Two R's don't make a Q but its the best I could do.

Ok ok so its not going to win any poetry prizes but I thought the title of this post was quite cute, the reason we are skipping the letter Q is because in the various alphabets of the Balkans it doesn't exist, search all you want you won't find it anywhere, so I have included two recipes beginning with R

Number 1........Raznjici

Now followers of this blog may remember an earlier posting about cevapcici where I extolled the virtues of the "pola-pola" you can't have one with out the other, so what exactly are raznjici, well my friends they are bit sized morsels of porky goodness, the recipe is dead easy, the cut to get is pork neck now if you go to the Chinese butchers around town that's what they will have it displayed as, if you venture to a purveyor of fine meats or similar establishment they will have it displayed as "scotch fillet" and priced accordingly.

1/2 kilo pork neck diced and trimmed of excess fat ( I like to leave a little fat on )
1/4 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 Onion sliced but not into onion rings if you know what I mean.

In a bowl season pork with salt and pepper, add olive oil and smoked paprika add onion and leave in the fridge covered for a few hours.

Heat a BBQ grill plate or pan, seal with a little oil and place meat on the pan turn meat until its browned an all sides serve with bread, kupus, ajvar and a cold beer......lovely.

Next..... Riba ( Fish )

"Picture this if you will ( apologies to Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone ) you are small child no more than ten years old, you are fast asleep dreaming of things ten year olds dream about suddenly you are woken by your father he looks into your half open eyes and says "Its a full moon and tides a metre twenty" it can only mean one thing you're going fishing if you like it or not." I can't begin to tell you how many times this happened to my brother and I, bundled out of bed at 3am car ready with fishing gear to drive 3hrs somewhere to catch fish, but it worked and now I am a full blown fishing tragic, the countless nights spent at middle harbour or the northern beaches in Sydney, or my favourite Sydney spot nestled amongst the millionaire and odd billionaires mansions of Point Piper pulling in leatherjacket. Being from the coastal part of Croatia called Dalmatia fishing and cooking fish is in my blood, now you all know what to look for in fish, should smell of the sea not a fishy smell, nice clear eyes etc etc the following recipe is for snapper just recently I overheard someone saying that they were "over" snapper as its quite a popular fish here in Oz. Well as Samuel Johnson said " Sir if a man tires of snapper, he tires of life " or was he talking about London ? ......whatever.

1 snapper season with salt inside and out.
 very finely chop a cup full of continental parsley drizzle with olive oil, add zest of one lemon and smear inside the fish.
Get the BBQ coals glowing ( fish always tastes better over the coals )

Make a brush of a bunch of rosemary and in a small bowl squeeze the juice of the lemon zest ed earlier and add a dash of olive oil place the fish on the grill and use the brush to baste the fish with the juice/oil mixture. fish is done when the meat starts to fall of the bone. The snapper in the photo accompanied by the scampi cost the princely sum of $40 AU in Split Croatia.