World Cooking - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: World Cooking

12
Aug
2018

Macdedonian Grilled Cheese (Przeni Lepcinja)

categories: Bread, French Toast, Grilled Cheese, Macedonia, World Cooking

Grilled cheese is one of life’s little pleasures. Warm toasty bread, oozy melty grilled cheese…it doesn’t get better than this. Except in Macedonia where they top their grilled cheese with…wait for it….more cheese!!!

Today we’re continuing our visit to the Balkan States with a little look at Przeni Lepcinja – Macedonian grilled cheese.

Macedonian Grilled Cheese is essentially a cheesy French toast, topped with cheese. It’s delicious and so quick and easy to make!

The blend of creamy melted mozzarella and the salty feta cheese is great and perfect with the crisp french toast style bread!

I found the recipe for Macedonian Grilled Cheese here I’ve also copied it below. I served mine with a little tomato and red onion salsa that was very similar to the Sopska Salata featured here. Although given the double cheese abundance in the toast, I left the cheese out of the salad!

If you feel like something a bit more substantial, this is also great if you serve with a poached or fried egg on top…this I think also has a nice symmetry – cheesy eggy bread, topped with cheese and egg.

And now, just because I can, here’s a cheesy joke for you:

What’s cheese’s favourite music?

R ‘n’ Brie.

🤗

Cheesy and cheesy if you know what I mean.

Just like a Przeni Lepcinja!

Have a great week!

Signature 1

18
Jun
2018

Cevapcici with Sopska Salata and Random Facts about David Bowie

categories: Salad, Sausage, Serbia, World Cooking

Поздрав из Србије!

Or, to my non-Serbian friends, Greetings from Serbia. Today we are continuing to explore the former Yugoslavian regions with a side step from Croatia to Serbia.

On the menu today are Cevapcici (aka Cevapi) which are sausages found all over the Balkans in various shapes, sizes and flavours. The word is derived from the Turkish kebab from which my serving suggestion today is also derived.

Because meat+bread+salad = delicious in any language! 😘

Wikipedia lists the following variations:

Sarajevski ćevap, from Sarajevo, Bosnia, meat mix of beef and sheepmeat
Travnički ćevapi, from Travnik, Bosnia, meat mix of beef, veal, mutton and lamb
Banjalučki ćevapi, from Banja Luka, Bosnia, beef meat
Tuzlanski ćevapi, from Tuzla, Bosnia, meat mix of beef, mutton and lamb
Novopazarski ćevap, from Novi Pazar, Serbia, traditionally sheepmeat
Leskovački ćevap, from Leskovac, Serbia, veal meat

My version uses lamb so takes its cues from a the novopazarski cevap. I could not find a recipe for one of these online and the entry in Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery was vague to say the least:

So I used a lamb cevapcici recipe I found online here. The spice blend made these sausages super tasty and the high-fat content of the lamb kept the sausages from drying out during cooking so this was a really good find. Also, the cevapcici were super easy to make.

The recipe for the Sopska Salata or Serbian Tomato Salad came from here.

My pita recipe came from the Relish Mama Family cookbook which is our current Tasty Reads cookbook but you could use any homemade pita recipe or use bought flatbreads to make cooking this even easier.

And now for some fun facts about Serbia. Which turned into random facts about David Bowie.

Nikola Tesla was a Serb. Amongst other things, Tesla is known for the development of alternating current and wireless technology. He was also played by David Bowie in the amazing movie The Prestige!

The most known Serbian word?

Vampire.

David Bowie starred alongside Susan Sarandon in a vampire film back in the 1980’s called The Hunger.

Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie in the Tony Scott movie “The Hunger”… (1983)
byu/Reporter_at_large inDavidBowie

Serbia is the world’s largest exporter of a particular (and delicious) food item. In 2012, 95% of this item came from Serbia. And seeing as this has now also become an unofficial David Bowie post, it features as an ingredient in two of the cocktails on this list inspired by David Bowie.

The ingredient? Raspberries.

One more….just to really tie things together…Brian Rasic (Brajan Rašić) who was Bowie’s official photographer for many years and gave the world several iconic photos of the great man? Was born in Belgrade.

Seriously, sometimes this just writes itself….

Have a wonderful week everyone!

And tell me, if you were going to drink a David Bowie-inspired cocktail from the list above, which would you choose? I’d have a Starman.

Signature 1

Cevapcici Recipe:

Sopska Salata Recipe (SBS Food)

17
Mar
2018

REPOST Dublin Coddle – For St Patrick’s Day

categories: Bacon, Budget Recipes, Cabbage, Holidays, Ireland, Potato, Sausage, St Patrick's Day

Isn’t Dublin Coddle the most adorable name for anything ever?

It sounds like a cuddle and that is exactly what you are going to get from this hearty and warming mix of sausages, cabbage, bacon and potatoes.

I don’t seem to have the best of luck with Irish recipes (remember the corned beef potato salad?)

I had planned to make a totally safe homemade Irish Cream because hot damn do I love a little bit of Bailey’s! However what they don’t tell you in most recipes for it is that, because it contains fresh cream, homemade Irish cream has a fairly limited lifespan. As I am trying to moderate my diet and alcohol intake at the moment drinking a whole bottle of whiskey and a shit ton of cream over the space of about 5 five days did not seem like a viable option.

Fun…just not a viable diet option!

🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

So Dublin Coddle it was. And whilst this was nowhere near as awful as the debacle that was the potato salad, the recipe I used for Dublin Coddle (sorry I cannot remember from whence it came) was not without problems.

It asked that you layer thinly sliced potatoes into the bottom of a baking dish then piled your sauteed cabbage, onion and bacon on top and topped that with sausages. Then you added stock to the dish.

And therein lay the problem. Even though I cooked this for absolutely AGES, the potatoes at the bottom didn’t cook at that well and were totally soggy. And, as viewers of the British Bake Off know all too well, no one likes a soggy bottom!

This was good but I wonder how much better it would have been if the potatoes had gone on the top and gone all crispy and delicious?

I will actually make it that way next time and update you on how it turns out! The good thing about this recipe is that it was traditionally made from leftovers so you can play around with ingredients and cooking techniques as much as you like!

🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀🍀

Here’s the recipe!

Dublin Coddle

Print Recipe

A delicious hearty meal, perfect for St Patrick’s Day

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

8 sausages – the recipe said pork, I used beef
2 onions, sliced
2 rashers of bacon, sliced
2 cups of cabbage, sliced
stock or water (I used vegetable stock)
Oil
salt and pepper
parsley
Dijon mustard

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Heat a little oil in a large pan and brown the sausages. You may have to do this in two lots.
Remove the sausages from the pan and set aside.
Add a little more oil if required and brown the bacon and onions.
Toss the cabbage through the bacon and onion mix and cook for a few minutes.
Layer the potatoes in a lightly oiled casserole or baking dish.
Top with the cabbage and bacon mix. Season well and almost cover with the stock.
Top with the sausages.
Bake at 190C until the potatoes are tender.
Sprinkle with parsley and serve with mustard.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 4

Meantime, enjoy your St Patrick’s Day!!!!

Signature 1

10
Mar
2018

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad – Repost from October 2018

categories: Potato Salad, United States of America

Regular readers will know what a fan I am of the serendipitous find. So, imagine my joy when, in the middle of writing the post on Johnny Cash’s Chili, sorting through a huge pile of recipes I had collected over the last year or so, I found a recipe from his daughter Rosanne Cash for Potato Salad.

I felt that finding it was either a sign from the universe to make some potato salad or that the Cash family were stalking me in a really weird way.

I decided to make potato salad.

Have I ever told you how much I love potato salad?

Like LOVE it. 😍

I have CRIED when I have tasted a potato salad that looked gorgeous only to find the potato was half raw. Or the dressing was watery

That’s how much I love potato salad.

And I have incredibly high standards. So far in my life, the only ‘tatie salad that even comes close to my mum’s is my best friend Monica’s. It’s one of the reasons I adore her.

Maybe THAT’s how much I love potato salad…

Good potato salad? Friend. For. Life.

Bad potato salad? Never darken my door again!

And Rosanne Cash’s had all the hallmarks of being a GOOD potato salad. Or the one. Which is the inclusion . of hard-boiled eggs. Seriously. Mum’s potato salad has them. Monica’s potato salad has them. And this one has them. And, spoiler alert. We are now talking my top-three potato salads.

Because Rosanne Cash’s potato salad is AWESOME.

The only problem with the Rosanne Cash Potato Salad?

There was not enough of it!

Basic user error. Before making anything check your ingredients. ALWAYS check your ingredients. All of them. Even the ones where you think “Oh I always have plenty of that / those / them”

Especially those ones. Otherwise, you will go to the shops to buy celery and pickles. And come home to discover you only have three tiny potatoes. But it’s getting late and if you want to be eating this delicious sounding potato salad any time before midnight then you don’t have time to go all the way back to the store to buy more potatoes.

So…a tiny potato salad it was…

You can also do the thing….cos here’s the recipe. Just make sure you have potatoes a plenty!

Rosanne Cash’s Potato Salad

And here is he of the chilli and she of the potato salad way back in 1956!

Have a great week!

Signature 1

07
Mar
2018

REPOST: All The Z’s – Part 5 – Zurich Mushroom Tartlets

categories: 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Mushrooms, Switzerland, Vegetarian

Hello, and welcome to the fifth and final post of the Food that starts with Z mini-series…We’re heading to Switzerland for some Zurich Mushroom Tartlets. And I have a new book to cook from! Pack your passports friends, we are taking a trip around the world via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery from 1972.

The book promises

222 illustrations, 48 in full colour
672 pages
2316 recipes from all over the world

The World in 1972

So what was this world of 1972 that we are about to enter into? What was the zeitgeist that spawned this tome?

www.thepeoplehistory.com tells us that

1972 This year is marked as a black year in history due to the use of terrorism entering sport with the massacre of 11 Israel Athletes by Arab Gunman. Also this is the beginning of the biggest political scandal in modern times and the start of the Watergate Scandal. On the other side of the Atlantic a worsening of the problems between the IRA and the British government see wrongs from both sides and innocent lives are lost.

Hmm…cheerful.

But who knew years were colour-coded? Who has that job? And can I have it when you’re done?

On a happier note, in 1972 you could buy these awesome shoes for just $9.97.

And this wig was a bargain at $20. The resting bitch face is possibly a sign of the troubled times…

Or maybe she was just worried about getting her wig wet. Problem solved by this umbrella for a mere fiver. Look how much happier this woman is now she doesn’t have to worry about wet hair.

Switzerland 1972

So in the midst of all this trial and trib, what was going on in the notoriously neutral country of Switzerland? Well, hold onto your hats because while chaos and panic were overtaking the rest of the world? The Swiss were creating an International Convention on Safe Containers.

The Swiss are an orderly, well-mannered, and meticulous people. This is why you could probably take your safe container and join a group of Swiss people mushroom foraging around Zurich without fear of dying from some fungi-induced poisoning.

Which brings us back to do…oh…oh..oh (If ANY of you thought we were going to get through a post on Switzerland WITHOUT a Sound Of Music reference, then you don’t know me at all do you?).

ZURICH MUSHROOM TARTLETS

Let’s start with the recipe. It’s a very good place to start…(Refer paragraph above re The Sound of Music) And let’s hope that it isn’t an omen of things to come…

Hmmmm….make the pastry it says Without actually telling you how to do that. So, If they’re not going to tell you?

I will. Here’s what you do.

Put your flour back in the cupboard, your egg and butter back in the fridge and tip your salted water down the sink. Then you get in your car and drive to the nearest supermarket and by some ready-made pastry shells.

Because if they can’t be bothered, why should you?

I used a mix of mushrooms for my tartlets and added some herbs from the garden into the mix.

I pan-fried the small fancy mushrooms in so they could be artfully strewn over the top of the tarts whilst I cooked the regular ones as per the recipe.

IWhile the mushrooms were cooking, I warmed the shells in the oven, then tipped the filling into them.

A sprinkle of parsley and some smoked paprika and these were good to go!

And they were delicious! Creamy and earthy with a lovely crisp and light pastry.

Despite the initial setback with the pastry, the Zurich Mushroom Tartlets were a good start to this book. Easy to make, quick, and tasty! Best eaten in front of the telly watching The Sound of Music, Or wearing your best curtains. Or both.

Have a great week!