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Emperors Crumbs

Original recipe tripled, reduced eggs. We have been able to find semolina without any trouble here, both packaged (Bob’s Red Mill is one brand) and in the bulk bins. We love the bulk bins these days!
Ingredients

Makes 5-6 portions

• 2¼ cup/300 g semolina
• 3 cups/750 ml milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 eggs, separated
• pinch salt
• 1½ cups/300 g sugar
• zest from 1 lemon
• 50 g butter for sauteing
• powdered sugar, compote or jam or all three as topping

Method

• Mix together the semolina, flour and milk. Let it sit for an hour or so to let the semolina absorb the milk.
• Mix the egg yolks together with sugar and stir it into the milk mixture.
• Whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt into firm peaks and fold it into the milk/egg mixture.
• Melt the butter and add the batter. Stir the batter with a spatula or wooden spoon until it starts to form little clumps – crumbs. Depending on the size of the pan this can take up to 30 minutes.
• Serve hot with powdered sugar or with jam, or with compote or drizzle with some syrup.

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Roasted red pepper and tomato soup

We usually blend the soup base until it’s quite smooth, and then add some chopped cucumber for a little texture; I love putting in bite-sized pieces of fresh mozzarella, too. Sometimes we go crazy and add little crispy-fried slices of zucchini. Put your own spin on it and add some chili or spices to suit your mood!

Ingredients

Makes a meal for two, first course for four

• 2 pounds tomatoes
• 1 head garlic
• 1 red bell pepper
• 3 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• ½ tsp salt
• pepper to taste

To serve (optional)

• chopped cucumber
• fresh mozzarella
  • Cut off the base of the garlic.
  • Put the vegetables and the garlic into a roasting pan and broil on high heat (450° F/230° C), turning the pepper and tomatoes every 5 minutes. The skin will begin to blacken.
  • When the tomatoes are soft, remove them from the roasting pan and remove and discard their skins.
  • When bell pepper is charred on all sides, remove the pan from the oven. Cover the pepper with a paper towel and let it sit for 2 minutes. While the pepper is cooling, peel the garlic.
  • Slip the skin off the pepper and discard; roughly chop the flesh.
  • Core the tomatoes and put the tomatoes, pepper and garlic into a food processor (you could also use an immersion blender). Process them for 30 seconds; the mixture will still be a little chunky.
  • Add the salt, pepper, vinegar and olive oil. Process for 30 more seconds or until smooth.
  • Cover and refrigerate the soup for at least 2 hours.
  • For serving, add diced cucumber and chunks of mozzarella for a more substantial soup.

Method

This is the kind of thing you throw together when your fruit trees are producing more than you can manage, or if you’ve gone a little crazy at the farmers’ market. Back in Slovakia we have an orchard of nearly 30 little fruit trees, but here in California we have just one rather bedraggled nectarine tree. It miraculously produced about 8 or 10 nectarines,

but then something took a single bite out of most of them, leaving only  a few untouched. Sigh. It’s  funny that here in the suburbs we have more trouble with wildlife than we did in the wide open spaces of Central Europe.

ANYWAY. Pair a not-too-sweet cake with your favorite fruit and you’ve got bublanina, a Czechoslovak summer classic (although I’ve been known to make it with canned fruit for a taste of sunshine any time). This is a very simple recipe, and infinitely flexible – try adding a little lemon zest, or a swirl of jam, or anything that takes your fancy.

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Bublanina – fruity snack cake

Almost any kind of soft fruit works here; we usually stick with stone fruit such as plums, peaches, or cherries; berries also work, although they will kind of melt into the cake. Apples and pears may not cook through in the short time it takes to bake the cake itself. I like to sprinkle a couple teaspoons of demerara or other coarse sugar over the top before baking for a little crunch.

Ingredients

Makes one 9×13″ rectangular cake, or two 8″ rounds

• 6 Tbs/85 g butter
• 1 rounded cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2½ C flour
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• About 1 cup fruit, cut into chunks

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 C. Grease and flour a 9×13″ pan and set it aside.
• Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, and beat until fluffly, about 2 minutes.
• Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, mixing gently until just combined. Don’t overmix or the cake will be tough – the batter will be quite stiff and doughy.
• Gently spread the batter into the prepared pan, and then press the fruit into the surface. Be generous, the batter expands quite a lot so you can use more fruit than you think.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown and the top springs back when touched. Slice and serve.

If you’re looking for a soft, yummy, eggy bread recipe, this is the one. I have to admit failure here, though: I just can’t seem to get the stacked braids to stay upright when I cook them. I finally resorted to my old standby six-strand braid, and the results are much more attractive.

This vianočka is pretty close to the version you can buy in the shops in Slovakia, and it’s easy enough to make the dough in the evening then bake in the morning. It’s sweet, lightly flavored with lemon, and makes great french toast if you don’t manage to eat the whole thing before it gets a little stale.

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Vianocka – modern version

This is a largeish recipe – I’ve taken to dividing it in two and leaving half the dough to sit in the fridge to bake a second loaf a day or two later. If you bake a half-sized loaf, it should be done in about 25 minutes. I often substitute about half a cup of oil for the butter when I’m in a hurry or low on butter.

Ingredients

Makes one loaf

• 4 cups/480 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1 cup/240 ml milk
• 3 oz/85 g butter
• 3 eggs, plus one yolk for the egg wash
• 1/3 cup/80 g sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• zest of one lemon (about 1½ tsp)
• 1/3 cup/40 g raisins (optional)
• ¼ cup/20 g sliced almonds for topping (optional)

Method

• Warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan until butter has melted; set aside to cool. Stir together 1 cup of the flour and the yeast in a large bowl. When milk mixture has cooled to lukewarm, stir it into the flour mixture until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until it is bubbly, about 15 minutes.
• Add the three eggs, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Mix in the flour gradually until you have a soft dough that is still a bit sticky. Stir in the raisins.
• Turn out the dough and knead until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place the dough in a large clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise until doubled, about two hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
• When dough has doubled, divide it into 6 portions, each weighing about 6oz/180 grams. Roll each portion into a rope, and braid the six ropes together, pinching each end to seal.
• Cover the braid with a cloth and leave to rise for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees f/190 C.
• Brush the braid with the egg yolk mixed with about a teaspoon of water; sprinkle almonds over the top if desired (the loaf expands quite a lot when baked, so you can be generous with the topping!).
• Bake for 50-55 minutes or until top is a dark golden brown.

This recipe was born when we invited my in-laws for a Hungarian picnic. Traditionally, the protein part of the meal would be cold cuts: thinly sliced Hungarian paprika sausage or the famous Pick/Hertz winter salami.  You can’t get those here, though,  and substituting sugar-soaked ham was not an option for me. The other popular Hungarian custom for picnics is to take their big kettle and cook goulash, fish soup, bean stew or paprikash. I would be all for this, but I do not think it will make the California firefighters happy.  The grass is so dry that you can light it up just by looking at it. I also had doubts that the picnic grounds would be happy to see some crazy Hungarian making a huge pot of goulash while burning their turf, and I definitely didn’t want to risk expulsion from the Marin Cheese Factory. Where would I get my healthy dose of Camembert?  So under pressure, I threw together this recipe, with a very Hungarian result. It’s maybe best served warm, but kept cool in the picnic basket, it makes a great sandwich filling.

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Hungarian Vegetable Chicken

This is a rustic dish and it can be altered as you wish. If you are crazy, you can skip the bacon and go for vegetable oil. It will still be good.

Ingredients

Feeds 4 people.

• 2 pounds boneless chicken (preferably dark meat)
• 3 wax peppers (Anaheim)
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 strip smoked bacon
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tsp paprika
• 1 cup red wine
• pepper to taste

Method

• Cut the chicken into 1 inch strips or cubes. Dice the bacon and the onions. Mince the garlic, slice the pepper and the tomatoes into circles.
• Start frying the bacon on medium high heat to render some fat, then add the onions.
• When onions are translucent or even caramelized (burned) on the edges add the chicken cook on all sides (5-6min) and then add the peppers and the pepper and paprika.
• When peppers start to shrivel (7-15 min), add the garlic and tomatoes. Toss together and cook for 7 more minutes (do not burn the garlic).
• Add the wine and lower the heat. Simmer until the liquid evaporates and the mixture thickens.

With our respective families 6000 miles apart, one thing Valerian and I have done together a lot is travel. And with two kids added to the mix now, we arm ourselves seriously when we head out to the airport: books, toys, changes of clothes, and of course, snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. When your kids start to get squirrely, sometimes a treat that would normally be off-limits is just what you need to get through the last hours of a 14-hour flight.

Some of the other things we’ve stashed in our carry-ons to amuse the small fry have included a small notebook and the cheapest set of coloring pens I could find; a set of trading cards; a box of band-aids for peeling and sticking at will, as well as other stickers; sets of little animals, preferably packaged in a plastic tube (often putting things in the tube is the best part of these toys); finger puppets; a magnadoodle.

As far as snacks go, I do nod towards healthy stuff like mini carrots, crackers, string cheese, etc. But really, when you’re looking for distraction as much as nutrition, this might be the time to bust out the Dora the Explorer shaped fruit snax, or whatever. The following recipe is a bit of both – I put in plenty of dried fruit and even chocolate chips, but by making it yourself you can avoid the high-fructose corn syrup and artificial colors.

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On the go Bars

This recipe is pretty flexible – you could swap in ingredients like whole wheat flour, or add some soy flour for protein, use different fruit, nuts, other seeds, use maple syrup instead of honey, add a little cinnamon or ginger powder, and so on. The mixture needs to hold together when you press it into the pan, so chop larger pieces of fruit or nuts, and add a little more liquid if mixture seems very crumbly. Even pretty small kids can help make it, too – mixing with fingers and patting it into the pan can be a fun activity between rushing around getting your bags packed.

Ingredients

Makes about 36 bars

• 1¾ C/200 g rolled oats
• 1 C/150 g flour
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2/3 C/155 g brown sugar
• 1/3 c/50 g pumpkin seeds
• 1 C/135 g dried fuit (I use apricots, prunes, dried cherries)
• ½ C/100 g chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
• ½ C/118 ml vegetable oil
• 1 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs water or juice

Method

• Line the bottom of a 9×13″ pan with baking paper or foil to make it easier to remove the bars. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (170 C).
• In a large bowl, mix together the first 7 ingredients (the dry ones) with your fingers until everything is evenly distributed. Stir in the oil, honey, and water.
• Dump the mixture into the prepared pan and press it together firmly to form a layer about ½” (1 cm) thick. Bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly browned, then allow to cool in the pan before slicing into bars.

All I want to say is that körözött is a staple food of Hungary. They are lucky, because they can go to the local Tesco Hypermarket, pick up a tub of the classic spread, or even try “impure” körözött and buy it together with a hearty dose of additives and preservatives. You, the unlucky ones have to make it yourself. The good news is, that it can be kept in the fridge for quite a time even without the pesky additives and preservatives.  Well, enjoy your Hungarian experience!

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Hungarian Spicy Cheese Spread – Körözött

This is the basic, the elemental soul of körözött. People tend to over-complicate this simple spread. Silly, when it is best enjoyed simply with bread or vegetables; tomatoes and peppers make a perfect companion. You might want to reduce the amount of onions, but remember that after chilling the spread will be milder. If you want to go fat free, go for it and use reduced fat or fat free cottage cheese and cream cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 small tub (8 oz) large curd cottage cheese
• 1 smaller or ½ a large onion
• small package (3 oz) cottage cheese
• 1 onion
• 3 tsp paprika
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp caraway powder
• 1 cup red wine

Method

• Put all the ingredients except the onion into a big bowl.
• Grate the onions into the mixture. You can go either chunky or fine.
• Stir the mixture well and then process it with a stick/immersion blender or in a food processor.
• Put it back into the cottage cheese tub and chill it for few hours, best overnight. There will be a little bit leftover which will not fit into the tub. You go ahead and eat it.
• Enjoy with a great rustic bread.

Given the contents of this blog, it might surprise you to learn that in fact we try to eat sensibly during the week and reserve our most decadent dining for the weekends. This recipe definitely falls into the category of indulgence. When I was living in New York, I discovered chocolate babka at Zabar’s, which is pretty much the Platonic ideal of bread + chocolate. Or at least my ideal. While it most definitely originates in Central Europe, I haven’t seen babka in a bakery there (the fact that there aren’t many Jewish people left to bake it being the obvious reason). We have tried a variety of similar things with different names, all good but not quite babka.

Valerian got me Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day for my birthday this year and I just recently got around to trying to bake a loaf of my own babka from there. It turned out better than I could have hoped, and it certainly didn’t survive the weekend. Perfect with a cup of coffee, this is a treat that is worth the calories.

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Chocolate babka from “Artisan Breads Every Day”

If you want to have this for brunch, make the dough the day (morning) before you want to serve it, let it rise, then shape the loaf in the evening and put it in the refrigerator overnight to bake the next morning. Reinhart advises freezing the chocolate for the filling to make it easier to grind; I found the main thing was not to overload our mini food processor, but to grind the chocolate in batches.

Ingredients

Makes one loaf

• 2 Tbs instant yeast
• ¾ cup milk, warmed
• 6 Tbs/85 g melted butter
• 6 Tbs/85 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 egg yolks, plus one egg for the wash
• 3 1/3 cups/425 g flour (all-purpose or bread flour)
• 1½ tsp salt

For the filling:

• 1½ cups/255 g frozen semisweet chocolate (chips, chunks, or chopped)
• ¾ tsp cinnamon (more if you like)
• ¼ cup/57 g cold butter, cut into small pieces
  For the streusel topping:
• ¼ cup/57 g cold butter, cut into small pieces
• ½ cup/65 g flour
• pinch salt

Method
• Make the dough: dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and set it aside for about 5 minutes.
• Cream the butter and sugar. Add the 4 egg yolks one at a time, mixing to incorporate each one. Add the vanilla. Continue mixing until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• Add the flour and salt, then the milk mixture. Keep mixing until you have a soft dough, then turn out the dough and knead it for 2-3 minutes until the dough is smooth and satiny. Form the dough into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl to rise for about 2½ hours. (I accidentally left mine much longer and it grew enormously but was fine.)
• While the dough rises, make the filling.
• Grind the chocolate to a powder, pulsing in a food processor or by chopping it as finely as you can. Add the cinnamon, then cut in the butter until you have a crumbly texture.
• Once the dough has risen, roll it out into a square about 15″x15″ (38×38 cm) on a floured surface; be careful to keep lifting the dough to ensure it doesn’t stick. Sprinkly the filling mixture evenly over the dough.
• Oil a 5×9″ (large) loaf pan.
• Roll up the dough square like a jelly roll, pinch the long seam closed and roll it to the underside of the log. Gently rock the log back and forth to lengthen it out to about 18-24″ (45-60 cm). Coil the roll up like a snail, the turn in on its side so it really looks like a snail – then smoosh it down so that it more or less fits inside the loaf pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.
• Let the dough rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours, until the babka fills the pan or has increased to about 1½ times its size. At this point you can either bake it or put it in the fridge overnight. Let it sit out at room temp for about 2 hours before baking if you do refrigerate.
• When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
• Make the streusel – in a food processor or with a pastry blender (or even a fork) cut together the cold butter, flour, and salt until you have small crumbs. Make an egg wash by beating together the whole egg and a tablespoon of water, brush it over the top of the babka and sprinkle the streusel over that.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotate the pan and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is a dark brown. If you have a thermometer, the internal temperature will be around 185 F (85 C) when it’s done.
• Let the loaf cool before you try to slice it so the chocolate has time to set somewhat. Yum!

We planted peas among our roses to improve the soil, and we actually are getting a nice little crop of fresh peas right now! The kids love to spot the chubby pods that are ready to pick, and they’re still at the age when shelling peas is more fun than work. This recipe is most delicious with the freshest peas you can find, but of course sometimes those will be ones from the freezer.

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The Best Summer Pea Soup

This is a very simple family recipe. You will be rewarded with an amazing soup. On hot days you can serve it cold from the fridge.

Ingredients

Makes soup for 4+.

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1tsp salt
• 2 large carrots
• 1 parsnip
• 2 young onions
• 2 celery stalks
• 3 stalks parsley
• 2½ cups peas (frozen or fresh)
• 7 cups water

Method

• Peel the carrot and parsnip and cut them into circles. Chop the celery stalks the similar way.
• Put the oil in a big pot and warm it over medium heat. Add the carrots, parsnip, celery. Saute them for 5 minutes then add the sugar and the onions (don’t chop them). Caramelize the sugar.
• When you see that the sugar is turning golden, add the peas and the salt and saute for another 5 minutes. Then you add the water and the parsley.
• Let it simmer until the root vegetables are nice and soft.
• Enjoy!

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Valeria’s Potatoe Torte

This is the cake part of the recipe. We used Russet potatoes, which worked great.  The recipe calls for three eggs, but our eggs were small so we used 4. You can experiment with the filling. We tried to mix cocoa and chocolate into the potatoes and we layered that with chunky cherry preserves. The results were ok but not great. I think the original filling is more suitable. You can also try any ordinary buttercream frosting but then forget about the cake being good for people watching their weight! You can also eat it without filling like a coffee cake. In that case add some vanilla and more walnuts.

Ingredients for the cake

• ½ pound floury potatoes
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnut halves




Ingredients for the filling

• ½ pound potatoes
• Up to ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup walnuts halves
• rum
• 1 Tbsp butter

Method

1. Cook the potatoes until soft, then mash them or put them through a ricer.

2. Let them cool a bit, but while they are still warm add the egg yolks, sugar, and ground walnuts. Mix well.

3. Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks, and gently fold into the previous mixture.

4. Pour it into 2 nine- inch round pans and bake it at 350F for 20-25 minutes. You wll see that the top is getting a bit golden.

5. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out from the pan and frost as desired.

The recipe for filling:

Cook the potatoes until soft, mash them in a medium bowl, beat in the other ingredients. Enjoy!

Főzelék is a special category in Hungarian cuisine. It’s not  quite a soup, but neither is it a stew. They are made in many ways and provide a cheap source of nutrition and yuminess. There is a potato főzelék, green bean főzelék, bean főzelék, spinach főzelék, pea főzelék, lettuce főzelék, squash főzelék and many, many more. Usually they are served with topping like a sausage, hot-dog, meatballs, or boiled or fried eggs. In my family we used to serve them with pörkölt (thick meat stew).
This is the ultimate Hungarian fast food. If you will be traveling in Hungary, try one of these cafeteria-style places and have a főzelék with topping. You might spend around 600 Ft (forints – something like $3) and have a great, satisfying meal.

My favorite főzelék is lencse, which is translated as buttered or stewed lentils. The process of making it can be very complicated or very simple. The complicated version requires you to cook smoked meat the night before and to keep the smoky water. Also you must soak the lentils for at least 12 hours. My family goes for the simple version. We do not cook smoked meat a day before and we do not soak lentils. Anyway, modern processed smoke meat is full of junk, and if you cook it you get rid of some of the junk. And then that junky water you use to cook the lentils. No thank you. So my mum skips the “smoked” part all the way. I found that liquid smoke works pretty well (I recently read that liquid smoke isn’t anything too awful, which was nice to know).
If you buy fresh and good quality lentils you can skip the pre-soaking too. Unfortunately the organic lentils I bought from the bulk bin at WholeFoods (sometimes known as Whole Paycheck for a reason) were apparently a mixture of fresh and old lentils, and  some of them overcooked while others were still crunchy. You need a place where there’s good turnover for these kinds of bulk foods; I am still learning about where to shop in California.

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Buttered Lentils – Lencse-fozelek

For this ultimate Hungarian recipe use ordinary brown lentils and common sense with the amount of water.

Ingredients

Serves 6 humans.

• 2 cups lentils
• 10 cups water
• 1 tsp and a pinch of salt
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 lemon
• 8 oz sour cream (small tub)
• 4 oz milk
• 4 tbs all purpose flour
• 1tsp liquid smoke
• 4 oz milk

Method

• Wash the lentils, put them in a large pot with water, garlic, salt and bay leaves.
• Prepare a mixture of sour cream, milk (half of the sour cream container) and pinch of salt. Let it sit and bring it to room temperature while the lentils are cooking.
• Cook the lentils on medium-low heat until the lentils are tender. If necessary add water. Keep the water level approximately half an inch above the lentils.
• When lentils are fully cooked, stir the  flour into the sour cream and milk mixture. Blend it well and add it to the lentils. Add the sugar and the liquid smoke, bring it to boil and cook it for another 5-10 minutes. The lentils and the sour cream mixture should make a thick stew-like consistency. Then turn off the heat.
• After it cooled a little bit (5-10 minutes) add a juice of a lemon (you can substitute it with 1-2tbsp of white vinegar).
• Serve it with sausage or meat balls or hot dogs or cooked eggs. Do not forget a good bread.

Many of our recipes end with the sentence: “Enjoy with a good rustic bread”. Bread is the staple food of Central Europe. We eat bread with everything. One of the challenges of moving was to find an everyday bread -  frankly, supermarket “sandwich” bread here is pretty bad. Sorry my friends, it is the truth. It is full of preservatives, different crazy sounding items and of course, sugar (that is true about everything. Everything tastes sweet here. It is like non-stop candy time). On other hand there are artisan breads. Well, those are amazing! The only problem is they are not priced for everyday eating. A good bread, which our family polishes off in 30 seconds, is $4. If you eat it once in a while, yes, it is the right price for something “special/artisan”. But if you eat it as Europeans do, yikes!
So we make our own. Katy is a great baker and she has been making all kinds of amazing breads. The only thing I missed was the rustic Hungarian potato bread. So in order to surprise her one night I made the “no knead bread“, added a potato and adjusted it accordingly. I was amazed with the results – exactly what I was hoping for! Now I’ll share this Hungarian recipe with you.

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Hungarian Potato Bread

Use bread flour. I used King Arthur bread flour. Russet potatoes are ideal for this recipe, because they are nice and floury. The potato has a few roles in the bread making: it will keep the bread moist, adds a gentle potato flavor to the crumb and a light bitterness to the crust.

Ingredients

Makes 2 small loaves or 1 big one.

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 large russet potato
• 1½ cups water

Method

• Peel and dice the potato, then rinse off the starch in a colander. Cook it until soft enough to pierce with a fork. Once soft strain the water and let it cool.
• In a large bowl mix flour yeast and salt. Mash the potato (or put it through a ricer) and add it to the flour mixture.
• Add 1 cup of water and then more if necessary. The dough should be on the sticky side. Put it in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
• Let it rise at room temperature for 12 hours. After 12 hours you should have a sticky goo, basically.
• Prepare a baking dish ( I used a small square stoneware baking dish) put it into the oven and preheat the oven to 500 F.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and divide it in half; each blob will be a small loaf. Try to fold the dough over onto itself few times. Shape them and sprinkle with flour. Let the first one rest for 30 minutes.
• Dust the baking dish with flour and carefully put in the first loaf. Cover it with tinfoil and bake it for 25 minutes.
• After 25 minutes, uncover and bake another 35 minutes or until the bread gets dark and crusty. That is what we want!
• When the first loaf is ready you can bake the second one as above.
• Let it cool before you eat it.

I had a great day in Sonoma tasting some wine. I specifically went to try out the Cline cellars, since I was very excited about trying their wine; I had it for the first time on the way to California on the BA flight. I love the idea of grapes grown on 100 year-old vines. The yield is low but very mature and sophisticated. I am a big fan of Cline and their Ancient Wines line. With a little luck you can get these wines from under $10, which is my comfortable price limit for a bottle of wine. After the tasting at their cellars, I could not come home empty handed, and I decided to share this gem with my family. Since good wine must be accompanied by good food, I decided to make a Czech classic: roasted duck with red cabbage and Czech dumplings.

This Czech meal consist of three separate segments. You have to roast the duck, make the cabbage and the dumplings. It is a bit more labor intensive, but again remember that a good wine must be accompanied by a good meal.  I’ll post them as separate segments because the cabbage and the dumplings are often used with other meals and later I might refer to these recipes.

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Roasted Duck

For this recipe I used duck legs. For bigger parties or hungry individuals, you can count on 2 legs per person, for a lighter meal go with 1 duck leg per person. You can use other parts of the duck if you wish. The amount of apples and pears depends on the amount of duck you are going to roast. I use fruit in order to achieve light fruity tones and preventing the meat from drying out.

Ingredients

• firm apples, such as Braeburns
• pears, any variety
• red wine
• salt
• water
• duck legs
• caraway seeds

Method

• Slice the apple and pear and lay them directly on the roasting pan. Add few cups of red wine or water. The liquid should barely cover the fruit.
• Salt the duck legs on both side, place the legs on the fruit bed and sprinkle them generously with caraway seeds.
• Preheat the oven to 340F, cover the roasting pan with foil and bake until the meat is soft (2 -2.5 hours).
• When the meat can be easily pierced with a fork, remove the foil and broil until the skin is nice and crispy.

Red Cabbage

While the duck roasts you can do the red cabbage. This is a special cabbage used with few Czech recipes and you can use the leftovers in many good ways, as a side dish, in sandwiches.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red cabbage (1.5-2pounds)
• 1 big onion
• 1 bay leaf
• 3tbs vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 orange
• 3 cups of red wine
• 1tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

• Slice the cabbage into thin ribbons, removing the hard bits and nibbling on them while you salt the cabbage and let it rest for 30 minutes.
• Chop the onions.
• Heat the oil in large pot and add the onions together with the bay leaf. When onions become translucent, add the sugar and caramelize it.
• Add the caraway seeds and 10 seconds later add the red wine and the juice of one orange.
• Bring the mixture to boil and add the cabbage. Cook the cabbage on medium temperature until soft.
• When cabbage is soft add the vinegar and season with extra salt (1/2tsp maybe).

Steamed dumplings – knedliky

The Czech knedliky or “steamed bread” is a real Czech classic. It is served with variety of foods, especially with sauce. This is a simple knedliky recipe; unfortunatelly they are great only on the first day. After that they lose their freshness rapidly, so try to use them right away. You will need a steamer to make these (obviously), one with a flat bottom is the best.

Ingredients

• 1tsp sugar
• 1tsp yeast
• 3½ cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup of milk
• ½ cup lukewarm water

Method

• Make a sponge: mix the lukewarm water, sugar and yeast and leave until bubbly, about ten minutes.
• Mix the flour with salt, add the sponge, eggs, and 2/3 cup of milk (if necessary keep adding more milk).
• Let it raise for 30 min, then punch it down.
• Let it raise again until doubled.
• Prepare the steamer: put a few inches of water in a large pot, and lightly oil the steamer basket. Bring the water to a boil.
• Shape little oval loafs and put them in the steamer basket. Steam them for 10-12 minutes until they are resilient and have a firm outer skin.
• Let them cool and cut them into slices just before you serve them.

My mum used to make these amazing Slovak potato pancakes. She would come home during her lunch break and make lunch for us, so it would be waiting for us when we came home from school. She made sure there was some soup and a main course. By the time we would get home, Mum was back at work, but she always left a note about what she cooked and how much we can have — with three hungry boys she left nothing to chance. I still remember that we could have 5 pancakes each.

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Potato Pancakes – Zemiakove placky

This traditional Slovak recipe is delicious as a snack or as a main course after a substantial soup.

Ingredients

Makes enough for 3-4 people

• 2 pounds/1 kg whole potatoes
• 1 egg
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp majoram – optional
• 1 cup/240 ml milk
• 6 tbs flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
  • Boil the potatoes in a large pot of salted water until you can just pierce them with a fork. Drain and let them cool for a minute or two.
  • Peel the potatoes and grate them on a fine grater.
  • Add egg, smashed garlic, pepper, salt, majoran, milk and the flour. Batter should be a thick liquid.
  • Preheat a crepe pan or a nonstick pan to medium low heat. Grease it and add about a ladle’s worth of batter. Fry 4 minutes on each side.
  • Enjoy

Method

Valerian got a funny Slovak cookbook a few years ago, Z Kuchyne starého Prešporka (from the kitchen of old Pressburg) by Peter Ševčovič. Pressburg is the German name for Bratislava, and the book is full of quirky cooking advice from the Bratislava of yesterday, collected from average and not-so-average people, since there are some recipes for living on the street, including how to cook pigeons and alley cats. I’ve skipped right over those to a recipe for a Slovak favorite, even today: vianočka, a kind of sweet braided bread.

The name vianočka means “Christmassy” but in fact this bread is an everyday item, something you pick up at the grocery store. Our kids are especially fond of an Austrian brand that we refer to as “squishy bread” because it’s packed full of artificial preservatives to keep it soft for for all eternity. When baking at home of course, we stick to natural ingredients!

The vianočka available these days is usually sweet and has a hint of lemon flavor. This old recipe from the book makes a rich, spicy loaf, delicious sliced and toasted or with jam.

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Vianočka- braided sweet bread, adapted from Z Kuchyne starého Prešporka

The dough had a strange texture after the first rise; if you leave it to rise overnight in the fridge, give it plenty of time to warm up the next day before you start to work with it for best results.

Ingredients

Makes one large loaf

• 1 star anise
• 4 whole cloves
• 1 vanilla bean
• zest of one lemon
• 5½ cups/550 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 6 Tbs/80 grams sugar
• scant 1¼ cup/250 ml milk
• 4 oz/100 grams butter
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ cup/40 grams raisins

For topping

• One egg yolk beaten with about a teaspoon of water
• ¼ cup/20 grams slivered almonds (optional)

Method

• Using a mortar and pestle, pound the star anise, cloves, and vanilla pod to a fine powdery paste.
• In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter together in a small pan, until just below boiling. Turn off the heat and add the spices. Set aside to cool.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and lemon zest. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture. Add the two egg yolks. Mix well until a soft dough forms; add the raisins and mix until incorporated.
• Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and knead until it is soft and shiny, about 5 minutes. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover the bowl with plastic and allow the dough to rise until doubled, about 2 hours. You can also put it in the refrigerator overnight.
• Divide the dough in half. Divide one half into four equal-sized pieces. Divide the other half in half again, then divide one of those pieces into thirds, the other in two. You will have nine pieces of dough in three groups of descending size.
• Roll each piece of dough into a rope; all the ropes should be of equal length, but fatter or skinnier depending on the size of the piece.
• Make a four-strand braid with the four biggest pieces. Make a three-strand braid with the medium pieces, and place it on top of the first braid. Twist the two smallest ropes together, and stack them on top of the two other braids. You may want to stick a toothpick at each end to pin the braids all together (I didn’t and the top kind of slid over).
• Place the loaf on a greased baking sheet and cover with a cloth. Allow to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/190 C.
• Brush the loaf with the egg wash. Sprinkle the almonds over the top, if desired.
• Bake for 50-55 minutes. If the top starts to get too dark, cover the browned parts with a piece of foil.
• Allow to cool completely before slicing.