Serbia Recipes

Ajvar (Serbian Roasted Red Pepper Sauce)

Makes 1-1/2 cups

Ingredients

2 pounds red bell peppers (about 5 medium peppers)

1 medium eggplant (about 3/4 pound)

5 teaspoons freshly minced garlic (about 5 medium cloves)

1/4 cup sunflower or olive oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon Kosher salt, plus more to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Light one chimney full of charcoal. When all the charcoal is lit and covered with gray ash, pour out and arrange coals on one side of the charcoal grate. Set cooking grate in place, cover grill and allow to preheat for 5 minutes. Clean and oil the grilling grate. Place peppers on hot side of grill and cook until blackened all over, 10-15 minutes. Transfer pepper to a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit until cool enough to handle, about 20 minutes. Remove charred skin, seeds, and cores from peppers.

While the peppers are cooling, pierce skin of eggplant with a fork all over. Place eggplant on cool side of grill. Cover and cook until skin darkens and wrinkles and eggplant is uniformly soft when pressed with tongs, about 30 minutes, turning halfway through for even cooking. Remove eggplant from grill and let sit until cool enough to handle, about 10 minutes. Trim top off eggplant and split lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out flesh of eggplant; discard skin.

Place roasted red peppers, eggplant pulp, and garlic in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse until roughly chopped. Add in oil, vinegar, and salt and pulse until incorporated and peppers are finely chopped.

Transfer sauce to a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and season with salt and pepper to taste. Let cool to room temperature then use immediately or transfer to an airtight container and store in refrigerator for up to two weeks.

(We served with veggies for dipping and crostinis for spreading!)

Source: Serious Eats, by Joshua Bousel, http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/09/ajvar-serbian-roasted-red-pepper-sauce-recipe.html

Homemade Tomato Soup (Corba od Patlidzan)

CHOR-ba od paht-LEE-jahn, with the “j” as in “Jack”

Ingredients

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 large onion, diced

1 clove garlic, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

several fresh grindings black pepper

2 bay leaves

1-2 shakes red pepper flakes

4 tablespoons (approx) fresh or frozen fresh parsley

1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes, juice and all

Directions

In a deep, heavy pot or Dutch oven, heat the oil. Add the onions and cook over medium heat until cleared and beginning to brown. Add the garlic and celery partway through this onion cooking process.

Add the flour and stir well. Let the flour cook in for a few minutes. Add salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, bay leaves, parsley and tomatoes. Fill the tomato can with water and add it to the pot.

Simmer, covered, about a half hour. Stir occasionally, making sure it doesn’t stick and scorch on the bottom.

If you like, you can blend this smooth when you’re done, or strain it. But I don’t care so much for perfectly smooth soups, myself. I like it rustic.

Source: How to Cook with Vesna, http://how-to-cook-with-vesna.com/tomato-soup-recipe.html

Cevapi with Ajvar

Serves 6

Ingredients

750g beef mince

400g pork mince

1 small garlic bulb, plus 4 cloves

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp sweet smoked paprika

1 egg

150ml sparkling water

Olive oil

6 red peppers

2 aubergines

A bunch of flat leaf parsley

Juice of 2 lemons

1 onion, chopped

6 flatbreads, to serve

Sour cream, to serve

Pickled guindilla peppers, to serve (optional)

Directions

Make the cevapi at least a few hours before you want to cook them, or ideally the night before. Place the minced beef and pork in a large bowl, then crush in the 4 garlic cloves. Sprinkle over the bicarbonate of soda and paprika, and season.

Crack in the egg and use your hands to scrunch everything together. Add as much of the sparkling water as you need to make a smooth, pliable mixture.

Divide the meat into 10-12 pieces and roll each one into a sausage shape about 10cm long and 2cm thick. Place the cevapi on an oiled baking tray, cover with cling film and chill in the fridge until needed.

For the ajvar, preheat the oven to 230C/gas 8. Place the whole peppers and aubergines on a large roasting tray along with the unpeeled garlic bulb and roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the veg skins are blackened, turning halfway through.

Once the peppers and aubergines are charred, place them in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave for 20 minutes, to steam off the skins. Once they’ve cooled slightly, pull off and discard the skins, seeds and stalks and chop the flesh on a board.

Squeeze out the garlic from 6 of the roasted cloves and add it to the veg along with most of the parsley, then chop it all together. (If you have much roasted garlic left over, stir it into softened butter and store in the fridge – it’s great for garlic bread!)

Keep chopping everything together, season with salt and pepper, squeeze over the juice of 1 of the lemons and drizzle over a good glug of olive oil. Adjust the seasoning to taste, then set aside.

Finely chop the remaining parsley, tip it into a bowl, then mix in the onion and remaining lemon juice. Set aside.

Just before you’re ready to serve, warm your flatbreads in the oven, and place a griddle pan over a high heat. When hot, cook the cevapi for 10-12 minutes, until cooked through.

To serve, spread some ajvar on top of the warm flatbreads, with a couple of cevapi and a guindilla pepper on top of each, a dollop of sour cream and the herby onions on the side.

Source: Jamie Magazine, by Jamie Oliver, http://www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=cevapi-with-ajvar

Prebranac (Serbian Baked Beans)

Serves 12

Ingredients

1 pound dry large butter or Lima beans

5-6 medium yellow onions (about 2lbs), sliced into thin ribs

1 cup sunflower oil

1 tablespoon sweet Hungarian paprika

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Directions

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of water.

Drain the beans. Place the beans in a pot and cover with water. (For each cup of beans use three cups of water). Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer until the beans are very soft, for about an hour and a half (cooking time will depend on the type and the size of beans, so check them from time to time). Drain and discard the water.

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a large casserole or Dutch oven combine the oil with the onions over medium heat (alternatively you can heat the oil first, but starting the onions in cold oil will help release their flavor gradually and will give them mellower taste than the hot oil method). Simmer the onions for about 30 minutes, until very soft and deep yellow. You might have to add a drop of water from time to time to prevent onions from drying.

When the onions are done, add the beans, garlic, paprika and bay leaves to the casserole. Season with salt and pepper, add about 3 cups of water, and mix gently. (The beans should be somewhat covered in water, but not swimming in it.)

Place the casserole in the oven and bake for about an hour to hour and a half, adding more water if necessary (the beans should never be completely dry). When done, the top layer of beans should be gently caramelized and fairly dry, most of the moisture having evaporated, while the beans inside should be wonderfully creamy and coated with onions.

Let Prebranac completely cool before serving. Let it rest for a day in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature (but not cold) with crusty bread.

Source: Food52.com, http://food52.com/recipes/19697-prebranac-serbian-baked-beans, by QueenSashy

Shufnoodles with fried breaded crumbs (Šufnudle sa prezlama)

Ingredients

1 kg of potatoes

700 gr of soft flour type 400

250 gr of breaded crumbs

2 eggs

1 soup spoon of butter (or margarine)

5 soup spoons of cooking oil

salt according to taste

Sugar according to taste

Directions

Peel 1 kg of potatoes, put them into a deeper saucepan with enough water to cover the potatoes, add 1 tea spoon of salt. Cook the potatoes in a boiling water on the stove plate for about 30 minutes until the potatoes become soft. While the potatoes are cooking you can little lower the temperature to prevent boiling water come over the pan.

Drain water from the pan and mush potatoes well with the potatoes musher. Add 1 soup spoon of melted butter or margarine and stir it well too. Leave it for a while to cool down a little, add 2 eggs and stir it well again to achieve the mixture get equalized. Then, while adding the flour, stir constantly the mixture until you get the medium soft (not sticky) dough.

One whole piece of dough divide into several parts and make of them the longer cylindrical shape dough pieces. These cylindrical pieces cut horizontally with a knife to small approximately similar parts as many as you can get.

Each of these cut shapes form into smaller dough cylinders by your palms and fingers and arrange them in a prepared tray until you finish making small cylinders – shufnoodles. The surface of the tray has to be strew with a thin layer of flour preventing the dough (shufnoodles) stick to a tray.

Turn on the stove plate, put some bigger cooking pan onto it, pour in about 1-1,5 l water, add 1 tea spoon of salt and wait until the water starts to boil.

Put shufnoodles into a boiling water and cook them until they come out to the water surface. This means they are done (cooked).

Cooked shufnoodles take out from the water with the ladle, and leave them to cool down for a while.

In the meantime, pour 5 soup spoons of cooking oil into another pan, add 250 gr of bread crumbs and fry it for a few minutes until it gets golden-yellow-brown color, stir constantly to prevent bread crumbs get burned.

Cooked shufnoodles roll into the fried bread crumbs, arrange them on the tray and it’s ready for serving.

Some people like to eat them sweet (add sugar according to taste), some like them salty (add salt according to taste). But some like them both.

Source:
Shufnoldes: Serbian Cook Book, by SCB Chef, http://www.serbiancookbook.com/food-recipes/shufnoodles-with-fried-breaded-crumbs-sufnudle-sa-prezlama/