The 12 dishes of a Polish Christmas Eve

Ania Ferguson who lives in Melbourne remembers her Polish childhood traditions.

Ania Ferguson has taken her Polish Christmas to Australia. Source: Supplied

Ania Ferguson arrived in Melbourne in 1982 after leaving Poland and spending a year as a refugee in Austria. She was 23. An only child, she'd never cooked for herself. "I was too young to know how to cook. I couldn't even make a soup, only a cup of tea," she laughs.

Once in Melbourne, she learned to make traditional Polish food from books sent to her by her parents. "I had to follow the recipes, and ask some of my Polish friends who were more advanced in cooking than me."

At Christmas time especially, she reflects on her Polish heritage. She reminisces about the 12 dishes of Christmas Eve and the ways that Christmas was celebrated in their household when she was young.

Ania Ferguson enjoying a Polish Christmas in Australia. Source: Supplied

She remembers decorating the tree and placing it in their front window during the daytime on Christmas Eve. She then sat at the table with her family to start the meal as the darkness of the evening fell. Like in a fairytale, snow blanketed the beautiful woods between the houses. The Christmas tree lights from the neighbours' windows twinkled in the night. There were never decorations outside, but when her family sat at the table, they could see other people doing the exact same thing: eating their Christmas meals together.

It's a symbolic custom to be open to others on this very special day.

In Australia, Ferguson recreates a Polish Christmas Eve celebration every year for her immediate family. As is traditional, she prepares 12 fish or vegetarian dishes and sets an extra place at her table for anyone who comes at short notice. "It's a symbolic custom to be open to others on this very special day. I remember my parents would always invite someone who didn't have any relatives or family around them so they wouldn't be by themselves," she says. 

In Poland, the Christmas Eve meal is called Wigilia. It begins with oplatek, a wafer blessed by a priest from the local church when the first star rises in the sky. When Ferguson's parents were alive, they would post every year from Europe a blessed wafer to bestow wishes of happiness and goodwill upon her family. 

For Wigilia, the table is laden with beetroot soup (barszcz), mushroom dumplings (uszka), fried fish (carp), a stewed cabbage dish with mushrooms, split peas and prunes, and carp or some other type of fish set in aspic with cooked carrots and peas. Savoury dishes like herring, vegetable salad, marinated rollmops stuffed with mushrooms and cabbage, and poppyseed pasta, grace the table. Cheesecake (sernik), gingerbread cake, apple cake, poppyseed cake (makowiec), and homemade liquor (nalewka), can also be part of the meal.  

Pierogi. Source: Nicole Reed

"We have fried carp, which is a traditional dish, always. It's very hard to get carp in Australia but there are some specialty Jewish shops that stock it," Ferguson says. The carp eaten in Poland is from near Krakow (karp królewski). It is a delicacy and a 'must' on Christmas Eve.

Children would get their gifts on Christmas Eve before the meal because, as Ferguson says, they would be too excited to wait. She brought the tradition with her when she moved here, and her children were lucky enough to benefit from both the Polish custom of gift giving on Christmas Eve and the Australian ritual of gift giving on Christmas Day.

I really love to give my friends a bit of me.

Historically, families in Poland attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas Day, they prepare a brunch that can last the whole day. Friends and extended family members are welcomed to share in a buffet of cold meats, salads and veal.

Here, on the other side of the world, Ferguson often invites people for brunch in the days following Christmas. "I love celebrating this with my friends. It's just lovely to try and do things which other people will appreciate. I really love to give my friends a bit of me."

She has adjusted her dishes to account for Melbourne's often sweltering summer conditions and doesn't wait for the first star to rise in the sky before she breaks the wafer because of daylight savings. She's introduced seafood substitutes like prawns instead of herring and rollmop, but the beetroot soup and dumplings (uszka) are central dishes, representing the essence of a Polish Christmas. 

She recommends truffles in balaclava for authentic Polish cakes, beetroot soups and pierogi. 

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Ania Ferguson's beetroot soup

Serves 4

Ingredients 

Soup

• 2 kg beetroot (or beetroot concentrate)
• 3 carrots
• 1 onion
• 1 small celeriac
• 1 stalk celery
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp sugar

• 2.5 litre water
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

1. Place carrots, onion, celeriac, celery, parsley and bay leaf in a saucepan with the water and bring to a boil. Simmer until the vegetables are soft.
2. Peel and grate the beetroot. Add to the soup and simmer on low heat. 
3. After 15 minutes, add the lemon juice.
4. Simmer for another 15 minutes then strain.
5. Add garlic, salt, pepper and sugar.
6. Serve the soup hot with 4-5 mushroom dumplings (uszka) 

Mushroom dumplings

Filling

• 150 g dried mushrooms
• 1 large onion
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable oil

Pastry

• 500 g plain flour
• 50 g butter or 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• Warm water

Method

1. Cover the mushrooms in water and soak them for a few hours. Boil and simmer for 10 minutes. 
2. Drain then chop in a food processor. 
3. Chop onion finely and fry over low heat until soft. Add mushrooms and fry. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside to cool.
4. Mix flour and butter/oil with your hands and add a little warm water to make a dough.
5. Mould the dough into a tennis-ball-sized ball and roll it out onto a floured board to 3mm thick. Use a drinking glass or a pastry cutter about 6cm in diameter to cut pastry circles.
6. Place a teaspoon of the mushroom mixture on one side of each circle and fold it over to create the dumpling. Pinch the edges of the semicircle with your thumb and forefinger, then fold the outer tips of the dumpling towards each other to create the classic uszka shape.
7. To cook the dumplings, add them to a large saucepan of boiling water. They'll only take a few minutes. When they rise to the top, they're ready.
8. Remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon and drain, then add to the beetroot soup.