Little chard rolls- Sarmice

SARMICE (small sarmas) is something we make a lot at home. It is basically ground meat rolled up in leafy greens. There are different kinds of sarmas for different seasons throughout the year. The ones we make in the winter or heavier, greased up inside and out, smoked meat on top, and fermented cabbage is the leaf of choice. Here is a typical Serbian sarma recipe.  The summer ones are a lot lighter, leafy greens are used, and since there is no sourness of fermented cabbage, we eat them with a little bit of sour cream or yogurt. But they all follow the same basic mechanism of making sarmas.  Although a bit tedious to make, this can be a nice creative and tasty weekend activity.

INGREDIENTS:

1lb ground pork

about 20 leaves of Swiss chard

1 leek

1 shallot

5-6 garlic cloves

1 carrot

5-6 tablespoons of oil

Salt, pepper and paprika to taste

Sour cream or yogurt

1 cup rice

Swiss chard is a very productive and easy to grow cool season crop. I planted it last winter and it's been producing all through summer, which is great. If you don't have your own chard, you can get it at your local farmers market or grocery store.

First – put the rice to cook as this will take a while, especially if you're using brown rice. It doesn't have to be cooked all the way because it'll continue cooking in the rolls.

Wash the chard leaves on both sides and cut off the excess stems.

Cut up garlic, shallots and leak and sauté on medium heat.

Grate carrot and add to the pan.  At this time you can add other vegetables such as zucchini or eggplant if you want to have higher vegetable content.

Add ground pork and seasoning.

Mix the meat well and break up the clumps.

While the meet is sautéing, cook the chard leaves in the pot with about 1 inch of water. You just need to soften them up to gain some flexibility to be able to roll. They are too brittle when they're fresh.

You don't have to cook them too much. When they wilt and look like this you're done:

Take the chard leaves out of water and place on a plate.

Add half cooked rice to the meet.  I am using brown rice here which gives it a nice texture.

Mix well. Taste it to see if you need to add any more salt at this point. Turn off the burner, and now you're ready to roll, literally.

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Let it heat up while you roll sarmice.

Be gentle with the leaves because they're very fragile and they can break easily. If they do break, don't worry about it they are still very usable. Depending on the size of the leaf, place one or two spoons of meat and rice mixture on the leaf and roll it up folding the sides to prevent the fill from falling out. It will take a few to perfect your rolling technique.

As you roll sarmas place them in the oven safe dish.  If you have any leaves left over, cover your sarmicas with them.  They will cook nice and add flavor.  Whether you have left over leaves or not just depends on how much fill you put in.  

Rinse the pan with a little bit a water and add it to the baking dish with sarmas. Fill enough water to almost cover them.  Covered the baking dish and bake for about 30 minutes. Here I am using the oven time to bake some fresh bread as well.

Uncover the baking dish and continue baking for another 10 minutes or so to allow the water to reduce, but don't let it dry out completely. You want to keep a little bit of juice.

Carefully take sarmice out and serve (there are very fragile and after all of this work you don't want to break them now).  Serve with yogurt or sour cream and bread on the side.

I posted a very similar recipe several years ago where the meat used was ground beef and leaves were collard greens.  Please visit my friend Natasha's delicious creation here.

Taste of home sweet home- roasting peppers

 

Serbian Beans/ Čorbast Pasulj

Growing up, beans were my least favorite food.  It was quite a sad story actually.  My daycare served beans for lunch on Mondays and for this very reason I disliked Mondays too.  I could never finish my meal, and as a punishment I would be sent to the kitchen to try to finish it there while other kids were playing.  

Now that I am all grown up, I eat almost anything.  The other day I ate Korean sea weed with dried fish that still had eyeballs.  But that's another story.  The point is, not only do I willingly eat beans now, but I also make them!  Did you see that coming?  

This recipe is what we call "Čorbast pasulj", meaning "soupy beans".  These pictures were taken last time I visited home.  My mom actually made these beans.

INGREDIENTS:

• 250-300g white beans
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1-2 carrots, sliced
• 2-3 slices smoked bacon, chopped
• 1-2 pieces of smoked hog feet
• 3 bay leaves
• salt, pepper and paprika
• optional ingredients: bell peppers and tomato

Soak beans over night in water.  You can add bay leaves in this water as all.  When you are ready to cook them, decant the leftover water and pour new water to cover the beans about 1in.  

Cook on the stove.  When the beans boil, replace the water again.  Then add the rest of the ingredients.  Now cook this covered over low heat for 3-4 hours.  Look occasionally if you have enough water- you never want the beans to be exposed above water level.  If you are running out of water, don't be afraid to add more.  If you think you have too much water, uncover the pot and let it evaporate.  There is really no right or wrong way here- you can make the consistency to your own taste.  

If you'd like to thicken the consistency, you can heat 1-2 Tbsp of oil in a small pan, and stir in 1 Tbsp of flour and 1 Tbsp of paprika.  Stir together to achieve a homogeneous mixture, then turn off the burner and add it to your beans.  

  

Another Batch of Stuffed Peppers

   

Yummy!  Just got it done.  Lunch tomorrow.  No recipe this time, just pictures becuase I already posted about this 3 times, but they looked so good I had to put them on a photo shoot.

Stuffed Peppers ala Zorana

Stuffed Peppers ala Svetlana

And some more details

Happy Easter!

 

Serbia- Soul Food

Hello! With a lack of my own recipes, I feel obligated to post something. Here is a nice video my mom sent me of Serbian food, I thought would be nice to share with everyone.

I am heading home this weekend, so I will be able to enjoy some of this over the next couple of weeks. While I enjoy the real thing, I hope you guys enjoy this video. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84nDuNxzIaI

Stuffed Peppers ala Zorana (Serbian= Punjene paprike/ Пуњене паприке)

Ever since I moved to WA, I've been craving stuffed peppers. Since Svetlana is not around to make them for me, it was becoming obvious that I had no other option but to make them myself. So, here it is, I can finally challenge Svetlana's recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1lb ground beef (85/15)
• 1/2 lb ground pork
• 5 red bell peppers
• 1 cup white rice
• 3 slices of bacon
• 1 cup wine
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 can tomato paste
• 2 tbsp paprika
• seasoning salt (ex. Vegeta) to taste
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tomato, sliced

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Heat the oil in a pan and add cut up bacon pieces. When bacon starts to cook, add onion, garlic and carrot. Cook all together for a couple of minutes stirring often.

Add meat, bay leaves and seasoning. Stir the meat well to break up all the larger clumps. When the meat looks cooked, add rice. Mix together for a couple of minutes. While this is cooking, core the peppers.

Turn off the burner and stuff the peppers with the meat/ rice mix. Separate the bay leaves.

Close peppers with the tomato slices you cut out earlier.

Please the peppers in a oven safe deep dish. Cast iron baking dishes are especially good for this type of cooking.

De glaze the pan whit wine and water. Mix in the tomato paste. Once you made a homogeneous mixture, poor it into the cast iron dish over the peppers. Ideally, you want the sauce to cover about 1/2 - 2/3 of the peppers. Depending on the size and shape of your dish, you might need to add more water. If you have too much sauce, just cook it uncovered, and it will evaporate.

Cover the dish with the lid and bake for 1 hour at 450F. Then open the lid, pour some of the sauce into the peppers and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes.

Serve with sour cream and bread.

Here is a link to Svetlana's stuffed peppers for comparison:

http://tastymakeshappy.blogspot.com/2010/03/stuffed-peppers-ala-svetlana.html

Pork and Vegetable Casserole- Djuvec

Djuvec is a casserole dish made with pork or chicken and a variety of vegetables. It can also be made without meat. This is a very easy recipe. The measures are approximate, so you can't make a mistake there. Also, you can use any veggies you like.

Ingredients:

1lb of pork neck meat, cut into 1in cubes

3 tbsp oil

2 tomatoes

2 bell peppers

2 carrots

1 onion

3 small red potatoes

handful of green beans

1 cup white rice

salt and pepper to taste

Saute sliced onions over medium heat until they are golden brown.

Then add meat and 4 tbsp water and cook covered for about 10 minutes. Stir occasionally and add more water if needed.

Add cut up veggies and water (to cover the meat and veggies) and continue to cook covered for another 10 minutes.

At this point, there should be plenty of sauce in the pan, covering the veggies and meat. Add rice and cook mixing continuously.

Cook for another 20 minutes until rice is done.

Serbian Moussaka (Serbian= Musaka/ Мусака)

Moussaka is a typical dish in Serbian cuisine, but unlike the Greek version, it is made with potatoes. This dish is easy to make, and you can change the measures to how you like it.

Ingredients:

5-6 potatoes, sliced in think round slices
1 lb ground beef
1 onion, minced
3 eggs
1 cup kefir or yogurt
2 cups milk
oil
salt and pepper to taste

Start by frying the onions and ground beef in oil. Add salt and pepper taste. Vegeta or another seasoning salt would also work here. Fry the meat until it turns brown.

Cut up the potatoes into thin round slices, but not as thin as chips. Do not used the grater, the slices would come out way too thin. Use a knife.

While the meat is cooking, sprinkle some oil onto the bottom of the baking dish and arrange potato slices to form the first layer.

Distribute 1/2 of the cooked ground beef and onions evenly over the first layer of potatoes.

Then cover with another layer of potatoes.

And a 2nd layer of meat (use up the rest of the meat).

Finally, cover with potato slices on top.


Mix eggs, kefir and milk.

Spread this mixture over the top covering all the potato slices.

Cover the dish and bake at 450F for 20 minutes. Then uncover it and bake for another 30-40 minutes.


If you like it crunchy, turn on the broiler for 3-4 minutes, but watch it carefully as it will burn very quickly.




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And here are some Moussaka music: