyky, and we have continued that tradition.  Sviat Vechir, after all, is all about traditions, and here in Canada, removed by many thousand of miles of geography and culturally separated by many decades and several generations from our Ukrainian roots, tradition is often all we that we still hold onto of our Ukrainian identity.

So there, while picking apart the herring, I was inevitably drawn to all those memories of Christmases past when my parents were still alive and Christmas was less about shopping and presents and more about setting aside the stresses and tribulations of daily life and focusing on the faith, beliefs and traditions of some fifty generations of our ancestors. 

Christmas was more than just a few days of celebrating – it was a whole month of rituals and events that stretched from St. Nicholas Day through the Latin Christmas, New Years, Ukrainian Christmas, Ukrainian New Years (Malanka) and ended with the Feast of Jordan in late January, with the Blessing of the Waters.

We knew that Christmas season was just around the corner, when my mother started making her Christmas fruitcake, usually in early November.  This amazingly rich and caloric confection chock full of fruits, nuts and liberally spiked with rum, needed a good month or two of maturing to achieve its peak flavour, so it had to be prepared well ahead of time.  Although technically not a traditional “Ukrainian” dish, it was one of those cross-cultural borrowings that many Ukrainians adopted and integrated into their holiday cooking repertoire.

While battling with the herring, I recalled another of my favourite holiday treats which my mother only made at Christmas and Easter.  These were khrustyky - thin, airily light, crispy twists of dough, deep-fried and dusted with icing sugar.  I have had these only rarely since my mother passed away, and having finished my sloppy rendezvous with the herring, I was overcome with a strong desire for khrustyky.  My wife, elbow deep in preparing the ingredients for a giant batch of borscht, made it clear that if I had a yen for khrustyky, then I could just go right ahead and make some myself.

I am never one to refuse a challenge, and before long I had Savella Stechishin’s trusty and well-used guide to Ukrainian cooking out on the counter and the pursuit of khrustyky was on.  The ingredients were quite simple – combine eggs, a dollop of sour cream, a little sugar, some flour and a healthy shot of whisky and make into a dough which is rolled out as thinly as possible.  Cut into rectangular ribbons approximately an inch wide and three long, make a slit down the middle, and pull one end through the slit forming a twist and deep fry. 

Although it sounded simple, it proved more of a challenge than I thought.  With my first batch, I had not covered my working surface and rolling pin with enough flour, so I had serious problems with the dough sticking to everything, particularly to various parts of my body and clothing, and stubbornly refusing to be rolled out to the thickness, or should I say thinness required.  This being my first attempt at making these dainty delicacies, I also misjudged the thickness that made the khrustyky a little too thick. When deep-fried, they were more doughy rather than light and crispy as I knew they should be. Corrected appropriately and to much hooting by my wife, the second batch turned out a lot closer to the taste and appearance I remember of my mother’s standard.  By the end, I was revelling in having made a reasonable approximation of my mother’s holiday masterpieces.

I now have a nice batch of khrustyky to serve following the big Sviat Vechir dinner, and as I serve them to my now grown up kids with appropriate commentary on their making, I will do so with the certainty that somewhere up there, Mama Kish will be looking down proudly and smiling that her son is continuing at least some of her favourite traditions.