Mogwai Soup

Now here is the very heart of Croatian 'fast food'. Along with ćevapi it must be one of the most popular snacks you can get on the streets of Croatia. Snack being not very realistic term for it since this puppy will make you full, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Please, if you ever get it, try it with our plain yogurt drink. It's just one of those combos that is incredible and made for each other, both in cheese or meat version of burek.

Some people from back home that are reading this now are probably saying  'this is not burek, this is sirnica' or 'cheese pie', but whatever people, I live thousands of miles from home, I called it burek when I was living in Zagreb and I very well will call it burek in Salt Lake City. Unless I am going to my local Bosnian store to get it. I will say sirnica then because I want a nice piece :D

'Real' burek, some people claim, is this same dish, except the filling is not cheese but onions and ground beef. I love it. Sometimes I love cheese more and sometimes the meet one, it's just what I'm in the mood for, I don't really think one is better than the other. But there is this one most important detail about it, make it greasy. I mean, I'm not talking about grease leaking down my elbows when I'm eating it (usually if you get it on a street, you would eat this walking like you would a slice of pizza, grease leaking is not as unusual as you might think) but don't give me a dry burek. it has to has some grease to it. So needles to say, diet people, go to next post. :)

I've made plenty of versions of burek in my life, but today I am sharing my favorite that I discovered this past Fall on the Palachinka blog. I am very grateful for it because it is the closest to the real thing that I found, and I do miss this dish a ton. I am not going to mess with a good thing but just share her recipe mostly as she wrote it.

Cheese Burek

Leave it like that for about half an hour. Take one piece of dough out of the fat, put directly onto a table and flatten with your hands as much as you can. Than, start pulling it gently just like when making a strudel. 

Spread some cottage cheese over the middle of the stretched dough. Lots of  it. And before you spread the cheese over the dough, squash it with a fork. My cottage cheese was pretty watery so I drained it well first.

Fold dough over the cheese to nicely wrap it up. But cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. Transfer gently to a large plate while you flatten another piece of dough that you take from the fat.

Now, mine really didn't turn out as nicely as hers, specially in step by step pictures prior to baking. I had some trouble transferring packed and wrapped pieces of dough on top of the other, but realized that who cares? You can't tell really in the end product so it's totally awesome and not worth stressing over since it all bakes together good.

Bake in a preheated oven on 200°C until golden on top.

(She also says not to throw away the fat mixture. Put it in the fridge and use for cooking/frying later.)

Roll up your sleeves and cut into triangle pieces. :D

Enjoy salty cheesy crunchiness!

As you can see, this is not a classic cheesecake that we are used to eating here in America. It is Croatian Cheese cake, or pita, how we call it. 

Often we make it with additional layer of grated apples with cinnamon or with raisins or with both. They are very tasty in any version, but this time I wanted a light, fast and simple cheese cake.

Almost every household in Croatia has it's own version of this cake, and this is my moms:

Croatian Cheese Cake

Dough:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup milk

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp rum extract

peel of one lemon

pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350.

First mix the sugar and the eggs, then add all the other ingredients and mix until combined.

Pour half of your dough into a greased pan and bake for 10 minutes. 

Take out of the oven and pour cheese filing on top and bake for 15 minutes, then take it out and pour the rest of the dough on top. Bake for 25 more minutes.

Cheese Filling:

2 lbs small curd cottage cheese

1 egg

1/3 cup sugar + 3 tbsp honey (or 1/2 cup sugar)

Drain the cheese well before blending it with egg and sugar. If desired you could ad another 1/2 tsp of rum extract to the filling.

Let the cake cool completely and then sprinkle with powdered sugar before cutting.

So I had this can of dulce de leche for a while. And I love dulche de leche, but never cook with it. And I seriously considered making my own for this recipe since I had condensed milk home too. But is it really necessary? Sometimes it is OK to let life make it a little bit easier. I will make my own some other time, promise.

I used recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours, this time I did it in a 8 inch spring form pan and made it little more thicker, I wanted it a bit more "doughy", you can make it thinner or thicker, depending what you like.

Dulce De Leche Banana Tart

Sweet Tart Dough by Dorie Greenspan

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (4 1/2 ounces) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg yolk

To make the dough: 

Put the flour, confectioners' sugar and salt in the work-bowl of a food processor and pulse a couple of times to combine.  Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is cut in coarsely - you'll have pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and pea-size pieces and that's just fine.  Stir the egg, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition.  When the egg is in, process in long pulses - about 10 seconds each - until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds.  Just before your reaches this clumpy stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change - heads up.  Turn the dough out onto a work surface.

Very lightly and sparingly - make that very, very lightly and sparingly - knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing.

If you want to press the dough into a tart pan, now is the time to do it. 

If you want to chill the dough and roll it out later (doable, but fussier than pressing), gather the dough into a ball (you might have to use a little more pressure than you used to mix in dry bits, because you do want the ball to be just this side of cohesive), flatten it into a disk, wrap it well and chill it for at least 2 hours or for up to 1 day.

To make a press-in crust:  

Butter the tart pan and press the dough evenly along the bottom and up the sides of the pan.  Don't be stingy - you want a crust with a little heft because you want to be able to both taste and feel it.  Also, don't be too heavy-handed - you want to press the crust in so that the pieces cling to one another and knit together when baked, but you don't want to press so hard that the crust loses its crumbly 'shortbreadish' texture.  Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

To partially bake the crust (for this recipe):  Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and fit the foil tightly against the crust.  Bake the crust 15 minutes, then carefully remove the foil.  If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon.  Bake for another 3 to 5 minutes, then transfer the crust to a cooling rack; keep it in its pan.

Pastry Cream:

1 cup + 2 tbsp of milk

3 egg yolks

3 tbsp of butter

1/4 cup of flour

8 tbsp of sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract

Blend sugar with egg yolks and then add the vanilla extract, flour and half of the milk. Blend.

Bring the other half of the milk to a boil and then add to the egg yolk mix. 

Put everything into a heat proof bowl over a boiling pot of water and mix constantly until it thickens like a pudding. 

Remove from the heat and mix in the butter, until combined. 

Pour in the tart shell making sure you leave enough room for sliced bananas and dulce de leche.

Arrange sliced bananas on top and pour some dulce de leche over the bananas. 

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes on 375 until dulce de leche is starting to caramelize. 

Sprinkle with some nuts, I used chopped hazelnuts.

Hope you enjoy this! Warning, it is pretty sweet....but if you like dulce de leche, you already know this! I put some whipped cream on top too!

Here is one of my favorite pastas and also one of the quickest ones you can make. From start to finish it's about ten minutes, it is simple and really delicious. I started making these back home as a quick meal when I was probably around 13, and we've all been making it ever sense. The key to it is lots of black pepper. If you don't like lots of pepper,  it's still yummy enough with just a pinch or two, but to me it doesn't have that awesome flavor and kick that I like without it. 

Anyway, it has like five ingredients and it's done in five minutes. This one is a no brainer for me. If you want to get really fancy with it you could try adding some sauteed mushrooms or onions with it, it would make it even heartier, but I like it's simplicity like this.

Creamy Bacon Pasta

1 package of your favorite pasta, cooked al dente

*I used regular Barilla Spaghetti, I also love linguini fini or linguini for this, homemade would be best of course, but it kind of defeats the quick 10 minute meal idea :)

7 or 8 slices of  bacon, chopped in 1/2" pieces

3/4 cup of sour cream

1 cup of half and half

1/2 cup of parmigiano reggiano, plus some extra for garnish

salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper

* for a nicer presentation, sometimes when I'm making this dish I reserve a few pieces of bacon on the side that I cook a little more crispy and use it as extra garnish with the parmigiano reggiano

Bring salted water to a boil and cook your pasta al dente, according to the package. While the pasta is cooking, start frying the bacon on the pan where you will toss the pasta in. Once it is nice and cooked, not quite crispy, pour half and half over it and then after a minute add the sour cream and parmigiano reggiano.

Season with sale and pepper, I put at least a tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper or even more. I really put a lot, please season it according to your taste, though. 

Cook for a few more minutes and then add about a 1/4 cup of nice and starchy spaghetti water to the sauce. 

Strain your spaghetti and toss in the sauce, garnish with some more freshly grated parmigiano reggiano.

Bon appetit!

Ok, I'm late, I missed actual Easter, but I still want to share this beautiful Croatian Easter bread. Some people call it sirnica and some call it pinca. But to explain it in most simple way, it is aromatic sweet bread similar to a more dense brioche. 

We eat it only around Easter and it is my favorite breakfast thing ever. OK, it shares the first spot with spice bagles, those two things are my favorite things to eat for breakfast. Just give me a warm cup of cocoa or coffee and it's bliss. I always say that this year I will make one or the other in the middle of the summer because I crave it so much, but I can't. It would be wrong. They are to be eaten at their designated holiday times and it would make them less special if I made it whenever I want to. I am weird like that.

Croatian Easter Bread Pinca (Sirnica)

7 cups of flour

2 1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast

pinch of salt

1 1/2   cups of sugar + 2 Tbsp 

*if you have some vanilla sugar replace 2 Tbsp of regular sugar with vanilla sugar

6 egg yolks

1 whole egg

peel of 2 lemons

peel of 2 oranges

*not necessary, but I also have extract oil from lemon and orange and add a few drops of each for extra flavor)

2 tsp of rum extract

1 Tbsp of rum

1 Tbsp of Maraschino Liqueur (this is not easy to find, you can sub with cherry liqueur or skip it)

2 tsp of anise extract

*if you have it is nice to add a tablespoon of rose water

2 sticks of butter, melted and cooled

3 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil

about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of warmed milk

cubed sugar

1 beaten egg

Mix the flour, yeast and pinch of salt in a stand up mixer. On a side, mix sugar with the eggs, all of the extracts and liqueur, melted butter and oil and peels of lemons and oranges. 

Add the egg mixture to the flour while mixing on medium and start adding milk. You want the dough to start forming a ball, don't put too much milk but you don't want it to be too dry or firm either, you kind of have to eyeball it. Beat with the bread attachment for about five minutes then take the dough out on a nicely floured surface. Knead for a minute and then put into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap so it doesn't form crust. 

I warm my oven on the lowest setting 150 F, turn it off and then leave the doors open a little bit with the dough inside left to rise until it doubles in size. If you have a little lower setting it would be better and then you don't have to leave the oven open. You can certainly leave it outside in a warm spot to proof, but it will take longer. With the oven it takes about 1 1/2  to 2 hours, it is a 'heavy' dough.

Once the dough is doubled in size divide it in 4 equal parts and form balls. Let them proof again for about half an hour in a like warm oven or a little bit longer outside. 

Half way through the last rising you will score the balls with scissors. Make a 3 star cut.

When ready to bake, take your beaten egg and brush each ball on the outside, avoiding the insides of the scored areas. Then crush up roughly some of the sugar cubes and sprinkle on top.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes on 350. You want a nicely dark brown outside and lighter yellowish scored parts.

I love to eat hot breads even though many people say they should cool of first, this one I would agree on that, let it cool almost completely before trying it, it is best in the following days anyway.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter!