Walnut sweet bread

Ingredients:

• 1kg. flour
• 300g. sugar
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 6 eggs
• 50g. yeast
• 200g. butter
• tablespoons oil
• vanilla stick and salt

Make a starter from yeast and a teaspoon of sugar. Mix until the consistency of sour cream, add 2-3 tablespoons tepid milk, a little flour and mix well; sprinkle some flour on top, cover and let sit in a warm place to rise. Boil the milk with the vanilla stick (cut in very small pieces) and leave it on the side of the range, covered, to keep warm.
Mix the yolks with the sugar and salt, then slowly pour the tepid milk, stirring continuously. Place the risen starter in a large bowl and pour, stirring continuously, the yolk-milk mixture and some flour, a little at a time. Then add 3 whipped egg whites. When you finish this step, start kneading. Knead, adding melted butter combined with oil, a little at a time, until the dough starts to easily come off your palms. Cover with a cloth and then something thicker (like a blanket). Leave in a warm place to triple in bulk. If during kneading the dough seems too hard, you may add a little milk. If, on the contrary, the dough seems too soft, you may add a little flour.
Recipe by: Roxana Aldea and Cristina Strahan
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Walnut sweet bread

Kotor Bay stewed fish

Ingredients:

• 1-1.5kg. of cleaned sprat or anchovies
• 500.g-1kg. of onions
• fish stock
• live oil
• white wine
• celery
• parsley
• garlic
• salt and pepper
• some herbs and spices

Chop the onions and put them in a lightly heated pan with some olive oil. Add the celery and parsley, the herbs and spices, red chilli and garlic. Add the fish as well as the white wine or fish stock, along with some more oil, so that the pan is almost full. Bring to the boil and then allow to cook on a low heat for at least two hours. The longer you cook it, the better the taste!
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Kotor Bay stewed fish

Chicken Pie - "Burek from Sarajevo"

Ingredients:

• 1 smaller chicken or hen
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of milk milk
• 1/4 cup of butterfat (oil or margarine)
• 3/4 lbs. dough layers for the pie
• butter fat or oil for greasing and sprinkling
• 1/2 thick yogurt or sour cream

Wash chicken or hen well, put up to cook in warm water, bring to boil salt and simmer. Sift sour, mix well egg and milk. Pour the mixture over flour and knead well with fingers to get small crumbs the so called "tirit". Fry tirit quickly in heated butter or oil. Remove cooked chicken meat from bones, mince it and add salt and pepper as needed.

Grease a tepsya (baking pan) with oil or butterfat, place a dough layer in it and sprinkle it with with oil or melted butterfat. Place a few more dough layers over the same manner and cover the last with half of the tirit and chicken meat. Then place some more dough layers over, sprinkling them with fat every time, add the rest of tirit and meat, pour over with two dough layers and sprinkle with butterfat oil. Bake in the oven preheated to 175-200 C for about 35-40 min, until nicely brown.

When "Burek" is nearly done, cut it into squares, pour chicken soup over it and finish baking. While still warm, pour over it whipped thick yogurt or sour cream, put it back into the oven (leave it slightly open) and let it stand like that for a while. The well known Turkish 17th century chronicler, Evliya Tchelebia mentions this chicken "burek" as a "renewed dish" a specialty of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
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Chicken Pie - "Burek from Sarajevo"

Albanian salad

Ingredients:

• 250g. boiled potatoes
• 250g. paprikas
• 500g. tomatoes
• 2 onions
• 1 bunch of parsley
• 1 bunch of dill
• 50g. raisins
• 3dl. sour cream
• 30g. oil
• salt and pepper

Wash paprikas, scoop out seed, wash and peel potatoes, peel potatoes. Cut all into nice small cubes, add finely chopped onion, washed wiped and finely chopped parley and dill, washed and cleaned raisins. Mix all well, add salt and pepper. Mix well sour cream and oil, pour over vegie's. Once again mix slowly but well. Leave to stand for a while. Serve salad as an accompanishment to roast and fried meat, fish, offal, various kinds of moussaka.

Albanian salad

Hamburger from Sjenica

Ingredients:

• 1 & 1/2 ground beef, pork and lamb (mix it)
• 1 chopped onion
• 1cl. of garlic
• 250-300g. hard cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• oil for the grill
• thick yoghurt

Mix ground meat with finely chopped onion, salt and pepper. Work into a smooth meat mixture, leave in a cool place to stand for several hours. Before grilling shape into flat patties, the size of the palm. Put a piece of cheese in the middle of each. Brush gridiron with oil, grill patties on both sides until nicely brown. Serve grilled hamburgers with thick yogurt.
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Hamburger from Sjenica

Skopski kukurek

Ingredients:

• 300g. lamb intestines
• 1 lamb sweet-bread
• 1 tbsp. paprika
• 1 garlic bulb
• 1 bay leaf
• salt
• oil or fat

Rinse well the lamb intestines and the sweet-bread and cook in salted water. When cooked, drain cut into slices and put in an ovenproof dish. Sprinkie with paprika, season with salt, add the bay leaf and oil or fat. Bake for half an hour on a gentle heat. Pour water occasionally. At last add the garlic and mix well. Serve with sour milk.

Skopski kukurek

Turkish dolmas in grapevine

Ingredients:

• 2 onions
• 30g. oil
• 30g. ground mutton
• 40g. rice
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 bunch of dill
• 15-20 grapevine lives
• 4dl. sheep bone stock

Chop one onion finely, cook slowly a little in heated oil, add half-cooked rice, meat, salt, pepper and chopped dill. Mix all well. Pour hot water over young grapevine leaves (not yet sprayed), leave them to stand for a while to soften, then drain. Put a spoonful of stuffing on each leaf, fold sides towards the middle, then roll up into dolmas. Line the bottom of a pan or fireproof dish with thinly sliced onion, pour some of the remained oil over, arrange dolmas tightly side by side. Pour over stock made of ship bones. Cover and simmer until stock is nearly quite reduced, then cool. Serve dolmas cold. You can arrange with some potatoes and carrots like the photo on the left side.

(photo from Wikipedia)

Turkish dolmas in grapevine

Fish on potatoes

Ingredients:

• 500g. potatoes
• 1-1,5 dl. oil
• 1kg. freshwater fish
• salt
• pepper
• 250g. tomatoes
• 3-4 dl. white wine
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1-2dl. warm water

Peel potatoes, wash and cut into rounds. Grease a fireproof dish with oil. Put in a layer of potatoes, add salt and pepper, arrange cleaned, washed fish cut into pieces, add salt and pepper again. Cover with peeled tomatoes cut into rounds, salt, sprinkle with chopped garlic. Pour over with white wine and oil. Bake in the oven preheated to 175°C about 40 minutes. Add some warm water while baking, as needed.

Fish on potatoes

Okra salad

Ingredients:

• 500g. young okras
• 1 lemon
• 1/2-1 dl. oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 2 harder tomatoes

Trim okras, wash and cook in salted water. When tender, drain and cool. Mix lemon juice and oil, add salt and pepper. Mix well to get thicker mixture. Pour over okras arranged in a bowl, sprinkie with chopped parsley. Wash tomatoes, remove stalk ends and cut into nice slices, then garnish the salad with them. Okras are used in preparing various Balkan specialties. Only young fruits are picked, before the seeds are formed and the tissue becomes hard and coarse.

Okra salad

Cheese and sour cream cakes

Ingredients:

• 500g. German cheese
• 100g. butter
• 4 egg yolks
• 1 egg
• 200-300g. sour cream
• 150g. flour
• salt
• sugar

Pass cheese through a sieve or crush well. Beat butter well, add yolks, cheese, sour cream, the egg and flour. Mix well. Form smaller, flat cakes with some flour, try in heated butter or oil until nicely brown. Serve warm with sour cream.

Cheese and sour cream cakes