Cooking Around The World: Croatia
Why, hello Europe! It's been awhile. Twenty-one weeks to be exact. And curiously, the last time we were in this part of the world, it was for a neighboring nation with a very similar past.
Yes, we have arrived at Week 43 of my cookin'-and-learnin'-and-satisfyin'-a-neurotic-need-for-lists-and-alphabetical-order challenge and ... Croatia!
Stretched across the Adriatic coast, Croatia has a long and dizzying history of being a part of a long list of empires and nation states, from the Greeks and Romans to the Ottomans to Austria-Hungary and, after World War II, as part of the Eastern Bloc nation of Yugoslavia.
In 1991, as the Cold War was coming to a close, Croatia declared independence from the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, and a bloody four-year war ensued. (Among the other Yugoslav states which had their own wars and general tragedy at roughly the same time is Bosnia and Herzegovina, which I cooked back in Week 21 of this thing.)
But since the formal end of Croatian conflict in 1995, the nation has joined the European Union and NATO and is a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean. Now, thanks in large part to its breathtaking scenery and location, it has become a prime summer tourist destination.
Seriously, just search Tumblr for the hashtag #Croatia and sit back and watch the parade of gorgeous architecture and happy people at the beach.
As for the food, here I had the opposite of the problems I've had throughout Africa. I had too many recipes from which to choose. And there really didn't seem to be one "national dish" so far as I could find.
Since it's a very developed nation with a history of conquest by many people from many places, the cuisine is extremely varied ... to say the least. In fact, since parts of the nation are inland in the mountains while other parts spread far along the Mediterranean coast, there are actually distinct cuisines for just about every section of the country.
This presented a problem. First, I checked what the other world-cookery blogosphere had tried already. From there, I picked out a few candidates.
But, as has happened before, I discovered that the recipes I found most interesting were all entrees. And I can only really do one of those.
I even asked for help on Facebook, since I'm sure I have a few friends who have at least taken cruises that stopped there. And I did get one suggestion, curiously one I had already been considering, a fish gregada, or cod-based warm potato salad.
Ultimately, though, I ended up vetoing that option, since a.) I don't really understand why so many places so very far from the North Atlantic eat so much salt-preserved fish from thousands of miles away, b.) I did cod way back during Antigua and Barbuda, and, c.) I didn't want to spend about a day trying to get the salt out of the stuff.
So, after much thought, I selected the items for my menu. I'd make ...
Pasticada (Dalmatian Pot Roast) using this recipe,
Croatian Style Octopus Salad using this recipe, and
Blitva (Swiss Chard with Potatoes) using this recipe.
Well, if there's one benefit to cooking European food where I am, it's the availability of any ingredient from this cuisine I would like. And closer rather than farther away. The downside, though, is that the products themselves are probably more expensive on average than your humble plantains-and-beans dishes of Africa and Latin America.
In picking the recipes, I purposely tried to find ones with unusual or Croatian specific items. Hence, on the unusual tack, the octopus. On the Croatian-specific one, I picked the blitva one for its very specific call for one item: Vegeta.
Wikipedia suggested that this item is a branded general spice mix of dried vegetables and such. And I found recipes online for making your own, even. But, what say we try to find it locally, eh?
This led me to an early trip to the butcher shop I've visited for previous Eastern European dishes, since the place is replete with hand-written signs in cyrillic fonts. And while the Croatian language doesn't use those, it's close enough that it was worth a shot.
"Have you heard of a spice mix called ... (adopting an accent) 'Vegeta?'"
"Oh, yes. Right behind you."
I grabbed the can and noticed that, yes indeedee, it says right there: "Made in Croatia."
And, as promised, it had MSG (monosodium glutamate) among its ingredients.
With that secured, the only other oddity was going to be the octopus. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find fresh here in Palm Beach County, Florida. (I say this mostly because I have never really thought to look before. And I've never seen big arms of octopi in the display cases where I've been buying fish.)
So, when I looked at the recipe and saw the ingredient ...
1 large octopus, cleaned and rinsed (preferably fresh, but can be frozen)
... I asked the woman at the counter, "Er, can I have half of an octopus?"
This is when I got one of those looks.
"Well, they're all different sizes ...."
She said it with one of those up-at-the-end-where-every-statement-is-a-question voices that don't inspire confidence. When she allowed that she didn't know the first thing about cooking the stuff, I just let her grab a pound of what I later realized were previously frozen baby octopi.
If there's one thing I hate it's weeks that call for anything to be done the night before. I already give up the better part of a day to this thing, the night before belongs to me and Orange is the New Black (this month anyway).
Still, in addition to a marathon cooking schedule, this week was going to call for some work the night before. And that was going to be for the pasticada.
I took out my pound of top round and put it in a pot.
I sliced up an onion and pulled apart some rosemary. (You don't use the sticks, right?)
And onto my loaf of meat I poured an entire bottle of cabernet sauvignon.
(Side note: The alcohol for this dish, the cabernet sauvignon and a dessert wine which you'll see later, ended up costing just as much as the entire rest of the meal. Look! Those are my oenophile friends scratching their heads as to why I'd find that the slightest bit odd.)
Now, I didn't really understand the recipe's instruction about the onions and rosemary, since I didn't see whether they were to be added before or after the overnight marination.
I decided the answer was "before."
And I stirred that up some.
I covered that up and put in the fridge overnight to let my milk get all nice and onion-smelling ... like I like it.
I know, I could have had the foresight to cover that in plastic wrap first. Again, you're assuming I have the farsightedness of a doorknob.
The next day, far earlier than I would start under any other conditions, I got started on my dinner.
Q: Why are Croatians never seen by the light of day?
A: Because they spend every daylight moment in the kitchen preparing dinner.
If it's not a joke that's out there, it should be. Not only were two out of three of my choices going to involve many hours of cook time, but just about every other blogger complained about spending the entire day in the kitchen for their choices, too. Oy.
First up, into the Octopus' Garden with you.
This is what a pound of baby octopus look like.
And, seeing as one is directed to pound them with a mallet to tenderize ...
This is what they look like when they're "smashed."
Here's the thing. When I did conch back during The Bahamas, I knew that making it tender was a priority. And I saw that it pounded out far more easily than I thought.
The octopus, not so much. In fact, all that seemed to happen was that the heads kind of squished. And that was kind of gross. (More on this later.)
I set the octopus to boil for three solid hours.
Instantly, I was totally creeped out by how they ballooned up in the boiling water and overpowered the room with fishy smell.
Deep breaths. No, cancel that. Not a good idea.
Anyway, I made sure to keep adding water to that for the next epoch.
Then, it was time to turn to the pot roast.
First, the dessert wine. Now, the recipe had called for a "prosek dessert wine." The clerk at the wine shop didn't know what that was. But he suggested I might be looking for a prosecco. Now, I know that that's Italian. They're geographically close; maybe they're the same thing (or at least similar.)
But seeing the price on the prosecco, I said, "No, thanks," and grabbed a cheaper dessert wine instead.
Next, I got out my carrots. I cut off the greens and disposed of them. (I'm guessing someone's going to tell me something about saving them for a stock or something. Don't worry, I've got more.)
I sliced those up and prepared the various other items for the roast.
Next, I plucked the meat out of its winey marinade.
And I carved out little holes around it into which I'd cram slivers of garlic.
Once that was done, I put the whole thing in a skillet to brown on all sides.
Meanwhile, I added the can of tomato paste to the marinade, which was now to be the sauce for the pot roast.
After a few minutes, I put the meat back in the broth.
The bay leaf, cloves (ground, since I didn't have whole) and the dessert wine ...
And I let that boil. Once it was bubbling, I lowered the heat and let it simmer for another three hours.
Was I kidding about the "whole day in the kitchen" thing?
One question I had about this recipe was how this whole "sauce" thing was to work. For, on one hand, it said that the sauce should reduce. But, on the other hand, it insisted that one keep adding water to make sure the meat is covered and moist.
Well, I voted "let's have moist meat" and kept adding water every few minutes for those whole three hours.
While that was going on, it was time to prep the third dish, the blitva.
Here's our newest friend, Swiss chard.
Naturally, we've never met before. (Pleased ta meet cha.)
Hence, I was going to need a quick trip to Googleland to see how one is supposed to prepare this.
There I learned that one is to slice off the leaves and leave the stems behind. (Again, I'm sure someone else is going to tell me some novel way to use the stems in a stock or something. Sorry, they're down the disposal already.)
I sliced and tore the leaves off the stems.
And I went to meet our visitor from the Dalmatian coast, Mr. Vegeta. Let's get a look at you.
My, there's a lot of you!
I scooped out my tablespoon of the stuff and put the rest away. (I'll have to make use of the various recipes that are under the lid later.)
I peeled and cubed my potato and I was ready to cook my chard.
But first ... the octopus salad.
Time was running out on the three-hour boil, and I'd have to be ready to toss the salad.
I chopped the onion, tomato, garlic and parsley. I squeezed out my lemon. And I poured out my extra virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar.
My, that's a lot of bowls!
Now, the octopus was finally ready. The instructions said to chop them into one-inch cubes.
But that was clearly referring to whole, adult octopus.
And then there was one other thing I realized as I fingered the fleshy seafood: I don't think I was supposed to use the whole bodies. I mean, there's an intestinal tract in there, right?
A closer look suggested I was right. Ick.
The next 15 minutes were spent carefully separating the legs and draining and cleaning and scraping and drying the stuff so I got rid of any of that gross ickness.
Cleaned and softened baby octopus legs. Whew.
And into the salad bowl it goes with the 101 other ingredients for a good tossing.
First, boil the water and add the Vegeta.
Drop in the chard and potatoes.
And boil for ten minutes. I added some salt and pepper, drained it and drizzled oil on top and it was done.
At long, long last, dinner was ready.
You know, it wasn't until I was actually plating all of this that it dawned upon me that I had unwittingly produced a meal of "meat and potatoes with salad."
The salad was, in a word, astounding. The proportion of octopus to salad was far smaller owing to that whole "lose the bodies" thing. But they were indeed soft and not at all chewy or slimy. And the salad with its notes of garlic and citrus was fantastic. I haven't made that many salads, but this one I'd say was the best so far.
The chard and potatoes came out really well, too, Somehow the potatoes got a mite too soft, but the greens and the Vegeta gave the whole thing a taste I had never experienced before. I inhaled it.
The pot roast came out really well, too. The husband was really grateful that he finally got "melt in your mouth" beef again after so many weeks of fish and lamb and goat and pork.
And it was soft indeed. No knife required. And truly delicious. The only complaint we both had was that somehow it seemed, despite being in so much liquid for so long, surprisingly dry.
I ruminated on how that whole keep-it-moist-yet-let-it-reduce thing worked. But I suspect that this may have had more to do with the fact that the chop I selected was very lean and a certain amount of fat is required (I gather) to keep it juicy.
I'll need that in my quiver since for the next few weeks we'll be covering Europe more than ever before.
Next Week: The food I've been eating all my damn life, so there's pressure. It's ... Cuba!
