February 23, 2020 – There is only one place to eat when the university holidays come – nothing quite beats the home cooking of Grandma’s kitchen.
When you are a student, you often get sick of fast food and horrible meals from student cafeterias. Then the vacation comes and you visit your mother or grandmother, who makes the best food in the world. And if you are lucky enough, they will prepare the food for you and you will take it with you.
Top of the list of meals that my grandmother makes is Pamidore i jaja (Tomato sauce with eggs). When I ask people if they have ever eaten this meal, I usually get a negative answer. Nobody makes it except my grandmother and local people from the village called Miljevci, a village close to Šibenik. The meal is great during the summer because you have all the seasonal ingredients. For this meal you have to prepare the tomato sauce. You can also add some herbs, oregano or basil if you want to. When you finish your sauce, you then whisk eggs and cook them in that same sauce. The more eggs you put, the better the meal. There is no precise recipe of how much ingredients are used, you just go with your instinct. A great combination with this meal is bread, and it is best if the bread iss homemade as well. It is great for eating during the summer because it is easy to make.
Bread
There are two types of bread and they are prisnica and regular bread. They are both made „ispod pede” (under peka). For the regular bread, you need flour, yeast, salt and water. The amount of flour is how much do you want for your bread to be big. But approximately it is one kilogram of flour. The steps to do the dough is to put flour and salt together and then add yeast and water. When you get dough, you put it to rest for one hour on the warm place. After an hour you mix it again and then put it to rest for half an hour. When that time passes, you roll the dough or make the shape that you want. But the circle shape is the best. You put the dough on the racket (lopar), which you previously dusted with flour. You can poke the bread to make it look nicer.
Making prisnica is the same, but even easier. The same ingredients go to the bread, but without yeast. When prisnica is finished, it is good to eat it warm. And you can also put olive oil on the bread. Sadly many people don’t do the bread this way. It is delicious and much healthier, but it takes a lot of time to make it. When you find yourself in a position to try homemade bread, don’t hesitate.
Fritule (fritters)
There are a lot of recipes on how to make fritters. But there are two ways, even if you are a vegetarian. The first recipe is with eggs. You put in the bowl two yoghurts of 180 millilitres. In the same bowl, you add three eggs, pronounced lemon peel, two spoons of sugar and one vanilla sugar. Also, add some salt and 10 millilitres of rum or rakija (brandy, schnapps). Later put 358 grams of flour and half the package of baking powder. Mix all the ingredients and let them stay for at least 15 minutes, so in that way, the mixture is well united.
Heat the oil, but it must not be too hot, because the fritters will get brown and they will not taste good. When you are testing the heat of the oil put the wooden spoon in the pot and if there are a lot of the bubbles around the spoon, remove the pot from the stove and wait for the oil to cool down. Use a spoon to put fritters in the pot and cook them for like 3 or four minutes. After you are done, put them on the plate on which you have previously put a napkin to soak the oil. Sprinkle them with sugar powder or put chocolate on them, either way, is great. If you wish you can put some dry fruit in the mixture, like raisins. But before you put them in the mixture, soak them in rakija, for a couple of minutes for a better aroma.
You can also make fritters without the eggs. It is the same, but to replace the eggs it is good to put more yoghurt and flour. But for the mixture not to be too much starchy, it is better to maybe ad an apple or two. Many people are eating the fritters on this way on Christmas Eve or two days before Easter.
Uživaci
This meal is like pancakes, but a bit different. When you are preparing the mixture, you make the same as for French pancakes. Only this pancake is higher and it takes longer to cook. In the mixture you put two eggs, salt and a little sugar, milk or water, flour and a little bit of sparkling water and vanilla sugar. It is the same mixture as for pancakes, but it has to be thicker, so you have to add more flour. When you finish, you can sprinkle it with sugar or put Nutella or jam. This is a great breakfast or dinner, what you prefer more.
Anything under peka
The meals under peka have a special taste. It is rich with a natural aroma from the ingredients. You can eat veel, lamb, chicken, turkey and other meals. The real side dish with meat are potatoes, which you bake with meat. Except for the potatoes, you can put carrots, onions and pepper. If you are more of a seafood person, you can also eat octopus with potatoes or squid too. For those who are more into modern food, I would suggest a pizza under peka. Grilled meat is also one of the best meals to prepare. Whether it would be meat, fish, burgers, sausages, or vegetables.
Makes you hungry, while reading it. But if you ever find yourself in the opportunity to make those meals or eat them in the restaurants while you are travelling, I suggest you go for it. Because it is a traditional cuisine and it would be a shame to miss it.
