Paskha, Tsar's (Royal Cooked Paskha)

History

Paskha is the molded curd-cheese centerpiece of the Orthodox Easter table, built on tvorog and the eggs, butter, cream and dairy that Great Lent forbids, so its very richness enacts the breaking of the fast. It is pressed in a wooden pyramid mold (пасочница) whose shape is read as the tomb of Christ and lettered ХВ, for 'Christ is Risen'. Molokhovets is not its inventor but the great codifier of 19th-century Russian gentry cookery, standardizing older Orthodox-calendar foods. Cooks split paskha into two families: the raw (сырая) kind, curd simply worked with butter and cream, and the cooked (заварная) kind, gently heated with eggs and sour cream to a custard before molding; the food scholar Darra Goldstein notes the cooked, sour-cream version is heavier than the lighter unboiled one. Molokhovets titles this most opulent cooked version 'царская', royal or tsar's, echoing the era's habit of pinning imperial prestige-names onto showpiece dishes such as Guryev kasha. Her №3216 is exactly that: pounds of sieved curd, ten eggs and sour cream cooked just to a single bubble, cooled on ice, then enriched with vanilla sugar, blanched almonds and currants and pressed under weight.

Ingredients

• funt tvorog (curd cheese)
• raw eggs
• funt smetana (sour cream)
• funt sugar
• stakan sweet almonds
• stakan currants (korinka) or raisins
• stick vanilla

Instructions

1. Combine 5 funts sieved tvorog, 10 raw eggs, 1 funt sour cream in a saucepan; heat stirring with a wooden spatula until the first bubble appears.
2. Remove instantly, cool on ice, stirring until fully cold.
3. Mix in 1-2 funts vanilla-pounded sugar, 1/2 stakan pounded blanched almonds, 1/2 stakan currants; pack in a napkin-lined mold and press.