How to make Potica and other slovenian dishes

JOTA

400 g sauerkraut or sour turnip
400 g potatoes
200 g brown beans
1 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
5 black peppercorns
20 g flour
1 onion1 onion
3 garlic cloves
100 g smoked bacon

Separately cook soaked beans with bay leaves, potato chunks and sauerkraut. Dice the bacon and fry it with onions, then toss the mixture into the sauerkraut. Add cooked and mashed potatoes, blended beans and black pepper. Salt should be added to each ingredient already during cooking. Mix well.

STYRIAN SOUR SOUP

1.5 kg pig's trotters
vegetables for soup
1 onion1 onion
6 garlic cloves
3 bay leaves
a few peppercorns
juniper berries
thyme
marjoram
parsley
1 chilli pepper
2 dl wine
vinegar
2 dl sour cream

Put thoroughly cleaned pig’s trotters which were cut in halves into the cold water, add salt and bring to a boil. Let it boil for a short period of time and then add vegetables for soup, which were cut into slices (carrots, parsley, leek, celery, kohlrabi, cabbage and cauliflower stems, onion, which was cut into halves and quickly roasted, crushed garlic) and other spices. Once the meat becomes tender add wine and some vinegar, salt to taste and enrich the taste with black pepper and crushed chilli pepper. Just before you’re finished cooking add the sour cream.

ROASTED POTATOES

8 potatoes
60 g fat
onion
salt

Peel freshly cooked and hot potatoes, cut them into thin slices and toss them onto fat where onions cut into strips were lightly fried beforehand. Sprinkle some salt, mix with a fork and fry covered until the underside of the potatoes becomes lightly yellow. If you wish, you can pour a ladle of soup and slowly fry the potatoes.

COOKED AJDOVI ŠTRUKLJI (BUCKWHEAT DUMPLINGS) WITH WALNUTS

400 g buckwheat flour
5 dl boiling salted water
250 g ground walnuts
1 egg
1 dl sour cream
1 tsp breadcrumbs
salt

Knead the buckwheat flour scalded with water into a smooth dough. When cooled, roll it into a blade-thin sheet, coat with the stuffing, roll it, wrap it into an oiled cloth, secure it with a string and slowly cook in boiling salted water for thirty to forty-five minutes. To prepare the stuffing, mix walnuts, an egg, sour cream, breadcrumbs and a dash of salt.

KRAJNSKA KLOBASA (CARNIOLAN SAUSAGE)

2 pairs of Carniolan sausages

Put the Carniolan sausages into a pot with cold water and bring it to a boil. Remove the pot from heat and leave the sausages in the water for another 10 minutes. Serve them on a plate together with a side dish of your choice.

RIČET

250 g barley
400 g dried meat
100 g beans
carrots, parsley root, celery tuber, leek, kohlrabi
2 potatoes
2 garlic cloves
2 tomatoes
onion
bay leaf
black pepper
parsley greens

Sort through and wash barley and beans. Let them soak and cook them together with meat the following day. Let it boil slowly. After one hour mix in all the vegetables, except potatoes and tomatoes. Let it boil slowly for another thirty minutes. Add the diced potatoes and five minutes later also add the tomatoes. Add salt, herbs and parsley. You can serve the meat separately or you can dice it into bite-sized pieces and add it back into the pot. The cooked ričet has to be thick; if it is not thick enough, remove a ladle of soup vegetables and beans, blend them with a blender and mix them back into the dish.

POTICA

yeast dough
100 g butter
3 egg yolks
200 g sugar
lemon zest
1 dl sweet cream
1 kg walnuts
whipped egg whites of 2 eggs

Lightly mix the butter together with egg yolks and sugar into a foamy mixture. Add cream, half of the ground walnuts and carefully mix in the whipped egg whites. Roll out the leavened dough, spread with filling and sprinkle the other half of the walnuts on top. Tightly wrap the potica, put it into a greased tray, and let it rise for a few hours in a warm place, then lightly coat with eggs and put in an oven. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for an hour to an hour and a half.

AJDOVI ŽGANCI (BUCKWHEAT SPOONBREAD) AND MUSHROOM SOUP

400 g buckwheat flour
50 g fat
50 g greaves
1.2 l boiling water
salt
250 – 300 g mushrooms
2 tbsp fat
onion
parsley
2 garlic cloves
1 dl sour cream
1.5 vegetable stock
salt

Toss the flour into a salted boiling water and cook covered for 6 minutes, then pierce the flour with a cooking spoon or turn it bottom up. Let it boil for another 6 minutes, remove some water and mix the spoonbread. To crumble them, add hot fat and cover for a few minutes, then use a fork and crumble them into a heated dish and serve with lard and cracklings accompanied by a mushroom soup.

Cook the onions in fat until yellow, add crushed garlic and cut mushrooms and stir until the mushrooms are dry. Then pour in soup. Let the soup boil for 15 minutes, add sour cream and chopped parsley.

SAUERKRAUT

1 kg cabbage
1 tbsp fat
minced onion
salt

Cook the cabbage in salted boiling water. Fry the onions in fat and mix into sauerkraut from which you removed some liquid. Let it simmer. Before serving, add some fresh cabbage to the sauerkraut. Serve with cooked potatoes.