🎄 Christmas Recipes — Festive Food & Cocktails

North Macedonia's national dish — large white beans baked in a clay dish with onion, dried red peppers, paprika and mint until a crust forms on top. Made without meat for Christmas Eve, this version is lenten.

⏱ 140 min · 6 serves

Bulgaria's festive meatloaf — seasoned minced pork and beef rolled around a row of hard-boiled eggs, gherkins and carrot, so every slice shows a bright cross-section; served hot or cold on holiday tables.

⏱ 110 min · 8 serves

A festive Bulgarian winter dish — pork shoulder braised with prunes, onion and red wine until the prunes melt into a dark, sweet-sour sauce; a favourite on the Christmas table, when pork is the meat of the season.

⏱ 150 min · 6 serves

Greek Christmas honey cookies — a soft olive-oil and orange dough spiced with cinnamon and cloves, baked, then dipped while hot into cold honey syrup and topped with walnuts. Made without butter or eggs, they suit the Advent fast.

⏱ 90 min · 40 serves

The Greek Christmas butter biscuits — a short almond dough made with long-whipped butter and a splash of brandy, baked pale, sprinkled with rose water and buried in icing sugar. Whipping the butter for a full ten minutes gives their melting, sandy texture.

⏱ 60 min · 30 serves

The Hungarian fisherman's soup of the Danube and Tisza and the dish of Christmas Eve in Hungary — a carp broth with onions pressed through a sieve, turned fiery red with paprika and cooked with thick carp steaks.

⏱ 135 min · 6 serves

Poland's hunter's stew — sauerkraut and fresh cabbage slow-cooked for hours with pork, smoked sausage, bacon, dried mushrooms and prunes. A winter and Christmas dish that tastes better each time it is reheated.

⏱ 200 min · 8 serves

Dresden's Christmas loaf — a buttery yeasted dough full of rum-soaked raisins, candied peel and almonds, folded around a rope of marzipan and buried in icing sugar. It keeps for weeks and improves after a few days' rest.

⏱ 240 min · 16 serves

The Christmas biscuits cut into men, stars and trees — a dark, spiced dough of golden syrup, brown sugar, ginger and cinnamon that rolls cleanly and holds its shape, decorated with piped royal icing.

⏱ 80 min · 24 serves

The British Christmas cake — a dark, moist cake packed with brandy-soaked dried fruit and spice, baked low and slow weeks ahead and fed with more brandy as it matures. Eat it plain or cover it with marzipan and icing.

⏱ 280 min · 16 serves

The Neapolitan Christmas Eve salad of boiled cauliflower with pickled peppers, olives, capers and anchovies in a sharp dressing, named 'reinforcement' because it is topped up and eaten right through the holidays.

⏱ 30 min · 8 serves

The Bulgarian festive turkey — roasted for hours on a deep bed of sauerkraut fried with onion and paprika, which catches the fat and juices and comes out as good as the meat; a fixture of the Christmas and New Year table.

⏱ 370 min · 10 serves

A lenten filo pie layered with sauerkraut, onion, walnuts and paprika and brushed with oil instead of butter — baked for the meatless Christmas Eve table, when no dairy or egg is eaten.

⏱ 90 min · 8 serves

Whole wheat grains boiled until tender and mixed with sugar, walnuts and raisins — a ritual dish of the Bulgarian Christmas Eve table and of memorial days, when it is taken to church to be blessed. An overnight soak shortens the boiling.

⏱ 140 min · 10 serves

Scotland's three-ingredient biscuit, given at Christmas and Hogmanay — one part sugar, two of butter and three of flour, with a little rice flour for snap, baked low and slow until pale and sandy.

⏱ 80 min · 16 serves

A thick stew of white beans cooked with onion, carrot, pepper and tomato and finished with paprika, savory and dried mint — the everyday Bulgarian lenten pot, and one of the dishes on the Christmas Eve table.

⏱ 130 min · 6 serves

Sauerkraut and rice baked with onion, paprika and oil until the top catches and crisps — a lenten winter dish from the Bulgarian Christmas Eve table, tangy from the cabbage and soft underneath.

⏱ 75 min · 6 serves

Austria's Christmas sandwich biscuits — buttery almond shortbread rounds with a window cut in the top one, filled with raspberry jam and dusted with icing sugar. They soften and improve after a day in a tin.

⏱ 125 min · 24 serves

Maslenki take their name from the Bulgarian word for butter and contain little else: a very short dough of butter, yolks and flour, baked pale, sandwiched with thick jam and dusted with icing sugar. With no raising agent they stay flat and crumbly.

⏱ 65 min · 30 serves

The centrepiece of Thanksgiving and the British Christmas table — a whole turkey salted overnight, roasted with herb butter pushed under the skin and rested long, with gravy made from the pan juices.

⏱ 230 min · 10 serves

Lenten sarmi for Christmas Eve (Badni vecher) — sauerkraut leaves rolled around rice, onion, paprika and dried mint, cooked for a table that must carry an odd number of meatless dishes. Slow simmering under a plate keeps the rolls tight.

⏱ 115 min · 6 serves

The round loaf of the Bulgarian Christmas Eve — decorated with dough crosses, birds and wheat ears, baked with a hidden coin and broken by the host over a table of an odd number of meatless dishes. Whoever finds the coin has luck all year.

⏱ 180 min · 12 serves

Dried red peppers stuffed with mashed white beans, fried onion, paprika and dried mint, then baked — a fixture of the Bulgarian Christmas Eve table, which carries an odd number of meatless dishes.

⏱ 165 min · 6 serves

Oshav is the Bulgarian Christmas Eve compote of dried plums, apples, pears and apricots, simmered with a little sugar for a table that carries an odd number of meatless dishes. An overnight soak plumps the fruit, so a short simmer is enough.

⏱ 30 min · 8 serves