The Nordics and the Baltic · Volume 25, Rye, Manor and the Fast Night Table
Kūčiukai and aguonpienis
Lithuania
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Hands on 1 hour · Waiting 8 hours
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Lithuania, the cookable core of the Kūčios fast-night table.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8, as part of the wider Kūčios table. About 1 hour for the dough and baking, plus overnight soaking for the aguonpienis.
Ingredients
For the kūčiukai
- 500 to 600 g flour, 300 to 400 ml warm water, 7 to 8 g dried yeast, 6 to 8 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp oil, 50 g poppy seed if using plain yeasted wheat dough, sometimes with poppy seed worked in
For the aguonpienis (poppy milk)
- 1 part dried poppy seed
- 3 parts water
- roughly 1/2 tsp salt
- roughly 2 tsp honey
Method
Kūčiukai
- Make a small, plain yeasted wheat dough (sometimes with poppy seed worked in).
- Roll into thin ropes and cut into short lengths.
- Bake to a light golden colour.
Aguonpienis
- Soak the dried poppy seed overnight in water at roughly 95°C, not boiling, one part seed to three parts water.
- Blend the soaked seed with a little of its soaking water until pale and finely ground.
- Work in the remaining water, the salt and the honey, and blend again to a froth.
To serve
- Soak the baked buns at the table in the aguonpienis, and serve as part of the wider Kūčios table alongside herring, fish, peas, wheat berries and dried fruit.
What a modern chef changes
A silken, chinois-passed poppy milk and dehydrated wafers
Method
- Toast the dry poppy seed briefly before soaking it, for a nuttier, less raw flavour than the traditional cold or barely-warm soak.
- Process the soaked seed in a high-power blender rather than by hand, and pass the result through a chinois for a genuinely silken, grit-free milk.
- Dehydrate a portion of the kūčiukai dough into thin, brittle wafers rather than baking every piece as a soft bun, for textural contrast.
- Finish the poppy milk with a few drops of a dry-distilled honey essence rather than stirred honey, keeping the aroma bright without adding sweetness.