COOKING IN CROATIA - Abundance of Flavours and Recepies

One of the things I love about my country is food. It is very delicious, full of varieties, colourful....it is beautiful gastronomical mixture of completely different ways of cooking in 3 climate zones we have here and various gastronomical influences we accepted from our neighbour countries like Hungary, Austria, Italia, all countries or former Yugoslavia...

Our kitchen is poetry for eyes and taste. We use abundance of recipes, because we love to eat so love to cook. (I know more then 1000 various recipes , started to cook with 15, on my own intention. )

After Second World War, Croats started to use a lot of meat in the meals, what was not case before: our tradition was eating the meat on Sundays and holidays only, and very rarely during the week. As a product of eating too much meat, many people started to develop a lot of difficult gastrointestinal problems. Before World War 2, meat was considered to be "food for rich ones", as well as unhealthy white flower. While changing the diet (a lot of meat, white flower products as bread, pasta, cookies etc. ) people started to feel "more rich", but paid price in health. Despite of that, we kept the habit of preparing home-made meals and did not accept too much processed food for very long time. Of course in last decade, globalisation influenced our traditional way of cooking, and now modern Croatian family is eating worse then ever thanks to the abundant supermarket`s offers of processed food, but many of us - still regularly cook.

Home made food is certainly song for the soul and pleasure for the body. Processed one hardly has any taste and cannot satisfy neither soul nor body.

In this Hub I will mention one very old traditional way of preparing the food: food is prepared on open fire (covered by hot burning ash) , we call it "under the lead" ("ispod peke" or "pod pekom"). Food prepared on that way has such delicious taste that is just unforgettable experience, so many restaurants kept this old tradition, as a part of their gastronomic offer.

I will also show few our traditional meals (prepared on "normal", modern way) for which I will give recipes in some of my other Hubs.

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Dishes under the lid are Croatian cuisine specialties which are so tasteful that cannot be compared with any another modern way of baking the food. Of course, today people cook very rarely on that way but restaurants kept this tradition alive.

Traditionally, over the many centuries, the food was prepared in clay pots over a fire made of natural wood.

Traditional speciality are potatoes baked under the lid, of course to potatoes people add various vegetables and mushrooms, various types of meat, soy meat for vegetarians, squid or octopus for sea-food lovers.

Principle is very simple: food is prepared in a shallow round baking dish, and put on the fervor on the stone grill plate, next to the open wood fire, then covered with lid from ticker metal or clay. Then lid has to be covered with fervor again and process of baking (or cooking) can begin. This is not quick way of baking, usually it takes more then hour and half for food to be done...But the results are so excellent that is worth of waiting every minute.

Potatoes are the most important part of meal, we usually add to them onions, paprika, carrots, celery, mushrooms, garlic (before the end), meat (I put soy meat), a little bit of bacon, some herbs (according to the personal taste), pepper, salt, oil - and very important - a little bit of water so meal will be juicy at the end.

Food prepared on wooden-fire has always excellent taste which cannot be replaced with anything imaginable...but dishes under the lead are certainly food for the soul and heart.

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A lot of types of food can be prepared on that way: bread, various casserole, pizza... Bread made of corn-flour prepared under the lead is so excellent that while eating it you just now that angels were made it...is sweat, smells lovely, almost better then any cake... Pure poetry.

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My boyfriend and me prepare the meals on that way when we go to hiking, next to the mountain shelters, is often special kitchen for cooking the dishes "under the lead".

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This old tradition was kept here thanks to the rural areas, where many people did not want to give up this tasteful ancient way of cooking. 

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Altough we have many modern and luxury restaurants, the best traditional dishes are often served in small restaurants in etno-style.... They can be also very romantic, as an original example I put here photo of one etno-restaurant on island Vis.

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Due to the varieties of gastronomical infulences and very rich gastronomical culture, we eat a lot of various meals....

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We have habbit of eating a lot of various soups....

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vegetable casserolos, which are usually juicy...it is so good to eat "with spoon"... .

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Here is one great meal with stuffed paprika cooked in tomato sauce...really delicious... with home-made mashed potatotes.... Recipe is on : STUFFED PEPPERS - Food for Angels

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here is "sarma", stuffed sour cabbage. Excellent winter meal....

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home made pasta - this one is called "njoki"...

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and well, deserts.... pancakes are here thin, and we often use wallnuts in cakes...

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