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43 recipes

Pispili

When the spring greens come up in southern Albania, around Korçë and down towards Gjirokastër, households bake pispili in a round tray: a coarse cornmeal batter spread over a thick bed of spinach, leeks, dill and crumbled white cheese, then baked until the top is cracked and golden. Neither bread nor quite a pie, it is cut into diamonds and eaten warm or at room temperature, often with a bowl of yogurt, olives and spring onions for a simple lunch. Albanian white cheese and most feta are made with animal rennet, so check the label or use a vegetarian feta-style cheese. The usual slip is leaving the greens wet: squeeze them hard, or the bottom layer steams into a soggy paste under the cornmeal. Chef's tip: drag a fork across the batter before it goes in the oven and drizzle oil into the grooves; that gives the rough, crackly crust pispili is loved for.

60 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Leskovačka mućkalica

Leskovac, in southern Serbia, is the country's grill capital, and its late-summer barbecue festival fills the main street with smoke; mućkalica is what the grill cooks make with meat that has spent time over the coals. Chunks of pork neck or shoulder are charred, then stewed with roasted peppers, onion, tomato and hot paprika until the sauce turns thick, glossy and fiery. This home version marinates the pork in the fridge and sears it on a griddle pan for that charred note. Serve straight from the pot with flatbread and a cucumber salad. The name comes from shaking the pan, and constant stirring is the usual mistake; swirl the pot instead so the pepper strips keep their shape. Chef's tip: char the peppers until black and blistered, then steam them in a covered bowl for 10 minutes and the skins slip off in seconds.

80 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Soparnik

Between Split and Omiš, in the stony villages of Poljica in Dalmatia, women once baked soparnik on the open hearth, sliding a huge round of thin dough under hot embers and ash. Its filling is nothing but raw Swiss chard, onion and parsley with olive oil, and the finished pie is brushed with garlic and more oil while it is still steaming. It is crisp at the edges, soft and green inside, and was traditionally eaten on fasting days such as Good Friday and Christmas Eve, cut into diamonds and served lukewarm with a glass of water or a plate of olives. A common mistake is salting the chard too early: it weeps water and the bottom turns soggy, so salt only as you spread it. Chef's tip: heat a large baking tray or pizza stone in the hottest possible oven so the base cooks fast, as it would on the hearthstone.

90 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Paprenjaci

Paprenjaci have been baked in Zagreb and the villages of northern Croatia for centuries, and today they are on the list of Croatian heritage foods, sold at Christmas fairs and as gifts in pretty tins. The dough is sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon, cloves and a surprising amount of black pepper, then pressed into carved wooden moulds so each biscuit carries a flower, bird or heart. They are firm at first, with a slow peppery heat behind the honey, and soften after a few days. Serve them with tea, mulled apple juice or coffee. The usual slip is forgetting to flour the mould, so the dough sticks and the pattern tears; dust it every time. Chef's tip: grind the pepper as finely as you can, almost to a powder, so you get warmth in every bite rather than hard specks.

90 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Svadbarski kupus

Wedding cabbage is cooked by the cauldron in central Serbia, and the village of Mrčajevci near Čačak holds a whole autumn festival in its honour, with cooks competing over clay pots that have bubbled in the embers since dawn. Sauerkraut is layered with smoked pork ribs, smoked bacon, pork shoulder and beef shin, then left alone for hours until the meat collapses and the cabbage turns soft, smoky and sour-sweet. This version goes into a low oven in a clay pot or heavy casserole. Serve it with bread, hot dried chillies and a glass of cold water. Hurrying it in a hot oven is the commonest error; at 200 °C the kraut dries and the meat tightens, while 150 °C and patience give silky results. Chef's tip: it is even better made a day ahead; cool, refrigerate and reheat covered until bubbling hot all the way through.

360 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Stonski kolač

Behind the long stone walls of Ston, on the Pelješac peninsula near Dubrovnik in Croatia, bakers make one of the strangest cakes on the Adriatic: a pastry case filled with short pieces of cooked pasta, ground walnuts, chocolate, cinnamon and citrus zest, all bound with eggs and sugar. It is served on feast days and at weddings, cut into dense, fragrant slices where the pasta gives a soft, chewy bite against the nutty filling. Many families add a splash of rum to the filling; this recipe is alcohol-free, and adults can add 2 tbsp of rum with the zest if they like. A common mistake is cutting the cake while warm, when the filling is still too soft to hold; leave it to cool completely. Chef's tip: undercook the pasta by a minute, because it keeps softening in the oven.

120 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Sogan dolma

Sarajevo's grandmothers make sogan dolma in summer, when the onions are sweet and juicy: whole onions are blanched, their layers peeled apart, and each shell is filled with spiced beef mince and rice, then baked until soft and caramel-edged and finished with a tangy sour cream sauce. In Bosnia and Herzegovina they are a dish for Ramadan iftar tables and family Sundays, eaten with bread to mop up the sauce. Where most people go wrong is not blanching the onions long enough; the layers tear instead of slipping apart. Chef's tip: chop the small inner hearts you cannot stuff and fry them into the filling, so nothing is wasted.

120 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Selsko meso

Every mehana, the traditional tavern, in North Macedonia has selsko meso on its menu, brought sizzling to the table in an earthenware pot: chunks of pork browned with onion, mushrooms and peppers, spiced with paprika and baked until the sauce thickens around the meat. It is pork-based, rich and peppery, and is eaten with fresh bread, a shopska salad and a dollop of yogurt for those who take dairy. Where most people go wrong is crowding the pan, so the mushrooms stew grey instead of browning. Chef's tip: fry the mushrooms on their own first in a hot pan until golden, they bring a deep, almost meaty flavour.

90 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Kranjska klobasa

Slovenians eat Carniolan sausage everywhere, from the stalls of Ljubljana's market to mountain huts and the ski slopes: a coarse, garlicky pork sausage, smoked until bronze, then heated in water and served with mustard, freshly grated horseradish and bread. Made with pork shoulder and back fat chopped rather than finely minced, it snaps when you bite it and spills juice. The official sausage uses curing salt for its pink colour; this home version leaves it out, so the inside is pale, and it is hot-smoked until fully cooked, so it is safe to eat. A common mistake is boiling the sausages to reheat them; they split and dry out, so keep the water just below a simmer. Chef's tip: cut the meat and fat by hand into small dice for some of the mix, it gives the classic chunky bite.

240 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Kulen

In Slavonia, eastern Croatia, kulen is the prize of the winter pig slaughter: lean pork, plenty of hot paprika and garlic packed into a thick casing and then smoked and air-dried for months until firm and brick-red. Long home dry-curing needs controlled rooms and curing salts, so this recipe makes a safer fresh kulen-spiced pork sausage, rested overnight in the fridge and cooked through to 71 °C. If you want the real cured kulen, buy it sliced from a good deli; it is eaten uncooked, so it is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Serve the fresh sausages hot with bread, pickled peppers and sour cream or ajvar. A common mistake is letting the meat get warm while mixing, which makes it crumbly. Chef's tip: chill the mince and the bowl until icy before you start.

1485 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Ballokume

Every 14 March, Elbasan in central Albania celebrates Dita e Verës, Summer Day, an old spring festival that is now a national holiday, and the whole town smells of ballokume. These pale golden cookies are made from cornmeal, lots of butter, sugar and eggs, beaten until almost fluffy, then baked into little domes that crack on top and melt into sandy, buttery crumbs. Families give plates of them to neighbours and children nibble them alongside the red-and-white spring bracelets called verore; they are lovely with tea or Turkish-style coffee. This version is gluten free, made with fine cornmeal and cornflour, so check both packets carry a gluten-free label. Under-beating is the classic error: the butter and sugar need a full ten minutes until almost white, or the cookies bake dense and greasy. Chef's tip: chill the shaped cookies for 15 minutes before baking so they keep their dome.

45 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Flija

Flija is the dish of long summer afternoons in Kosovo, from the Rugova valley to the villages around Prizren, when friends gather and take turns tending the saç, a domed iron lid heaped with embers. Thin batter is painted onto a round tray in spokes, cooked under the heat, brushed with a mix of sour cream and yogurt, then painted again, until 15 or more layers have built up over a couple of hours. Cut into wedges, it is chewy, buttery and lightly scorched, served with honey, white cheese, pickled peppers or a bowl of yogurt. At home, a very hot oven grill stands in for the saç. The most frequent mistake is crowding the batter: each spoke must leave a finger-wide gap for the next layer to fill, or the pie becomes a thick, gummy pancake. Chef's tip: keep the batter as thin as single cream, and whisk in a spoonful of water whenever it thickens as it stands.

240 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Krompiruša

In Bosnia only the meat pie is called burek; the potato version is krompiruša, and Sarajevo's buregdžinice bake it in great round copper trays, coiled like a snail. Thin pastry is wrapped around raw diced potato and onion seasoned with pepper, rolled into long ropes and coiled into the tin, then baked until the outside shatters and the potato inside turns soft and peppery. It is entirely plant-based when made with oil and shop-bought filo, which usually contains only flour, water and oil. Eat it hot with a glass of cold plain yogurt, or soya yogurt to keep it vegan. Where most people go wrong is cutting the potatoes too early, so they turn grey and watery; prepare them just before rolling. Chef's tip: when it comes out of the oven, sprinkle with a little hot water and cover with a clean tea towel for 10 minutes, which softens the top layers just as Bosnian bakers do.

90 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Prekmurska gibanica

Prekmurje, the flat north-eastern corner of Slovenia on the Mura river near the Hungarian border, built this towering cake for weddings and harvest feasts, and it is now protected as a traditional speciality. On a shortcrust base sit eight thin layers, four fillings repeated twice: poppy seed, curd cheese, walnut and apple, each separated by thin pastry and soaked with sour cream and melted butter, so every slice shows neat stripes of grey, white, brown and gold. Serve it warm or the next day with coffee; it keeps for 3 days in the fridge and freezes well. Curd cheese (skuta or quark) is usually rennet-free, but check the label. Going heavy on the fillings is the classic trap: each layer should be about 1 cm, or the cake won't bake through and the stripes blur. Chef's tip: make all four fillings the evening before, and assembly the next day takes just 20 minutes.

180 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Pastrmajlija

Štip in eastern North Macedonia holds a whole festival for pastrmajlija, a long boat-shaped flatbread baked in a wood oven and loaded with little cubes of salted pork, finished with a cracked egg and sometimes a hot pepper. Traditionally the meat is pastrma, dried salted pork or mutton; this home version salts diced pork shoulder in the fridge for a few hours and then bakes it on the dough until fully cooked, so it is safe and juicy. Eat it hot from the oven, torn by hand, with pickled peppers and a glass of cold yogurt drink. A common mistake is rolling the dough too thin; it needs a soft, chewy base to hold the meat juices. Chef's tip: bake on a pizza stone or upturned heavy tray, as hot as your oven goes.

150 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Podvarak

On Serbian winter tables, at Christmas, slava feast days and Sunday lunch in Vojvodina farmhouses, podvarak is the sauerkraut that has drunk up the roast. Shredded fermented cabbage is fried with plenty of onion and paprika, then baked under pieces of pork shoulder (turkey is the other favourite) until the top of the kraut caramelises and the meat falls from the bone. It is sharp, sweet and savoury at once; serve it with mashed potato or bread and pickled peppers. Fry in lard for the old-fashioned flavour or sunflower oil if you prefer. Baking it dry is the common mistake: the cabbage needs water and a tight cover first, or the edges scorch before it softens. Chef's tip: uncover for the last 40 minutes and baste the meat; the sticky, browned edges of the kraut are the prized bit.

150 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Hadžijski ćevap

Named for the hadžije, pilgrims returning from Mecca who were welcomed home with a feast, this Bosnian stew is nothing like grilled ćevapi: cubes of beef are slowly braised with an almost equal weight of onions, garlic, paprika, black pepper and a good splash of vinegar until the onions melt into a sweet-sour gravy. In Sarajevo it is served in a clay pot with mashed potato or rice, and it tastes even better the next day. The usual slip is skimping on onions; they are the sauce. Chef's tip: add the vinegar in two stages, half at the start to tenderise and half at the end for brightness.

120 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Tavë dheu

The name means 'earthenware dish', and in Tirana's traditional restaurants tavë dheu arrives bubbling in its clay pot: tender pieces of liver cooked with peppers, tomato and garlic, then baked under a creamy blanket of gjizë, the Albanian salted curd cheese, until it browns. It is rich and tangy, a classic hot meze and lunch dish in Albania, eaten with plenty of bread. A common mistake is frying the liver too long before baking, which makes it tough and grainy. Chef's tip: soak the liver in milk in the fridge for 30 minutes before cooking; it softens any bitterness.

45 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Njeguški ražanj

Njeguši, the stone village high above the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, is famous for two things: its air-dried pršut ham and its sheep's cheese. This dish wraps both inside thin pork escalopes, which are rolled tight, threaded onto skewers and roasted, traditionally on a spit, until the outside is browned and the cheese melts into the ham. It is pork through and through, and once the rolls are cooked right through the cured ham inside is cooked too. Serve with roast potatoes and a little kajmak or sour cream. A common mistake is pounding the pork too thin, so it tears; aim for 5 mm. Chef's tip: marinate the pork overnight in the fridge with garlic and oil; the meat stays juicy around the salty filling.

90 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Brav u mlijeku

Highland shepherds in northern Montenegro cook young lamb this way when the flocks come down from summer pastures, slowly in a covered pan with milk, garlic and rosemary until the meat comes off the bone and the milk has reduced to a savoury, slightly curdled, golden sauce over the potatoes. It sounds unusual but tastes wonderfully mellow, sweet and garlicky. Serve it with bread and a green salad. The usual slip is cooking it uncovered from the start, so the milk scorches before the lamb is soft. Chef's tip: uncover only for the last half hour, so the top browns while the sauce underneath stays creamy.

150 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Reform torta

Belgrade pastry shops have sold reform torta since the early twentieth century, and it is still the cake Serbian families bring out for birthdays, weddings and the slava. Three thin layers of walnut meringue, crisp at the edge and chewy inside, are stacked with a dense chocolate butter cream made with egg yolks cooked over steam until thick. It is very rich, so cut thin slices and serve with strong coffee. The usual slip is beating the butter into a chocolate mixture that is still warm, which melts it and splits the cream; let it cool to room temperature first. Chef's tip: assemble the cake the day before; overnight in the fridge the meringue softens a little and the cake slices cleanly with a hot knife.

150 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 1 views

Karađorđeva šnicla

Belgrade restaurants have served this since a local chef created it in the mid-20th century, naming it after Karađorđe, leader of the First Serbian Uprising; diners fondly call it the maiden's dream. A thin pork escalope (veal is the other classic) is spread with kajmak, Serbia's rich, slightly tangy clotted cream, rolled tight, double-breaded and fried into a golden log that oozes when cut. It comes with chips or roast potatoes, a lemon wedge and tartar sauce. If you can't find kajmak, beat cream cheese with a little soft butter and a pinch of salt. Rolling it loosely is the mistake that ruins it, because the cream escapes into the oil; roll tightly and chill before breading. Chef's tip: fry only until golden, then finish in the oven, so the crumb stays crisp while the pork cooks through to the centre.

60 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Čobanac

Slavonia, the flat farmland of eastern Croatia, cooks čobanac outdoors in a black cauldron at village fairs and hunting parties, and the smell of paprika drifts across the whole field. Three meats go in, typically beef, pork and venison or wild boar, with mountains of onion, sweet and hot paprika and a few peppers, simmering for hours until the sauce is thick, brick-red and spicy. This dish contains pork. Eat it with crusty bread or polenta. The usual slip is burning the paprika: it turns bitter in seconds, so always take the pot off the heat before stirring it in. Chef's tip: cook it a day ahead; like most stews it tastes deeper the next day.

180 minBalkan Meat

by KrazyBadal 0 views

Vanilice

No slava, the family saint's day feast in Serbia, goes by without a plate of vanilice, and every grandmother's tin holds a few hundred at Christmas. Two tiny fluted rounds of tender walnut shortbread are glued together with tart jam, usually apricot or rosehip, then rolled in vanilla sugar until snowy. They crumble at the first bite and turn soft and melting after a day or two in the tin. Many old recipes use lard; this one uses butter, so the biscuits are vegetarian. Where most people go wrong is baking them until golden: vanilice should stay pale, with only the faintest colour on the base, or they turn hard and lose their vanilla scent. Chef's tip: roll them in the sugar while they are still slightly warm from sandwiching, so the coating clings.

90 minBalkan Baking

by KrazyBadal 0 views

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