LJ imagine inventing your own letter.

By all accounts the letter LJ was invented by Ljudevit Gaj in the early 1800's, fancy inventing a letter you can keep your micro processor, penicillin, or instant coffee ( like really WHY would you invent that ) anyway thats all ancient history, and back to the here and now and Ljute paprike or hot peppers are very popular in the balkans they come in all sorts of varieties, dried or pickled great to add a bit of heat, now this recipe calls for Kajmak which is a sort of creamy ricotta which you can find in middle eastern delis particularly turkish ones.

20 hot peppers ( the long thin variety )
30ml verjuice or white wine vinegar
1.5 ltr water
3 tbsp olive oil
300g kajmak
1 tsp salt

clean the peppers by inserting a knife at the top and cutting away the " crown " scrape out seeds being careful to not make to big a hole

bring the water to boil adding salt and vinegar

add peppers for 1 minute NO MORE

remove and place on paper towel to dry

when dry fill with kajmak to 2/3 rd. anymore and you will have kajmak oozing out.

arrange in a ceramic or pyrex baking tray let the salted water cool and pour over peppers will keep for about a month in the fridge but i guarantee they wont last that long.

best eaten as part of an antipasto or mezze platter with some ice cold beer to drown the peppers heat

These are the type of peppers or capsicum you want we are not talking Birdseye chilli here

Lignje a test of a mans worth

In Dalmatia they have a couple of sayings one of them is " Sto je muskarac bez brkove " what is a man without a moustache, I would say clean shaven but what they actually mean is that you can't call yourself a man without some facial hair and you can't call yourself a man OR a Dalmatian unless you can cook, much like the paella ritual in Spain which is the domain of men. In Dalmatia being known as a good cook is an honour  and being in charge of the BBQ is a given, with Lignje otherwise known as calamari a staple,  my Dida (grandfather) Tadija was a superb cook whilst my fiercely anti communist grandmother would take the children to church on Sunday my Dida who held a government job and hence if he was seen in church would have got the sack, remembering we are talking about Tito's communist Yugoslavia, would instead be preparing the Sunday lunch on their return and for whoever else might pop in ( communist or anti- communist he was a bit like that ever the diplomat) so this recipe was one they would have often and is in his honour. So all you blokes out there get cooking.

As many calamari as you like the smaller the better do not buy squid tubes they are an abomination.

Clean the inside of the calamari removing the "quill" which is the hard backbone, remove innards, and beak,a good trick is to use a spoon to scoop out the innards

Pat dry the calamari, keep the wings on ( the flaps either side of the main body )

marinade for a few hours in a gremolata which is olive oil, finely chopped parsley, finely chopped garlic, lemon zest, and a chopped Birdseye chili if you like it hot.

Fire up the charcoal on the BBQ wait till the coals are glowing and have gone white, place the lignje on the grill and char nicely all over they will go a beautiful pink colour, baste with a fresh batch of gremolata not the one they were marinading in.

to serve drizzle slightly with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

best served with Blitva which is silver beet sauteed served with boiled potatoes and drizzled with olive oil , lemon and salt and pepper.

Kiseli Kupus..... a love affair

I think of the great love affairs during the ages, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra ( hang on weren't they the same couple ? ) my wife Erica and I, and then I come to that wonderful joyous love affair I have with kiseli kupus otherwise known as sauerkraut, during the winter months I keep a jar well actually a largish jar on hand to add to schnitzels, sausages, pork ribs or what the hell just straight out of the jar, I have it on good authority the reason sauerkraut is so popular with pork dishes is that it aids in the digestion of the pork in no small way aided by the beer, now kiseli kupus is very popular in Croatia especially the Continental part due to the long association with the former Austro - Hungarian empire, we during the winter months have made our own using the plastic barrels as shown in the picture which is a 120ltr barrel

12 heads of cabbage or as many that will fit in the barrel that you are using.
2 1/2 cups of salt per cabbage or there about
1 garlic clove per head
bay leaf per head

wash cabbage heads and remove any tough outer leaves and reserve, core each head and fill with salt, bay leaf and garlic, place one layer of cabbage leaves on bottom of barrel and place a layer of cabbage heads, and keep adding layer of cabbage heads repeating the process of adding salt etc until barrel is full cover with cabbage leaves.

Fill barrel with as much water as it will hold, place a clean UNTREATED timber lid ( you might have to make your own to fit the circumference of the barrel ) and weigh down with large rock or similar weight about 25kg leave barrel in garage or somewhere suitably cool after about ten days skim the foam off the top of the water and repeat every few days or so during the fermenting process which should take about 40 days heads can be frozen once done , before using them rinse leaves and chop finely for your very own kiseli kupus. Note this is best done during the winter months when temperatures are better suited.

jegulja godzillas balkan cousin

Jegulja just say it   ' YEAH-GOUHL-YAR ' if that doesn't sound like some mythical creature lying dormant in a Bosnian mountain waiting for a local to free it, who's  in the process of finding a spot to stash his black market cigarettes, I don't know what does, anyway jegulja are EELS now my dad is a mad keen fisherman who loves nothing better than catching these suckers, but he doesn't eat them so he does one of two things number 1 he gives them to my Uncle Miro and they spend a good couple of hours drinking sljivovitz and complaining that things aren't as good as they were in 1973. Number 2 he swaps them with our Vietnamese next door neighbours who's grandmother delivers a pile high tray of handmade spring rolls.  Needless to say this is not a recipe for spring rolls.

Jegulja na ribarski nacin  ( Eel fisherman style )

1 kg eel ( don't ask me for any unless you can make a black forest cake..... from scratch )
3 tbs olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
1 small onion
parsley
tomato
30ml rakija ( moonshine or try grappa )
1/2 cup of red wine
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp verjuice or white wine vinegar

Gut, wash and cut into pieces, olive oil into a pan and bring to heat and brown pieces all over, remove eel and place on plate, add the diced garlic to the oil as well as the sliced onion, and chopped parsley and diced tomato and fry till onions start to brown then add sljivovitz and red wine return the eels and season simmer for 20min and sprinkle with verjuice to finish all up this recipe should take 30min

An Ode to Istra

After my native Dalmatia, Istra would have to be my favourite region situated on the northern shore of the Adriatic, bordering Slovenia and the gulf of Venice this peninsula packs some culinary punch, whether its the white truffles of Vodnjan at the ridiculously cheap price of $400 AU a kilo or the best pizza I have ever had in the magnificent city of Pula, Istra has got it in abundance not to mention the wine with varieties such as Teran and Malvazia being ones to watch on your radar, I reckon the best way to describe Istra would be to say its a mini Tuscany but one with crystal clear beaches, now where else in the world are you going to find that.

Istarski Lonac

2 onions diced
3 carrots diced
250g cabbage leaves ( inner leaves )
1 clove of garlic finely diced
3 tomatoes diced
salt and pepper to taste
400g diced lamb preferably leg
bay leaf
1/4 cup of olive oil
dry white wine

preheat the oven to 180c smear some olive oil into a heavy cast iron pot and soften onion and garlic, begin to layer with the vegetables first then the meat season each layer as you go , tuck in a bay leaf pour in the olive oil and wine until covered roast in the oven for 1hr and a half until most of the liquid has been absorbed.