Croatian Food Month - 9 Vegan Croatian Recipes

Thanks for all your wonderful suggestions guys! I now have a big list of countries, one for every month of 2012! But please keep the suggestions coming as I love to hear what you guys want and adding it to the list! A-dizzletron and I are having so much fun exploring these cuisines that we previously knew nothing about and I hope that you are enjoying reading them to! We have just finished our last entry for January - Croatia Month, which was requested by an anonymous commenter and we would firstly like to thank him/her/it for such a great suggestion - it was delicious! I'd also like to thank all the fantastic people who helped us out by providing their knowledge of Croatian food. If you'd like to check out the recipes we came up with, here are the links for the 9 Croatian dishes we posted up this month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça (Fluffy savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles - one of my favourites from the month)

Paprenjaci (Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma (Rice filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca (Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza (with "kulen sausages" and vegan feta cheese!)

Kupus Na Zagorski & Blitva (2 delicious vegie side dishes)

Šljivovec (AMAZING plum pie)

It's quite a list of recipes! All of them were delicious (of course, otherwise we wouldn't have posted them!) but I would have to pick my top 4 as the Yumuşacık Poğaça, Paprenjaci, Croatian Pizza and the Šljivovec. But then the Posna Sarma and Makovnjaca were pretty special too... you see I just can't pick! So you'll have to give them all a try!

So - we are leaving Croatia behind (for now!) and moving on to our February featured country which was requested by Sophie - CHAD! Yes, in February we will be delving into the Northern African landlocked country of Chad (something tells me there will be less sea food then there was for Croatia!). We can't wait to share what we find with you and I hope that if you know lots about food from Chad then you will contact us and let us know! 

Vegan Šljivovec (Croatian Plum Pie)

This is our last post on Croatian food for this month - which has been a truly delicious journey for both of us. This incredibly plum pie is the perfect way for us to farewell a country which has given us a lot of delicious food experiences. Plums are perfect in Australia right now so it's the perfect time to give this super special pie a try. The beautiful and simple tart flavour of the plums is accented by the lovely crunchy pastry. The fact that it's also free form pie makes it much easier than other forms of pies. This isn't the first time we've posted a free form pie - check out our savoury free form pie: Pumpkin, Cashew and Balsamic Pie. Once again I have to thank the amazing Enola (@rhelune) for not only sending us this recipe but also translating it from Croatian for us - you legend!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

400gm of wholemeal flour

2 Tbsp of canola oil

1 sachet (5gm) yeast

1/2 tsp of salt

2 Tbsp of raw sugar

1/2 cup of warm water

Filling:

7 large Plums, sliced into wedges (about 6 per plum)

1/4 cup of sweet dark rum (or plain brown rum)

2 tsp of ground cinnamon

3 Tbsp of almond meal

Juice of half a lemon

3 Tbsp of brown sugar.

How To Make:

1. Mix the yeast, sugar and warm water in a large bowl. Let sit for 10mins.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

3. Mix in flour, salt and oil with your hands, until a smooth, elastic dough has formed. Form in to a ball, and leave in the bowl in a warm place, firmly covered with a tea towel, for 15mins.

4. Place plums and all other filling ingredients, except for 2 Tbsp of brown sugar and the almond meal, in a bowl and let sit for 15mins.

5.Dust a smooth, flat surface (like your bench!) with flour, and roll the dough into a circle.

6. Spread the almond meal and remaining 2 Tbsp of brown sugar evenly over the dough, like this:

7. Pour plum mixture into the middle of the dough and fold the edges in, like so:

8. Bake for 45mins.

Serves 10.

2 Croatian side-dishes: Kupus Na Zagorski & Blitva

Well we've almost reached the end of Cabbage Month... I mean Croatia Month. So we're rounding the savoury recipes for Croatia off with a double whammy - two lovely side dishes (no surprises - one of them is cabbage!). These dishes are a great accompaniment to your main dish, or you can make them both because if you eat them together it makes a great full vegetable-filled meal.

Kupus na Zagorski

Ingredients:

½ a large cabbage, shredded finely
4 Tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp brown sugar
1  brown onion
4 Tbsp of smoky paprika
1  tsp cumin
1 green chilli
5 tablespoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

How to make:

1. Heat oil in a large pot over a medium heat and sauté the onion and chilli for 2-3 mins.

2. Add remaining ingredients and mix well, sautéing for 5 mins.

3. Turn the heat to low, cover pot and leave to simmer for about 20 mins (or until cabbage is cooked).

4. Enjoy!

Serves 10-12 (as a side dish)


I recommend having some of our Cabbage-Is-My-Friend Tea.

Blitva


Ingredients:
1 bunch chard/spinach
2 medium waxy potatoes, peeled
2 tbsp olive oil or to taste
2 tbsp nuttelex
Salt & pepper to taste


To Make:
1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the 1 tbsp nuttelex.
2. Rinse the chard well and remove the tough stems. Tear into large pieces. Cut the potato into 3-4cm cubes.
3. Drop chard and potatoes into the boiling water and cook until done (about 10 mins).
4. Drain and top with olive oil and 1 tbsp nuttelex. Stir well and season with salt and pepper to taste.


Goes perfectly with out fabulous Croatian Posna Sarma (Cabbage rolls stuffed with rice).

Croatian Pizza (with "Kulen" and Vegan Feta Cheese)

I have certainly had such a great time digging around for amazing Croatian-inspired dishes to share with you this month. This particular one might seem a bit odd, I know, since you're all thinking "Pizza comes from Italy right?" - unless of course you're Croatian in which case you are probably thinking "Naša pizza je najbolja pizza na svijetu" (Ok - I used Google Translate for that so if you are Croatian and it doesn't make any sense I sincerely apologise). 

I have two people to thank in the creation of this dish - firstly my awesome and well-travelled friend Amy, who I asked for ideas on Croatian food since she had been to Croatia quite recently. She gave me the usual reply: "lots of seafood". Hmmm. But then she said something which surprised me quite a lot - she said that the pizza she ate in Croatia rivalled the pizza she ate in Italy. After this interesting conversation I jumped on that incredible resource - the internet - and did some reading. Apparently there is some contention among Italian and Croatian people as to whose pizza is superior. I have been to Italy and sampled some sensational pizzas, however, have not (YET) been to Croatia thus cannot provide any opinion. However, as Amy is neither of Italian or Croatian descent/allegiance I trust her opinion and thus thought I would try my hand at a Croatian-inspired pizza. 

The next step is of course..... what do I put on a Croatian pizza? I couldn't find much about this on the net so I was very lucky when I managed to have some great twitter conversations with the other important person in this story (a Croatian person!): Enola (@rhelune). Through these fantastic conversations I gleaned a few key ingredients to a Croatian style pizza. The first of them was "Kulen" - a spicy fermented paprika sausage. Obviously real kulen is out of the question for a vegan (and for an Australian, for that matter - as I am as of yet unaware of any underground market in imported Croatian sausages) but I figured I could make something replicating the flavours of this without too much difficulty. The other is ingredient was cheeses - Enola told me about Kaymak, which is a type of clotted cream. However, I thought I might try my hand at something a bit less heavy and remembered coming across quite a few Croatian recipes on the internet that used feta cheese. So - my challenge with this dish was to invent Vegan Kulen and Vegan Feta Cheese - both of which are featured on my Croatian Pizza below. I invented both from scratch and I'm very happy with how they both turned out - delicious!

Big, big thanks to Amy and Enola and I hope they like what I came up with on their suggestions! If you are Croatian or Italian please feel free to argue passionately about whose pizza is better in the comments section below :)

Ingredients:

Kulen:

3 vegetarian sausages, thinly sliced

1 heaped tablespoon smoky paprika

1 tsp hot paprika

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp water

3 cloves garlic, crushed

Feta Cheese:

125-150g hard tofu (that means it should NOT be in a punnet and should retain it's shape completely when you squeeze it)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pizzas:

6 small thin crust pizza bases (I like these because you don't have to cut the pizza up at all - just pick it up and eat it! But you can make this on a larger pizza base of course)

12 tbsp passata (or tomato paste for a richer tomatoey flavour)

Baby spinach

5-6 mushrooms, sliced

5-6 cherry tomatoes, sliced

Olive oil, to drizzle

To Make

1. To make the Kulen: Combine all ingredients in a bowl - mix well and set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients so that they can marinate (try to leave for at least 15 minutes - but longer is greater).

2. To make the Feta: Squeeze as much of the water out of the tofu as you can and crumble it into a small bowl. Add the lemon juice, salt and garlic and mix well. Taste test - it should be nice and salty and sour. If it is not salty enough add more salt, if it is not sour enough add more lemon juice. Set aside for at least 10-15 mins while you prepare your other ingredients.

3. To assemble: Place the pizza bases on a lined baking tray. Spread 2 tbsp passata on each base.

4. Layer the ingredients on: first the baby spinach, then the mushrooms, then the tomato, then the kulen. 

5. Finally, grab a small handful of the feta cheese and sprinkle it in the middle of the pizza. Drizzle with a little olive oil.

6. Bake in the oven at about 180 degrees celcius for about 10-15 minutes, or until the crusts are nice and crunchy and the feta cheese is slightly browned on top. This will vary depending on the type of bases you buy and how hot your oven is - so keep an eye on them.

This is what they looked like before baking.

Makes 6 mini pizzas (serves 3).

Check out our other Croatian Recipes:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça

Paprenjaci (Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

Makovnjaca (Poppy Seed Strudel)

Vegan Makovnjaca (Croatian Poppy Seed Strudel)

Makovnjaca was one of the first recipes which I came across when I started looking into Croatian Food for our January featured country - Croatia (obviously). There were a lot of different recipes out on the internet with quite a lot of variation - however, I can't credit it this to any of them because I pieced this together using ideas from a few different websites and then changed it to make it vegan. So, although it is a traditional dish - this one is very much my own recipe for it and therefore I can't comment on it's authenticity (perhaps a Croatian reader can help me out with this?).

As far as I could glean there were two types of makovnjaca on the internet - a light bready/cakey one and a denser and less fluffy strudel/danish one. This one is of the latter variety, as the pastry does not rise to make a fluffy cake. It was very delicious, particularly because it wasn't overly sweet. Before beginning Croatia Month I had never even thought to use poppy seeds as the fillings in my desserts - but having make 2 now (see the Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache recipe - link below) I am definitely a convert and will be trying to work it into my other desserts as much as possible to explore some new flavour combinations. Poppy seeds are also a good source of anti-oxidants, essential volatile oils, dietary fibre, B-complex vitamins, iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium, manganese and potassium. They can also act to soothe anxiety and irritability and ease pain due to very small levels of opium alkaloids present in them.

Ingredients

Pastry

600g wholemeal flour

150g nuttelex

100g castor sugar

200ml warm soy milk

1 tbsp golden syrup

4x 7g yeast sachets (28g)

5 tbsp water

Filling

2 cups poppy seeds

1 cup soy milk

½ cup sugar

5 tbsp apricot jam

1 tsp cinnamon

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp rum

To Make

1.  Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm milk and leave for 15 minutes.

2. Sift the flour into a bowl and cut the nuttelex into it. Rub the nuttelex into the flour with your hands until it forms a crumbly mixture with no large bits of nuttelex.

3. Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast mixture, golden syrup and a few tbsp water. Mix well.

4. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Put back in the mixing bowl and cover it with a tea towel. Let stand in a warm place to rest (it won’t rise much, so don’t worry if it doesn’t).

5. Put the poppy seeds, soy milk, jam, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the mixture is thick and the jam is completely dissolved. Remove from heat stir the lemon zest and rum through.

6. Divide the pastry dough in half and roll out one half into a large rectangle (use the baking tray that you’re going to be using to determine the length of the rectangle.

7. Spread half of the poppy seed filling mix evenly over the rectangle. Roll up like a jam roll. Trim the edges to be neater and place on a tray lined with baking paper.

8. Do the same thing for the other half of the pastry and filling. Brush the tops of the rolls with either soy milk or melted nuttelex.

9. Bake at 170 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until the tops are browned slightly. Allow to cool completely.

10. Slice into 2cm slices and serve.

Makes 2 makovnjaca.

Check out our other Croatian Recipes:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça

(Savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles)

Paprenjaci

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

(Rice Filled Cabbage Rolls)

Croatian Pizza

Posna Sarma (Croatian Rice-filled Cabbage Rolls)

You know how sometimes you just make a dish and think to yourself: "Man, that looks like some delicious ugly". Well this is one of those dishes, there wasn't much I could really do to it to make it photography pretty but you'll just have to take it on taste value rather than looks - and in order to do that you'll have to cook of of course :) This is now recipe number 4 in our delicious exploration of Croatian foods and I have been enjoying myself sooooooo much trying lots of new foods (to check out our other recipes, check the thumbnails at the bottom of the post), I have to say I have never made cabbage rolls before but now I see they are a delicious, low carb and unprocessed option instead of cannelloni. These ones are stuffed with a lovely rice and vegetable mix but you could substitute any kind of cannelloni style filling - this is particularly good for me as I have a severe pasta weakness and am trying to cut myself down to having pasta only twice a week - it's hard.

On the other hand, if you are a bit scared of cabbage due to it's flatulent reputation (not entirely unjustified) - they I suggest you have this with some of our Cabbage-Is-My-Friend Tea which will take care of any worries you have in that area so that you can happily enjoy cabbage as frequently as you like!

Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely diced

1 rib celery, finely diced

1 cup uncooked long grain rice, rinsed

3 tomatoes, chopped

1 tsp dried marjoram

1 tbsp fresh oregano (or substitute 1 tsp dried)

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1 whole cabbage

1 tin sauerkraut

1 can tomato soup (check to make sure it’s vegan)

1 can pureed tomatoes

1 cup water

To Make

1. Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees celcius.

2. Heat oil in a large saucepan or frypan and sauté the onions until translucent. Add the carrot and celery and continue to sauté until the vegies are softened, about 10 mins on a medium-low heat.

3. Add the rice, tomatoes, herbs and seasonings plus 1 cup water to the saucepan and cook, covered, on a low heat for 10-15b minutes. The rice should start to soften but not be completely cooked.  Remove from the heat and stir the chopped garlic through.

4. Meanwhile, pull the tough outer leaves off the cabbage and discard. Wash thoroughly and steam the whole cabbage for 10 minutes or so until the outer leaves are softened and easier to pull away.

5. Remove as many of the outer leaves as you can (until you reach the inner parts which are not as well cooked) and then put the rest of the cabbage back in the steamer for another 5 mins so that you can remove more of the leaves.

6.  Cut the thick stems out of the cabbage leaves and begin rolling. Add about 2 tablespoons of rice mix to the edge of the cabbage leaf and roll over once. Fold in both of the edges and then continue rolling to the end. Put aside. Keep going until you use up the rice filling (or you have to stop because your dish isn’t going to be big enough for all of them.

7. Take some of the leftover centre part of the cabbage and slice it very thinly. Layer this cabbage along the bottom of a big lasagne/casserole dish. Next spread the sauerkraut (drained if necessary) over the top of the cabbage.

8. Place your cabbage rolls over the top of the cabbage and sauerkraut, tucking them in close to each other so that they hold each other together, like this:

9.  Mix the tomato soup, tomato puree and ½ cup water together and pour over the top of the cabbage rolls. Cover with aluminium foil and bake for 30 minutes.

10. After 30 minutes remove the aluminium foil and continue to bake for another 20 minutes (keeping your eye on it to make sure the tops of the cabbage rolls don’t burn.

11. Remove from the oven and let stand for about 10-20 minutes before serving.

I made 12 cabbage rolls, however I had some of the rice mix and some cabbage left over – I was more restricted by the size of my baking dish.  Feeds about 6 on its own or 12 if served as part of a group meal.  Serve with Croatian Blitva.

Prepares well in advance and can be frozen.

Check out our other recipes for Croatia Month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

YumuşacıkPoğaça 

(Savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles!)

Paprenjaci 

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Makovnjaca

(Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza

Paprenjaci (Croatian Pepper Biscuits)

These traditional Croatian pepper cookies are often served at Christmas, but I think they’re so delicious a batch would be welcome all year round! Usually these biscuits would be made with traditional biscuit cutters, so these forked versions aren’t too authentic in the shape department. However, they are authentic in the deliciousness department, and I’m pretty sure that this department wins over all other departments.


Ingredients:
180g Nuttelex
½ cup and 2 Tbsp of sugar
2 Tbsp of golden syrup
1 Tbsp of freshly cracked pepper
1 tsp of ground cloves
2 tsp of ground cinnamon
1 tsp of ground nutmeg
¼ cup of almond meal or finely chopped walnuts
1 ¾ cups of flour

How to make:

1. Cream the nuttelex, sugar and golden syrup in a large bowl.
2. Add the spices and almond meal to the creamed mixture and mix well.
3. Add the flour and mix with your hands, until all ingredients are well combined and have formed a ball of dough.
4. Chill dough for 1 hour in the fridge.
5. Heat oven to 180°c and line a tray with baking paper
6. Roll dough into small balls and press down gently on each side with a fork, so that they look something like this:

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes, cool and serve!

Makes around 15 biscuits.

Check out our other recipes for Croatia Month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Yumuşacık Poğaça 
(Savoury buns filled with creamy potato and pickles!)

Posna Sarma

(Rice-filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca

(Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza

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Yumuşacık Poğaça (Croatian fluffy savoury buns)

A-dizzle and I recently had a whole group of people over to help us eat all our Croatian food. Not only was this a particularly fun one to make with helpers but it was also by far the most popular savoury dish we served. There is something so fun about inviting people over and then getting them to help you with the food and we had a great time rolling these out, check it:

Poğaça is a savoury bread/pastry eaten in Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia, FYR Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Hungary, Greece  (where its called bougatsa Μπουγάτσα) and Turkey with variations.Typically it is filled with feta cheese, however, this isn't a very vegan option so these ones have a vegan filling of my own devising, comprising of creamy potatoes, grated pickles and chopped parsley - it was such a hit that my guests were eating the leftover filling straight out of the saucepan.

I have to give a big thank you to the fantastic @rhelune for sending me the idea for these, and also for all the other awesome advice and recipes sent to me via twitter.

Poğaça with Potato and Pickles

Ingredients

Dough

4 cups flour

¼ cup warm soy milk
1x 7g sachet dry instant yeast
½ cup canola oil
1 tbsp sugar
¾ cup mineral water

Filling

2 potatoes, peeled and washed

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp nuttelex

2 pickled cucumbers

1 bunch continental parsley

Sea salt, to taste

Plus

Soy milk, to brush on top

Poppy seeds

To Make

Dough

1. Mix sugar and yeast with warm milk. Combine all the dough ingredients including this milk mixture and mix them well. You can add a little more flour or mineral water if either of them is not enough. You should have a pliable and nonsticky dough. 

2. Cover it with a moist cloth and let it rest in a warm spot for 45 min.

Filling

1.  Chop the potatoes and boil them in plenty of water until completely cooked.

2. Melt nuttelex in a saucepan and sauté the onions until translucent and soft.

3. Coarsely grate the pickled cucmubers and add to the onions. Sauté until the onions are completely cooked. Remove from the heat. Add the potatoes and mash with a potato masher (doesn’t have to be smooth, leave it chunky).

4. Finely chop the parsley and stir through the filling with the sea salt.

Assembly

1. Preheat the oven to 180 Degrees

2. Take a small piece from the dough and flatten it with your hands. You can do this on the counter. Put a tsp of potato mixture on it and close it up folding the edges upwards like a bundle. Do the same for the rest of the dough. 

3. Place a parchment paper in a baking tray and place the poğaça on it. The folded side of  poğaça should be at the bottom to have a ball shape. This is best done with help :) Try to make them all the same size, however, as you can see below, we didn't really succeed due to multiple rollers, but it didn't affect their cooking.

4. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with poppy seeds.

5. Bake for 20-25 mins or until they are nice and golden on top. Serve straight out of the oven or allow to cool to room temperature (both delicious).

Makes 12.

Check out our other recipes for Croatia Month:

Poppy Seed and Almond Kolache

Paprenjaci

(Cracked Pepper Biscuits)

Posna Sarma

(Rice filled cabbage rolls)

Makovnjaca
(Poppy Seed Strudel)

Croatian Pizza

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