I'm back!

When, back in May, I said how I'm busy I didn't think it will take me soo long to come back to this blog. Yes I was really busy, I'll post about it, but after some time away from blog it was hard to start posting again.

But, what is better time to start something if not this season when we all make plans for our new year's resolution!

For the beginning I have to show you my "alternative Christmas tree". I got inspired whit some great suggestions from Apartment Therapy and I simply couldn't resist try to do something myself.

Hope you like it! I'm completely proud of myself!

Jota - the Comfort Food Queen

If you ask me, when we talk about comfort food, nothing can beat Jota - thick bean and sauerkraut soup. It's one of those ancient dishes that no one can really tell where and when was prepared for the first time. It is topical staple food in Dalmatia, Istria, Slovenia and part of northmen Italy (around Trieste). Each region has its own variant, but two main ingredients beans and sauerkraut are the basics! If you are interested to learn more about history of this meal, original recipes... read the article about it.

I'm bringing you the recipe that I use. I do make variations with meat that I use. This time I used sausages but any other smoked meat like the knuckle of prosciutto, or pork ribs will do just fine if not even better.

Jota - bean and sauerkraut soup

250 gram beans

500 gram sauerkraut

sausages or other smoked meat according preference

100 gram fine-cut bacon

1 onion, fine-cut

2 cloves of garlic

carrot, according preference (I like to use lots of carrot)

parsley and celery root

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste

0.5 dl olive oil

veal stock

Soak the beans overnight. I didn't have to do this since I had young beans that didn't needed soaking and long cooking. Instead I precook it for 1 hour.

Heath the olive oil in the large pot, add bacon and fry for 2-3 minutes on medium heath.


Add onion and brown it.

Add sliced carrot, parsley and celery root. This is not the part of the original recipe but I prefer it this way.

Add the sausages and let them burn a bit just to add the taste of sausage to the aromats.

Pour in the stock, bay leaf, salt, paper to taste. Add beans and cook until beans are almost completely soft.

Add sauerkraut. Pour more stock if needed.


Cook until beans and sauerkraut are completely tender.

Jota lets you be creative so use that. You can make numberless variations in every step of the recipe. You can use meat, but Jota can be great vegetarian dish too. Instead of sauerkraut you can use soured swede (purist will insist it is not Jota anymore, but trust me it is delicious too). Some add sour cream, some like to tick it with pestata...

Be careful with beans. If us "old" beans it will need longer time to cook. I do not cook sauerkraut too long for two reasons. The first is that I like to "feel" the crispy sauerkraut and secondly because Jota is one of those dishes that you prepare to eat for at least two days so you will re-heath it few times and sauerkraut will get very soft at the end.

As you can see, Jota is "flexible" so there are no reason not to do cook it today. Let me know how it worked for you.

Fried fish

Buy fresh fish. This is the essential! If you are not lucky enough to buy fish directly from fisherman boat like we did, you will have to know haw to recognize fresh fish! Clear eyes, bright red, moist gills and pleasant, fresh smell are best signs of the fresh fish.
Don’t choose big fish. Smaller fish have firmer flesh that is and more tasteful.

Clean and gut fish (I'm planning to write step by step tutorial on how to clean and gut a fish soon) We leave the head on, but you can remove it if you prefer it that way. You can cut the fish in fillets, but if you leave it whole you will get softer, more tasteful meat.

Place flour on plate. Coat the fish with flour and shake of the excess. The more practical way is to mix flour with salt and paper in a plastic bag and than place the fish in plastic bag, close the bag and shake it well. Place it on the plate. If you have time leave it to dry for about one hour. This will give you nicer crust and more taste.

Heat good quality extra virgin olive oil in large fraying pan (heath well the pan prior pouring the oil) and place fish in the pan. Fish should be fried in hot oil. Shake pan for the first few seconds to avoid fish stick to pan. Fry until skin gets golden crust. Carefully turn fish on the other side. Again, fry until skin turns golden brown.

Put the fish on the plate. Season it with salt. You can sprinkle it with drop of olive oil, parsley and garlic. Serve it with slice of lemon with a side of sliced tomatoes salad.

Buying fresh fish

Picture of the thousand flavors

This bunch of old, yellow, grassy papers is my parents' cookbook collection.

It is said that a picture is worth a thousands words. Well, I don't know about words, but I know that between these shabby pages, all tastes, smells and senses of my childhood are hidden.

And we are not talking about delicate Proust's Madeleine, but about rich, savory domestic food, prepared in domestic traditional way of our grandparents. It is Mediterranean, it is Balkan, it is Dalmatian. So many flavors… so many different cultures and histories... all hidden in the food.

The backbone of the collection is The Bible of Dalmation cuisine called "Dalmatian cookbook" written by Dika Marjanovic - Radica. The book is the equivalent to "Silver Spoon" in Italian cuisine. It's the book that was usually gifted to newly married, to new cooks, young wifes...

If Dika's book is backbone of my parents cookbook collection, my mother's wonderful, handwritten private collection of recipes is the flash. These recipes are collected for almost forty years and they are mostly named after the source of the recipe, so we have Ana's yellow cake, Nardeli's tart, Margi's fritule, Nada's krostule...

The sources are my mothers friends and her clients from her hairstyle saloon that she runs for more than 35 years. And you know there is some serious "recipe traffic" going on in hairstyle salons.

This summer I'll spend with my parents in their wonderful house in my hometown Split in Dalmatia (coastal part of Croatia). My plan is to explore their recipe collection and to use Internet and blogging to digitalize it, so that I have them at disposal wherever I go and that I can share it with my friends who all like my parents cooking.

I decided to write this blog in English for several reasons. The first one is my "broken English" that desperately craves for some practice. So, feel free to correct my grammar and wrong spelling.

The second one are some of my "international" friends that I keep neglecting, so this seams as a good way of "keeping in touch".

At last, but not least, since I noticed that there is a small number of cookbooks about Dalamtian, and Croatian cuisine in English and I decided to make my humble contribution to change this regardless my "linguistic limitations".

That it's for my first post!

I'll be back!