Krsna Slava is the most important family holiday in Serbia, honoring the saint of the whole family through generations. It is celebrated once a year on the feast of the saint to whom Krsna Slava is dedicated. My family celebrates St. Alimpije Stolpnik on December 9th, while Milos's family celebrates St Petka on October 27th.
The festival begins with the blessing of Slava bread. After the blessing of Slava bread, which takes place in church before the Liturgy, in the house of the host, the festive meal begins.
While marking Krsna Slava, the family gather guests throughout the day and shares a festive meal with their relatives, Neighbours and friends.
Krsna Slava celebration takes 2 days.
Since our Slava in December is under fasting days and it's not allowed to eat any dairy or meat products, we prepare the food accordingly. However, as we have plenty options with sea food, it gives us a chance to experiment and try the new recipes.
As my mother in Serbia prepare the Slava bread which they carry to the church in the morning, I didn't make it here in Canada. Also, Slava was on Monday, and due to work we decided to make our festive dinner on Sunday (day before), the evening before. However, I made a regular bread at home.
We went to the church in the Sunday morning, spent there around half an hour to pray to God and light candles for health as well as a candle for our ancestors.
Then we came back to our home and started making dinner for Milos, Marko (Milos's brother) and me.
I chose for this time salmon and trout with white wine Sos as a main meal with Potato and mushrooms on side, salad with lettuce, tomato and cucumber as well.
Let's get started:
Take 2 trays, one for potatoes and another one for mushrooms
Wash them and place in the tray
Season it with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and oil
Mix and put in the oven heated to 220 degrees
Stir occasionally until the potatoes soften and become crispy (around 40min), and the mushrooms usually take 30 minutes to be ready
Next step is preparing the fish:
Wash both salmon and trout. place on the plate and season with salt and black pepper, leave it for 10min
Prepare garlic and onion cut on half
Prepare 500ml of white wine (250ml for each recipe), spices (I use everything I have in the kitchen), butter (or olive oil), 1 lemon juice (half for each)
I decided to try salmon prepared in the pan, while trout was prepared in the tray.
Salmon recipe:
Heat the pan and put the oil
Place the salmon in the pan and cook for 3min one side
Turn on another side and cook for 3min as well
Since we fast this time, I didn't use butter to add to the Sos. However, once the salmon was cooked, I added white wine, a bit of lemon juice, spices like rosemary, parsley and bay leaf
Cook this together around 15min and place it on the plate
Trout recipe:
Place trout in the tray
Put a bit of olive oil on the top
Add onions and garlic on side
Don't forget spices like rosemary, parsley and bay leaf
Add 250ml of white wine and bake until the wine evaporates (depending on your personal preference)
Once it's done, place it on the plate
Trout Salmon
For dessert we had Jaffa Cake, which one of the very popular cakes in Serbia because of the rich orange and chocolate flavor.
I used the ingredients below:
30 tbsp flour
20tbsp sugar
25tbsp oil
35tbsp water
1 baking powder
From those ingredients, I baked 2 separate crusts. One we use as a base of cake and another one we smash and add further ingredients:
2 grated frozen oranges
Syrup of 200g of sugar and 2dl water
Smooth this mixture out and place over the first crust. Icing:
Melt 100g of chocolate and add 4-5 tablespoons of oil.
This is the regular procedure that I usually follow, however for this time, cut the crust with circled modals and made it a bit different what you can find below:
After the dinner, we went for walk as Christmas decoration was places all over around.
Close to our building is Mississauga Celebration Square, which is different decorated each year. There were so many people came to visit this place and to skate as well.
We hope you have a great Holiday Season!
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