- 4 hours ago
In this special Easter compilation, Martha Stewart shares her all-time favorite side dishes for the holiday. From delicious fresh vegetables to traditional breads and buns, these dishes are festive, flavorful, and the perfect way to celebrate the season. Martha walks us through all the essentials, from Greek Tsoureki two ways (with and without hard-boiled eggs), to creative cookie decorating techniques, and even a special episode with Big Martha. Whether you're looking for something new and exciting for your Easter gathering or a simple side to round out the meal, these side dishes are sure to impress.
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00:00Bath buns, spice buns, penny buns, chelsea buns, currant buns, hot cross buns, all have one thing in common.
00:07They're as English as afternoon tea.
00:09And traditionally, these soft and slightly sweet cakes are served on Good Friday.
00:13My mom made really delicious hot cross buns every Easter in our home in Nutley.
00:18I had them for Ash Wednesday and then for Good Friday.
00:22Right. And they were tender and delicious and full of currants.
00:26Yes. I always asked mom to put more currants in them because she was always skimping on the currants.
00:32I also used citron from time to time.
00:35That's right. Well, here's a recipe that is an adaptation, I think, of mom's original.
00:40One cup of milk, right, mother? It's been heated just until it's lukewarm.
00:45Lukewarm. If it's too hot to touch it, it's too hot for the yeast.
00:48And you're pouring in two envelopes of dry yeast.
00:52And that's just the regular dry yeast, right?
00:54Dry Fleischmann's. Okay.
00:56And you stir to dissolve.
00:59And you need your sugar.
01:01Half cup and two teaspoons of salt.
01:03Half a cup of sugar, two teaspoons of salt.
01:09Okay.
01:10And now the melted butter.
01:12Oh, yeah.
01:13It's been melted and cooled.
01:14Yep.
01:15Twelve tablespoons.
01:16Twelve tablespoons of unsalted butter.
01:19And for flavoring, I used cinnamon and nutmeg.
01:24Oh, great.
01:25Three-quarter teaspoon of each will do it.
01:27Okay.
01:28There's the cinnamon.
01:29So it's three-quarters of a teaspoon of grated nutmeg.
01:33Look at this beautiful nutmeg, mother.
01:34This is so strong.
01:35I'm not going to add a whole three-quarters because this is fresh and pungent.
01:40So we'll see how that tastes.
01:41I might smell it all the way here.
01:42Oh, yeah.
01:43It's very fragrant.
01:44To this, we add the flour.
01:46Okay.
01:47About five and a half cups.
01:49And I'll beat up the four eggs.
01:59That is a really easy dough because it's just the liquid and the flour.
02:05Yep.
02:06Really easy.
02:07Five and a half cups.
02:08About that.
02:11This was acceptable for Lent?
02:13Mm-hmm.
02:14Well, there's sugar in them.
02:15How did we get away with the sugar?
02:18I used to give up sugar for Lent.
02:20We gave up candy.
02:22Oh, candy.
02:23So sugar in baked goods.
02:25We didn't have cakes or too many pies, but hot cross buns were acceptable because it's
02:33sort of a bread.
02:34And bread, you know, it's a staff of life.
02:38There's always some rationalization.
02:41You know, Easter is the season of the resurrection and a rebirth of spring.
02:49So bread had a very important part.
02:52That looks good.
02:53Don't it, Amy?
02:54Okay, so why don't we take this off and see how we're doing?
02:58Okay.
02:59So how many currants are you adding?
03:01About a couple of them.
03:02Okay.
03:02The more the barrier, you know, you like, I like fruit and I, cakes and buns.
03:09Oh, it looks beautiful.
03:12Take all this out and I'll get going on kneading it.
03:17Okay.
03:18How much kneading do you think it's going to require?
03:20Well, we'll have to mix all the currants in first.
03:30And with a scraper, please.
03:31There they are.
03:33And it doesn't stick.
03:37Lovely.
03:38And now this has to rise until it doubled in bulk.
03:42Mm-hmm.
03:42I like to turn this around so that the top gets a little bit of butter on it, too.
03:49Good idea.
03:49Now you cover it.
03:51So we're going to let this rise for an hour and a half, but we have one already made that
03:55really did rise beautifully, didn't it?
03:57Nice and spongy.
03:59So I'll turn it out on a lightly floured surface, give it a couple more.
04:04And I'm making the little egg wash, what's really an egg white wash for the tops.
04:09Just a little bit of salt, water, and egg white.
04:13One egg white.
04:15So now this makes 24 buns.
04:17And you can form the buns, and I'm going to brush them with egg white.
04:24And I'm rolling these between my hands.
04:27Okay.
04:28And what's nice about an egg white glaze like this is that it doesn't really add any color,
04:34but it does add a beautiful shine.
04:36And this dough is dark because of all those spices.
04:40One thing my mother is very good at is high speed, big production.
04:45I think that comes from having such a big family, don't you?
04:49Perhaps.
04:50Nice.
04:51Okay.
04:51There you go.
04:52So this here, you can cover that.
04:55Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let these rise until they're doubled in bulk and look like this.
05:01They'll be ready to be baked.
05:02Now, we're going to cut the tops of these in a cross that, who was it?
05:08Queen Elizabeth required.
05:12And so now these go into what temperature oven?
05:14About 350, 375.
05:16Okay.
05:17For approximately 25 minutes.
05:20And here is a finished batch.
05:23Oh, they look so good.
05:24And they are tender.
05:26And to make the glaze, confectioner's sugar.
05:28Right.
05:29What else?
05:30Well, we add a couple of spoons of milk to the confectioner's sugar.
05:35Just a little bit.
05:36Like one.
05:37That's enough.
05:38Two.
05:40And a little lemon juice for flavoring and perhaps a little rind.
05:46And we'll pipe this on.
05:47You can do it with a spoon.
05:49But it works so easily with a piping bag.
05:53Mm-hmm.
05:55And a nice little secret so everything doesn't leak out of the pastry bag is that the tip is covered
06:01with a piece of plastic wrap.
06:03Oh.
06:03See?
06:04Mm-hmm.
06:04So we can now decorate our hot cross buns with beautiful crosses.
06:14Yeah, right into the cross.
06:15Mm-hmm.
06:15I always used to lick off the cross.
06:18I think most kids do.
06:20And then I would eat my hot cross bun.
06:22Let's see if they're as good as I remember.
06:26Really good.
06:27And this recipe is called brown sugared carrots.
06:31So peel and halve lengthwise one to one and a half pounds of carrots.
06:36Try to have them pretty much the same size.
06:39Ready to cook the carrots.
06:42In a large skillet, large enough to hold all of the carrots, heat two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.
06:50And cook the carrots in that pan until they start to lose some of their moisture.
06:59Move them around.
07:01Coat them with the oil.
07:03So now while you're sauteing, add a little bit of salt to your carrots.
07:07This does actually help pull the moisture out of the carrots and makes it easier once you add the sugar
07:14to caramelize those carrots.
07:18Now again, by cooking, you really enhance the color of these carrots.
07:24They're a brighter orange than they were when you put them in the pan.
07:28While this is all going on, you could, at the same time, make your garnish of green carrot tops.
07:36These are very greatly enhanced if you fry them.
07:40So these are just pieces of the carrot top.
07:42And I have some grapeseed oil heating here in this pan.
07:46Oops!
07:48Watch out.
07:49It does splatter.
07:51Oh yeah, this does a very nice quick fry.
07:54And that'll be a pretty garnish.
07:56So I'll just add a bunch of these and stand away.
07:59They have a lot of moisture in them.
08:02And fry until a little bit crispy.
08:05So after about three minutes, add your sugar and molasses.
08:12That's one tablespoon.
08:16Two tablespoons.
08:19And one tablespoon of molasses.
08:25Very pretty.
08:27Look how they fry.
08:28And cooking them in something like a grapeseed oil is very good because that has a very high smoking point.
08:38Look how beautiful they look.
08:40And again, stir the carrots.
08:44Now if you left this cooking without any additional moisture, you might get some burned carrots.
08:51So I would suggest adding a little bit of water.
08:56And keep cooking, watching, until the carrots are tender.
09:02And you might add up to, oh, about a cup of water if your carrots are large and tough.
09:10So now while the carrots are cooking, add a sprig or two of fresh rosemary, just into that thickening sauce.
09:20And they're starting to get a little tender.
09:23Watch the point of a knife.
09:25Just, yep, just starting to penetrate easily.
09:28When it goes through easily, you know that it's done.
09:31Now before you turn these off, put a small piece of butter, oh, about a tablespoon and a half, into
09:40the pan.
09:48And now you can scoop these out onto a platter and garnish with your fried carrot tops.
09:57Your family's going to adore them.
09:59Here at Martha Stewart Living, we've designed some really fun cookie cutters for Easter and for springtime.
10:06A hatching bunny and a barnyard hen.
10:08And today I'm going to use them to show you some decorating ideas I thought you'd like to see.
10:13Once you've baked a cookie like this sugar cookie or a chocolate cutout cookie like this hen,
10:19and they're not very difficult, the recipes are in the program guide of the magazine.
10:22How do you decorate it?
10:24Well, the techniques are really easy.
10:26We have all kinds of unusual sugars.
10:28This is called crystal sugar.
10:30It's bigger than a normal grain of sugar and it's very shiny.
10:34These crystal sugars can be dyed to order using something that's called petal dust.
10:40Petal dust is a vegetable food coloring that's in powder form.
10:44Take a little bit of it on the end of a wooden toothpick and just stir into the sugar.
10:51That petal dust, which by the way is available in specialty cake decorating stores,
10:56will tint the sugar whatever shade you like.
10:59Another kind of sugar is called a non-parais.
11:04It's really opaque, grainy sugar that makes very nice decorations on these springtime cookies.
11:11To make these sugars stick to a cookie, just take some egg white, which can be powdered or fresh egg
11:19white.
11:19Just gently break it up with a fork if it's fresh and paint the areas that you wish to decorate
11:26with the sugar with the egg white.
11:28You can use powdered meringue for this also.
11:32Place this on your parchment-covered baking sheet and sprinkle the sugar quite generously all over the painted area.
11:43Don't worry about the excess.
11:46That will be picked up and put back in the bowl for other decorating.
11:49Just spread that all over and let it dry.
11:54Now to decorate an empty cookie like this, outline the broken egg using a number six round tip.
12:05By making an outline like this, you prevent the icing from dripping down the edges of the cookie and then
12:13gently fill in the area that you want to be iced.
12:17This royal icing is a mixture of egg white and confectioner's sugar.
12:22You can just pull the icing with the tip to cover the area.
12:30By outlining the cookie like this and filling in, you get an icing covering that's very neat, thick, and smooth.
12:37Make sure you let the frosting dry really, really well before you start to do other decoration on top of
12:43it.
12:44Now let's see how our blue and pink bunny is doing.
12:48Shake off the excess sugar.
12:50Now, with some pink icing, we'll make the nose and the ears.
13:01Some hints about using pastry bags.
13:03These are 10-inch coated bags.
13:05I have them folded over at the top and clipped with a big paper clip.
13:10This will help keep the icing from oozing out over the top of the bag.
13:14Also, to keep the icing from drying out, in the tip, each of these little jelly jars that are holding
13:21the bags upright has a damp paper towel in the bottom of the jar.
13:26That'll keep the tip nice and moist.
13:29Now I'll show you how to decorate one of these big hens with kind of a quilt pattern.
13:34Take a number three tip and draw your lines across the body of the barnyard hen.
13:45The same decorating techniques can be used for any shaped cookie.
13:51The stars and the moons, the heart and the hand, but just so long as it's appropriate for the occasion.
13:58Today, I'm going to show you how to make a delicious dish out of two kinds of peas, sugar snap
14:04peas, which are these edible pod peas, which are so crispy and fresh, and shell peas, which yield beautiful fresh
14:14peas like this right out of the shell.
14:17Some mint and some spring onions.
14:19These are really the big, bulb onions, but pulled young, this is what they look like.
14:24They're not scallions.
14:25They're not chives.
14:26They're spring onions.
14:28And these just clean well.
14:30Take off any excess outer skin and slice the white parts of the onion very thinly with your knife.
14:38And you saute these in a little bit of butter and olive oil until they're tender.
14:44Also, bring a big pot of water to a boil.
14:47Salt it generously with kosher salt.
14:51In our pan, a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter.
14:58And you can just start very slowly cooking the spring onions.
15:04And in rapidly boiling salted water, put your chilled peas.
15:10And these should cook for three minutes in boiling water.
15:14Look, they immediately change to a bright, bright green upon hitting the water.
15:20And look how fantastic these look.
15:25Taste the biggest one.
15:29Needs a slightly bit more time.
15:32There.
15:33Now, with this nice wire spider, which is really a Chinese tool, you can scoop out the peas and put
15:43them into a strainer sitting in a bowl of iced water.
15:46And so those will now chill, lock in the color, lock in a lot of the flavor.
15:52Now, into the same water, put your sugar snap peas.
15:59These should not take too long to cook.
16:03And again, they take on a vibrant green color.
16:08Draining the peas right here on the paper towel.
16:13Now, the onions are just right, getting soft, translucent.
16:20Mmm, so pretty.
16:22And you can get these right into the iced water also.
16:29And these can go right into your hot butter and onions.
16:37And you add your shell peas.
16:42Now, what could be easier than that?
16:44Fresh, green, delightful vegetables.
16:48Flavorful.
16:49Pretty.
16:50Oh, don't forget the last little fabulous taste.
16:55And that's mint.
16:56Fresh mint.
16:57You don't want a lot of mint.
16:59You don't want it to overpower the peas.
17:02So a tablespoon or two of torn mint leaves would be just perfect for this.
17:08And don't forget a little flavoring of salt and pepper.
17:21Oh, so pretty.
17:22In Greece, around Easter time, you'll find sureki, a braided holiday bread traditionally baked at home on the Thursday before
17:31Easter.
17:31And it's embellished with red hard-boiled eggs.
17:35We're using bread flour to create a good gluten formation.
17:39So into the bowl of your mixer.
17:40Now, this is an easy dough because everything goes right into this bowl.
17:43There's no proofing of the yeast or anything.
17:46So one cup of room temperature water.
17:48Here, three tablespoons of honey.
17:53Greek honey, if you're making a Greek bread.
17:57And three quarters of an ounce of fresh yeast.
18:01Fresh yeast, you might have a little bit of difficulty finding, but it's really worth it.
18:07And this is a living microscopic organism which converts sugar or starch into alcohol and carbon dioxide and causes the
18:15nice rising of the dough.
18:17So let this just sit for a moment to dissolve.
18:21And the honey is like food for the yeast.
18:27I love making yeast doughs.
18:30One tablespoon of salt.
18:32One tablespoon of orange zest.
18:35And a quarter of a cup of vegetable oil.
18:41And bread flour.
18:43We're going to use one and a half pounds, which is about four and a half cups.
18:50Now, you can weigh if you'd like, which works very, very well.
18:54Or measure carefully, dipping and leveling in a jar like this.
19:02And one last thing, the sugar.
19:05This is a slightly sweet bread.
19:08So a quarter of a cup of sugar.
19:11So that's everything except the egg yolks.
19:14Now, the machine is fitted with a dough hook, which will mix and knead the bread at the same time.
19:20And I'll just turn this on.
19:21I still have to add the egg yolks.
19:23Eight egg yolks.
19:26And reserve the egg whites for meringues, for other things.
19:32And we're going to start adding that because the dough needs a little bit of moisture.
19:41So let this knead and knead.
19:43The dough used in Sereki is rich with eggs, making it similar to Jewish challah bread and other traditional egg
19:50breads made around the world.
19:53So once the dough starts flopping around like that and comes away from the sides of the bowl, it's pretty
20:00much done, as much as the machine will do.
20:03Now, lift this up.
20:04Release your dough hook.
20:06Still sticky, so you're going to do a little tiny bit more kneading.
20:11But what a gorgeous colored dough.
20:14Greatly enhanced by those farm-fresh organic eggs that I used.
20:20So scrape away.
20:22This little bench scraper works very, very well for cleaning up the bowl and the mixer.
20:30Scrape down the sides.
20:31And this is going to make one big challah bread.
20:34And when I say big, wait till you see how big.
20:38So scrape everything out of the bowl onto a floured board.
20:46And look at how pretty.
20:48You can see the little specks of orange zest.
20:51And flatten this out.
20:52Don't incorporate any more flour into the dough because you want a moist dough.
20:56And just pull down the top here, pull up the bottom, brushing off excess, fold this in, and this.
21:09So you're making a nice little package.
21:10And this goes right into an oiled bowl.
21:16Oil with some unflavored vegetable oil like a safflower oil will do.
21:20And then a piece of plastic wrap brushed with a little bit more oil to cover the whole thing.
21:27Put this right on the surface of the dough and over the edges because you don't want the dough to
21:35stick.
21:36And put this in a dry, warm spot until it's at least doubled in bulk.
21:43So here is our dough.
21:45So yellow, so great.
21:47Now turn this out onto a floured surface.
21:50You don't want a lot of flour.
21:51It's like a beach ball.
21:55Now deflate the dough and cut it into three equal pieces.
22:01Use a bench scraper like this.
22:03It works very well.
22:05And each of these three pieces roll into a snake 18 inches long.
22:12But try to make the cylinders pretty much even because you want a nice, even bread.
22:20Three.
22:22And then you pinch the ends together and you'll tuck this under.
22:28And braid as you would a hair braid.
22:32Over.
22:34Over.
22:37A tight braid would be good.
22:40I think that's good.
22:43Now on Easter they sometimes insert a red hard-boiled egg.
22:48And we'll show you what that looks like.
22:50But I prefer baking this without the eggs and serving it with the eggs on the platter.
22:57Just because the red kind of bakes off into the bread and people don't like eating that.
23:03Put this on the diagonal.
23:05And again cover with an oiled piece of plastic wrap.
23:10If you don't oil your plastic wrap it will pull the dough when you try to remove it.
23:16And make little ugly marks.
23:18Now put this in a dry warm place until it is doubled in bulk.
23:22So now uncover your bread.
23:24This is one egg beaten with a fork.
23:27That's your glaze.
23:29And carefully, lightly brush every single square centimeter with your egg glaze.
23:37Don't press because you'll deflate what has so beautifully risen.
23:41You can brush once and then wait a minute or so and brush again if you want a really, really
23:47deep brown crust.
23:50Preheated 375 degree oven.
23:52It's going to take about an hour to bake.
23:55Now if you were going to insert eggs with the eggshells, it's dyed red.
24:00Put your bread into the oven for 10 minutes.
24:03Remove the bread.
24:04Stick these eggs into the braid.
24:07Then put it back in the oven and bake for the rest of the hour.
24:12So now here are the two gorgeous breads that we have made.
24:16Red eggs are an important part of the Eastern Orthodox Easter tradition.
24:20The red eggs symbolize the blood of Christ, rebirth and renewal.
24:24I do not suggest you eat them because they've already been hard boiled
24:28and then they have been baked in the oven for an hour and they're not very tasty.
24:32But they are very pretty.
24:34And I just wanted you to see this is very light.
24:38How pretty that would be on your table.
24:41Wouldn't you like to have a taste of this right now?
24:44Butter lettuce is sometimes overlooked when it comes to making salads.
24:47But it's one of my preferred lettuces.
24:50Its sweet tender leaves pair perfectly with a fresh citrus and yuzu vinaigrette.
24:55And this salad is unusual, simple to make and it is absolutely perfect when cooking for one or two.
25:05Break up one of the little butter lettuces as you get into the heart of the lettuce.
25:09The leaves are whiter.
25:11On the outer leaves, these big leaves, which I'm not going to use for this particular salad,
25:16they're darker green.
25:17I like the little center leaves, just about that size.
25:22So your lettuces should be well dried and broken into individual leaves.
25:27That's the salad.
25:29Now to make the dressing.
25:30This is the unusual part.
25:33We'll need some fresh ginger.
25:35And fresh ginger comes in the store like this, like branches.
25:38And we just need a piece about that size.
25:40To peel ginger, just use the edge of a spoon like this.
25:46And the peel comes right off.
25:48There's nothing easier than a spoon for removing the skin of ginger.
25:53I don't know who found this out, but thank you.
25:56It is the greatest method.
26:00Just look how clean and lovely that ginger looks when peeled with a spoon.
26:05If you were going to peel with a knife, you'd waste a lot of the ginger.
26:08This takes just the skin off.
26:11And so this peeled ginger is what you're going to grate.
26:15Now this was originally a wood rasp, which was adapted for kitchen use.
26:20And it is very, very fine grater.
26:25It acts pretty much like a wasabi grater, which the Japanese use.
26:29See how fine it is?
26:30It has a lot of fibers in the ginger itself.
26:33And to grate it any other way is quite impossible.
26:37So this wood rasp is the perfect tool for the job.
26:43So two teaspoons of fresh grated ginger.
26:47Easy to do, right?
26:49And the juice of one lime.
26:51If you happen to have a yuzu fruit, which is a citrus fruit.
26:58Sort of a cross between a lemon and a lime.
27:00It has a bumpy green skin.
27:02A little difficult to find in the marketplace.
27:05But those are yuzus that are grown now in California.
27:08They were imported from Japan.
27:10Very flavorful.
27:11Very fragrant.
27:12But we're using instead a yuzu vinegar, which is very, very nice.
27:17And we just need a tablespoon of yuzu vinegar.
27:21And a tablespoon of safflower oil.
27:23This is a great oil to use for fragrant vinaigrettes.
27:28Because it has no flavor.
27:30It is colorless.
27:31And it doesn't seize up or thicken when it gets cold.
27:36It stays like this.
27:37And it's very, very high in polyunsaturates.
27:41So it's a healthier oil than most others.
27:44Very good oil.
27:46Safflower comes from the safflower thistle.
27:50So that's the ginger dressing.
27:52Add two teaspoons of granular sugar.
27:59So it's a sweet dressing.
28:00And a pinch of salt.
28:06Just give it a little taste.
28:08Important.
28:10Mmm.
28:11Really, really good.
28:15And a little bit of pepper.
28:18Now I have three slices of avocado.
28:23This is going to be our surprise at the bottom of our salad.
28:28You can just arrange those on a plate.
28:31You can sprinkle that with a little bit of sea salt.
28:35A little bit of pepper.
28:38And now toss your lettuce.
28:42Smaller leaves first.
28:43Just toss in the dressing.
28:49Start with the smallest leaves.
28:52And arrange the salad.
28:54It's going to be kind of a mounded salad.
28:57It's very pretty.
28:59But this way, each leaf is coated with that fragrant dressing.
29:04I just don't like to eat salads that have partially tossed lettuce.
29:10And if you just drizzle the oil over it, it's not going to dress each piece.
29:18Better to do it in the bowl.
29:20I wish you could smell this.
29:22It's really, really good.
29:25Now you can make this, oh, in the kitchen right before your guests sit down.
29:30The bigger the bowl, of course, the easier to toss the lettuce.
29:35And the faster you'll be able to create your salad.
29:39Finishing touch.
29:41A little bit of toasted sesame seeds.
29:45Just sprinkled all over the exterior of your salad.
29:49Before we get the other way, we'll get it together.
29:49We'll make it together.
29:49We're all over the other way.
29:49Don't like it.
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