Easter Eggs - Ukrainian Way

and recipe for Marbled tea eggs in tagliatelle nest

Fresh from the volunteering for my daughter's big "Easter egg colouring - Ukrainian way" project at school, I'm bringing all the experience and step by step process for all of you. Last year I had similar post but not this well detailed.

For this post, first I want to thank my daughter - my guest editor today, and an expert in Ukrainian egg colouring! Thanks Nat!

So beside eggs, to make Easter Ukrainian eggs, you'll need some tools:
1. kistka
2. beeswax
3. egg dyes
white vinegar, candles, papers ..

The most important tool - kistka is a hollow metal pen that has a container where your heated wax flows through and draws shapes on the egg shell. One can find kistka and wax, along with special egg dyes in some craft stores or markets at this time of year. Egg is than dipped in different colours and the whole process is repeated. The whole meaning is to dye egg in one colour, protect that colour with a wax (by drawing some shapes), and to repeat the whole process by using different colours, ending up with a colourful egg with many patterns and shapes. The egg dyed this way can be a real piece of art!

The entire process starts with design preparation. Patterns are drawn on the paper and then same lines are copied by drawing with a kistka and wax to the egg. Some easy as well as some more complicated patterns are now easily found on the internet. Some simple and more complicated designs with instructions can be found on Learnpysanky.
Eggs should first be washed in a vinegar bath at room temperature, because that way the dye is better applied to the egg.
Dyes are prepared in a containers according to the instructions.
Then, take a kistka and pour some wax in the kistka's container. Heat it over a candle.
Draw the shapes from your pattern by applying melted warm wax on the egg shell trough the tip of the kistka. Dye the egg in a next desired colour of your next pattern lines. Draw the lines over new colour with a wax again. Follow the whole process of dying and wax drawing from your pattern design. Light colours (white, yellow) are applied first and dark at the end.

Tools, Patterns and Dyes

Eggs are then dried with a paper towel and the wax is melted from the egg shells. This can be done over a candle or, even simpler, in the oven at 250 F (120 C), just so the wax can be melted and an egg is not cooked. After 10 minutes or until eggs start to be oily, take hot eggs out from the oven and wipe the melted wax from each egg with paper towel immediately.

The Ukrainian egg dyeing process is finished with this step and now your Easter eggs are ready for Easter.

Kistka in action

Whole process for one egg, from white, yellow, red to black. Ready for oven.

Some designs at the end, before wax melting. All done by elementary school children. 

Wax removing process done in the oven

Below is an interesting recipe for Easter celebration:

Marbled tea eggs in tagliatelle nest

10 eggs

6 strong teabags

250 gr (8 oz) green fresh tagliatelle

250 gr (8 oz) white fresh tagliatelle

100 gr (4 oz) cut ham or prosciutto cut in strips

for tagliatelledressing:

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp vinegar

salt, pepper

2 tbsp chopped oregano and basil (fresh)

3 garlic cloves crushed

1/2 of ground Parmigiana or Romano cheese

2 tbsp chopped Cerignola olives

This recipe is actually western adaptation of popular Asian dish - marble eggs over noodles.

Put the eggs for 1 minute in a boiling water, take out and tap with a spoon all over to carefully crack the shell all over. Put the teabags into the egg water and return the eggs. Simmer for one more minute, turn off the heat and leave to cool. After peeling they will have the tea marbling printed on the eggs.

For the "nests", boil the egg pasta and add the dressing. Toss well.

Arrange pasta in a shallow round bowl, making a hollow in the middle for the tea eggs. Put the eggs in the middle.