Mit - Index

Mit - SINFO March 2008 No.5 - Index

cULTUrALtrails
Ada belongs among those elite cooks who have beaten off rivals in
the traditional cooking competition for the blue ribbon award given
by the Delo publishing house and become Cook of the Year. It is true
that seven years have passed since then, but Ada's ambitions have
not changed. She was the head of the Sežana catering section at the
Chamber of Commerce for several years and a Karst cuisine driving
force of the month. Unfortunately, there were not enough persistent
partners in the neighbouring towns, so she ended up developing
and upgrading the typical Karst cuisine in this area alone. For some
years now, a professional chef, Marko TavËar, has helped Ada in the
kitchen. Like Ada, he was trained at the catering school in Izola. They
both write down their ideas in two thick recipe notebooks bearing
traces of all kinds of menus and are therefore a trustworthy source
of inspiration. Working with wine, preparing homemade sausages
according to the recipes of Ada’s father-in-law and maintaining the
garden are the jobs of Ada’s husband. He is known for getting up
early on Sundays and baking enough fresh bread for several days
before 10 a.m.: white bread, corn bread and grain bread, brown
bread with walnuts, onion bread or herbal bread roulades.
Ada has remained true to the local cuisine tradition. She was born in
the Karst village of »rniËe and still remembers many recipes followed
at home. Together with Marko she adjusts the menu to seasonal
vegetables and the fields nearby, where they get locally bred small
livestock. She became Cook of the Year due to the exquisite taste
of her breast of lamb roll filled with young nettle leaves and curd
cheese, a bit of spicy žvarcet (goulash) with red sweet pepper and
basil, duck breast in cranberry sauce and, of course, - Karst jota. Jota
is a widespread stew, whose basic ingredients are usually sauerkraut
and beans. The granish is provided by different pieces of pork meat
or, even better, a sausage. And if you say Karst jota, it is understood
that it is made from kisla repa (sour grated turnip) or a mixture of
kisla repa and sauerkraut at most. It contains some brown beans
as well. Potatoes cut into cubes and pieces of salted, smoked ham,
which are actually the leftovers from a pork leg, dried by the Bora
wind, are an absolute must.
Today, we would like to serve lamb in a slightly different manner: as
decorative medallions on rosemary twigs. They will be accompanied
by a well-cooked but firm Karst cornmeal polenta and mushrooms.
The Karst is a region rich in mushrooms. You have not tasted a
genuine Karst cuisine yet, if you have not eaten frtalja as a starter.
And you will have to become familiar with the following Karst terms:
frtalja is a kind of omelette, žvarcet is goulash, šelin is celery, juha
iz šelina na obliË is a soup made from grated celery, njoki are small
potato dumplings and štraube are short-crust flancati. We could go
on, but let us get back to frtalja. It is an omelette, but a real frtalja
contains one egg per person (and a small spoonful of flour) and a
mixture of aromatic herbs and sometimes even dried ham cut into
fine pieces. It goes perfectly with dandelion leaves and potato, or
young chicory with beans, which are already in season. The njoki
season, on the other hand, never ends. Njoki are soft dumplings
made from white flour and hot mashed potato quickly cooked
in boiling water. When they are done, they can be served with
goulash, truffles, butter or melted cheese. Mushrooms, Gorgonzola
or fried pancetta, dried bacon spicy due to pepper and salt, are also
excellent choices. A genuine Karst female cook can prepare njoki so
quickly that you cannot follow her fingers.
Have any modern cooking methods been introduced to the
©pacapan kitchen, despite their loyalty to the local Karst ingredients?
Ada: ≈Of course. I replaced lard with olive oil a long time ago. I
use a lot of fresh herbs, such as dill, marjoram, thyme, laurel, and
white wine and Parmesan cheese. Nowadays, we offer less beef and
pork. We prefer young lambs and goats bred around here, where
the animals can graze in the pastures. Božo breeds lambs and we
sinfo february 08 28
get goats, fresh homemade curd cheese and ripe goat cheese from
Tomaž Žerjav, who lives in nearby Tomaj. My husband is a hunter.
So we also prepare pheasants, ducks or other game from time to
time.« Kid meat must hang in a refrigerator at two degrees Celsius
for approximately two weeks before it is ready. Meat from the back
is grilled, and finer pieces of meat are fried quickly in a frying pan
and finished in the oven. Meat rolled in bread crumbs and fried in
olive oil is very delicious as well.
Teran wine is indigenous to these parts. Without it, nothing happens.
It is heavenly with all Karst dishes. And so are the local Vitovska
Garganja and Malvasia white wines. They serve savoury homemade
štraube, savoury short-crust flancati with the wine. ≈Nowadays,
new production and cellaring approaches have raised the premium
wine quality,« realizes Ada. She is not very talkative, since she has
to run between the kitchen and the tables. This does not mean
that she is not nice to her guests or that she does not chat with the
regular guests, but only after the main wave of hungry visitors has
calmed down. Do not refuse when she offers you a homemade
digestif produced by her husband − homemade tropinovec (a strong
spirit made from half-dried grapes), gin, homemade common rue
brandy, gentian brandy and Teran liqueur. Their homemade cognac,
vinjak strictly speaking, has received a gold medal. Cheers!
lamb medallions on rosemary
Frtalja with fennel
sweet štraube − short-crust flancati with vanilla mousse