Elements » Balkan

Pirjan od Spanaka (Spinach and Rice Soup)

Sheila — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:37:02 +0000

Kemal made a wonderful soup this evening for dinner. His mother used to make this when he was growing up, and it was always one of his favorite soups. He said that some people like to make it with beef, but his mother always made it without it.

This Balkan soup is mild in taste, light on your stomach, and tastes wonderful. It can be eaten as a main dish or a side item. We had it as our meal, and it really hit the spot.

Pirjan od Spanaka (Spinach and Rice Soup)

Ingredients:

16 oz. fresh baby spinach
1 cup basmati rice
2 medium onions, diced
7 cloves garlic, diced
10 baby carrots, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup butter, salted
1 1/2 quarts water
2 vegetable bullion cubes
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Dice the onions, garlic, and carrots.
Cook the rice in the water for about 10 minutes on medium high heat.
While the rice is cooking, fry the onions, garlic, and carrots in the olive oil and butter on medium heat until they’re soft and when the onions start to turn yellow.
After the rice has cooked about 10 minutes, put the spinach on top of the rice and water. Then cover the pot just until the spinach is steamed and it can be incorporated into the rice/water mix.
Then remove the lid and add the fried vegetables. Cook on medium until the rice is done and until some of the water evaporates. How long you cook it depends on how much broth you want your soup to have. If it looks like the rice is going to be overcooked, you can remove some of the water.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sarma

Sheila — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:58:19 +0000

Sarma is a popular Balkan entree which is made by stuffing, rolling, and cooking sour cabbage leaves. It’s a traditional meal served during winter festival holidays, such as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. Sarma is also a traditional meal served at weddings.

Kemal and I don’t wait for special occasions to fix sarma. We love eating it anytime, but later today when our friends arrive for Christmas dinner, we will be serving sarma as our main dish, accompanied by homemade garlic mashed potatoes.

Last night on Christmas Eve after we got off work, we spent five hours cooking. Kemal made the sarma and mashed potatoes while I made the Rokada cake which we’ll be having for dessert. This morning I will make two loaves of Challah bread. The cooking we do at home is so enjoyable and fun, in contrast to the frenzied and chaotic cooking we have to do at work.

When we’re cooking at home, we’re singing, humming, laughing, chatting, and enjoying ourselves. Kemal once told me, “When I’m cooking, I talk a lot. I’m a chatterbox because I’m in my element.” I’m the same way.

I’m hardly waiting for this wonderful dinner with our friends which we’ll enjoy around 11 p.m. tonight. Sarma is one of our favorite meals, and the leftovers are actually even better because all the juices soak into the cabbage, making it even tastier.

Anyway, before you make sarma, you need some sour cabbage leaves. You might be able to find a jar of it at an Eastern European grocery store, but if you can’t purchase it, you’ll need to make it. Making sour cabbage (sauerkraut) does take some time. It takes about about 4 to 6 weeks to make it, and it needs to be made during cold weather. Kemal and I have made our own sour cabbage in the winter, and we really love how it tastes.

If you really want to try the recipe though and don’t want to have to wait on souring your own cabbage and can’t find a jar of it in a middle Eastern grocery store, then there is an alternative method to sour your cabbage. It’s not exactly authentic sour cabbage, but perhaps it’ll be close enough. You can find that alternative way to sour cabbage on the link I posted in the previous paragraph.

Sarma

Ingredients:

14 sour cabbage leaves (about 32 ounces)
1 lb. ground meat (we used ground beef, but you can use ground buffalo, lamb, or veal)
20 baby carrots, diced finely
2 onions, diced
7 or 8 cloves garlic, diced
1 egg, beaten
2/3 cup rice (uncooked)
Vegeta
black pepper
dried red pepper flakes
1 cup water
1/2 cup olive oil
2/3 cup tomato paste
1 tbsp. parsley
Optional: panko bread crumbs
Optional: mint

Note: If you don’t want to use these particular seasonings, you can substitute with whatever seasonings you like. I didn’t put amounts on most of the seasonings because we normally don’t measure them. If you’re not sure, use less seasonings and then add more salt and pepper later. Sometimes Kemal makes sarma with mint but he didn’t this time. We did, however, garnish the top of the sarma with some dried mint that we sprinkled on top.

Instructions:

Dice all the vegetables.
Grease your baking dish with olive oil. We used a dutch oven.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the vegetables with the raw meat, egg, uncooked rice, Vegeta, black pepper, and dried red pepper flakes.
If your mix is too runny, add some Panko bread crumbs or mashed potato flakes. You want the mixture to be the consistency of a meat mixture that can be used for meat balls or meatloaf.
When you get the filling to the right consistency, take some of it and stuff it into a cabbage leaf. Then roll it up so the cabbage leaf will hold all of the filling.
Do this until you’ve either rolled all the cabbage leaves or until you run out of filling. If you have leftover filling like we did, you can freeze it and use it the next time you make it.
Place all the stuffed and rolled cabbage leaves in your baking dish.
Now you will make the sauce for the sarma. That’s easy to do. Just mix the tomato paste, water, and parsley together and then pour it over all the little stuffed cabbage leaves. If you want your sauce to be “saucier,” you can open up a can of petite diced tomatoes and pour that over the outside of the sarma in addition to the sauce you just made.
Cover and bake for about 2 hours. The meat and rice will cook in the oven.

How to Make Sour Cabbage (Sauerkraut)

Sheila — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 09:36:45 +0000

When Kemal was growing up, he and his family made sour cabbage (sauerkraut) in the winter. They used the leaves of the cabbage to make a very popular Balkan entree called sarma. Sarma is sour cabbage leaves that are stuffed, rolled, and then cooked. It’s similar to stuffed grape leaves except instead of grape leaves, sour cabbage leaves are used.

Kemal taught me how to make sour cabbage in the winter, and it’s very easy to do, but you just have to be patient because it does take about 4-6 weeks before the cabbage sours. It’s well worth the wait though because the cabbage is so tasty. You can use the sour cabbage leaves to make sarma, and you can also cut up the cabbage to make kraut. If you want sour cabbage but don’t want to wait that long, there is a way to make it on the stove that sours it, but it doesn’t taste quite the same. I’ve listed that alternative method in this post in case you’re interested in trying it.

Sour Cabbage (Sauerkraut)

Sour cabbage ingredients:

5-9 heads of cabbage
Approximately 3 cups sea salt (not iodized)
3 ears corn, with the corn kernals cut off
water
1 cup distilled vinegar

Instructions for making sour cabbage:

Core the cabbage and fill the insides of the holes with sea salt.
Place them in a crock, 10-gallon Igloo water cooler, or large food-grade plastic container. Many restaurants use pickles that come in large food-grade plastic containers, and you may be able to purchase them for very little if you ask.
When you place the cabbages in the crock or container, make sure the cored-hole filled with salt is facing upward so the salt doesn’t fall out.
Then sprinkle the corn and about 2 cups of sea salt around the cabbage heads.
Cover everything with water and vinegar.
The, cover the cabbages with a plate or some other lid that fits snugly inside the crock.
Place a clean weight (a glass jug filled with water, a brick, or a large stone) on the cover. This weight is to keep the cabbage submerged under the salty water.
Now you need to cover everything. You can do that by putting a pillowcase or towel over the crock.
Place the covered container with the cabbages outdoors on your balcony or back porch and leave it there, covered, for about 4 to 6 weeks.
After 4-6 weeks have gone by, you can remove the cabbage from the crock as you need it for cooking. Whatever you don’t need for cooking, leave covered outside in the crock in the cold temperatures. As long as you keep the cabbages submerged in the salty water in the crock during cold weather temperatures, it will be fine. You want to make sure you eat all the cabbage before the temperatures rise. Kemal said they kept the cabbages outside covered in the crock as long as the temperatures were below 45 degrees.
How you prepare the cabbage is up to you. If you want to make stuffed cabbage leaves (sarma), you can remove the individual leaves from the cabbage and then store them in the refrigerator so you can use the leaves for sarma when you want to make it. You can also cut up some of the cabbage and make sauerkraut with it.

Alternative Quick method for making sour cabbage if you’re in a hurry:

Core a cabbage
Boil the cabbage in water (enough to cover the head) and 2 tbsp. distilled vinegar until the leaves are soft.

Sladak Kupus (Sweet Cabbage)

Sheila — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:21:45 +0000

Sour cabbage is popular in Balkan cuisine, and later I will have to blog about one of my favorite sour cabbage meals…sarma. But for now, I want to tell you about a sweet cabbage recipe my friend Vesna gave to me. It has a wonderful flavor and is so healthy for you, and even though it’s translated as “sweet” cabbage, this side dish isn’t really sweet…it’s just not a sour cabbage…if that makes sense.

Vesna said she enjoys this cabbage dish with bread and goat cheese. She said others prefer to cook it with smoked sausage, veal, or lamb. I’m sure it’s great with meat or with bread and cheese, but I really enjoyed it just the way it was…as a little snack when I got hungry around 3 a.m. It also makes a nice accompaniment to any meat dish. All the vegetables in it are so flavorful, filling, and satisfying. It’s incredibly delicious, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sladak Kupus (Sweet Cabbage)

Ingredients:

1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced (note: Vesna uses only one carrot, but I adore carrots so I used two.)
2 celery sticks, diced
3 cups cabbage, chopped into pieces about 2 cm. long
1 can diced petite tomatoes
water
1 tbsp. olive oil
pepper
Vegeta (if you don’t have Vegeta, you can substitute with salt, oregano, paprika, and a little chili powder)
Optional: smoked sausage, veal, lamb

Instructions

Put all the vegetables in a frying pan with the oil. Add a little water. If you want to cook this with meat, go ahead and add some.
Cook on medium heat for about 1 hour, adding more water as needed. Keep your pan covered with a lid, but don’t cover it tightly; leave a little space so some air can escape. When the vegetables are cooked and the water dissolved, it’s done.
Add Vegeta and pepper to taste.
Eat it warm, but I like it as a cold salad as well.