Stuffed Adriatic Squid

This post is dedicated to my very dear friend Maja, who lives in Brooklyn. Maja is real nomad, she lived all around Europe and America. We met working on some film production and we developed one great friendship.

In fact, Maja was one of the two person to who I firstly "discovered" my blog. From the moment she discovered I have a food blog she is tampering me to write about my "stuffed squids".

Well, this recipe that I use is certainly not mine. It is traditional dalmatian recipe and according to great tradition of Dalmatian Cuisine it very simple, healthy and tasty!

Few days ago my brother visited Zagreb and I decide to prepare Stuffed Squids for lunch. Off course, since my brother is great gourmet and great cook he jointed me in kitchen and we prepared lunch together.

Stuffed Adriatic Squid

Ingredients:

9 mid size Adriatic Squids*
3 large potatoes
1 carrot
1 spoon of breadcrumbs
olive oil
1 cup red or white wine
1 onion
garlic
parsley
bay leafs
salt
pepper

Separate the tentacles from the body of the squids. Clean the body cavity and carefully remove the backbone without damaging the body of the squid. Wash the squids and the tentacles. Drain and set aside.


Finely chop the tentacles.


Mix chopped tentacles with chopped garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs. Add salt and pepper according to your personal taste. Add some olive oil to make the mixture moist.

You can get creative with this staffing and you can add different ingredients like Parmesan or ricotta cheese, various herbs and spices, pine nuts or even raisins...

I must admit I prefer the simplest combination: only tentacles, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and superb Dalmatian Olive Oli.

Stuff the squid sacs with the mixture using...


... a very small spoon...


... or your fingers


Seal opening with skewers or toothpicks. Be aware that the stuffing will "grow" so do not overload the sacs or it will break.


Place the stuffed sacs in a baking-serving dish over the already seasoned vegetables: potato, carrot, onion...


Add few bey leafs. If any of the stuffing has been left, just sprinkle it over the vegetables.


Pour over some good quality red or white wine, according to taste.


Cover the dish and cook for about 1 hour, then uncover it and cook for additional 15 minutes.


Stuffed squids cooked in traditional way, "ispod peke" are especially delicious but oven baked squid are quite tasty too.

* NOTE: Adriatic squid (lat. Loligo vulgaris; hr. Lignja) is belonging to the family Loliginidae, and it is preferred in Dalmatian cuisine. Since I couldn't fined any squids in fish market that day I bought Totani or Flaying Squid (lat. Illex coindeti; hr. Totanj or Lignjuni) which resemble to common squid but it's less appreciated since its meet is more rigid. Nevertheless some people prefer Totani over Squids.

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.

WTSIM... Macaroni&Cheese Terrine

Whenever I'm without inspiration for lunch preparation I like to jump to one very simple but effective recipe: Macaroni with cheese. And if you find it too boring, just dress it up! I baked it in loaf tin and, viola, an exciting and fresh new meal was created!

Macaroni with cheese are quite simple to prepare but it does required some patience and attention because milk in which macaroni are cooked can easily burn. And the smell and taste of the burned milk are the most terrible ones. Trust me, you do not need that in your life!

Macaroni and Cheese Terrine

250 g of macaroni

2 eggs

500 ml milk

100 g fresh cow cheese

100 ml heavy cream

20 g mozzarella (chopped)

20 g Gorgonzola like cheese (chopped)

20 g Parmigiano (grind)

salt, nutmeg

In a large pot mix beaten eggs, milk, cheeses, cream, salt. Add macaroni (row, not cooked). Let it rest for 30 min.

Put the on the low heath and bring it to boil stirring constantly because it can burn really fast.

Transfer to the buttered loaf tin, put it into the oven and beak for 40 minutes on 170 C°.

Let it cool and serve with fresh rocket salad. the combination of creamy macaroni wnd cheese with bitter rocket salad is simple divine!

Enjoy it and check out this month WTSIM... round up!

Orange Pudding: for boosting energy and beating hangover!

Here it is, a delicious vitamin bomb to boost the bigging of the new year!

Enjoy it!

PS: it will help to beat hangover too!

Orange Pudding

¾ cup water

½ cup orange juice

Rind of 1 small orange

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 egg separated

A few grains of salt

Rind the orange. Make it finer then on this image. They were too big.

Mix orange rind with fluids: water, orange and lemon juices. Cook on the light heath to a boil.

Carefully mix sugar and cornstarch.

Pour the boiling liquid into the sugar and cornstarch mixture. Stir until smooth.

Return it to the heath, stir until comes to a boil.

Beat the egg whites.

Slowly pour the fruit miture into the beaten white, beating lightly. Mix well.

Wet the cupcakes pots.

Pour into molds and let cool

Custard Sauce

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon lemon zests

A few grains salt

Save out one tablespoon of the milk.

Heat the remainder of the milk together with lemon zests.

Mix together sugar, cornstarch.

Stir in the tablespoon of milk and the egg yolk.

Stir this mixture into the hot milk, and cook till thicken.

Pour over orange pudding.

Ragù Bolognese: I Did It My Way!

Meat sauce Bolognese, in Italy known as "ragù bolognese" is one of those meals that is popular all over the world but it is rarely prepared the traditional way. One of the biggest "mistreatments" of the name is in super-popular meal "Spaghetti bolognese"! In Italy ragù bolognese is paired with tagliatelle not with spaghetti because spaghetti are not too common in cuisine of the region Emilia-Romagna.

The sauce is known for centuries but in 1982 the "official recipe" was protected at Italian Chamber of Commerce in order to preserve the traditional recipe and to keep the continuity of traditional gastronomy of Bologna.

Traditional recipe asks for minced beef from polpa di manzo (quite fatty part of beef), pork pancetta, red wine, beef stock, concentrated tomato sauce, onion, carrot and celery.

But you know how things work with food, we rarely follow the traditional recipe, we all like to add something new, something according to our taste. I heard tons of different recipes for bolognese sauce: with butter, with milk, some like to mix beef and pork, some like to add turkey... some use white wine, some use red wine... And that is OK. Food is too important part of our life to make any compromise, even with the tradition.

But, I do think it is important to know the "original one" because only that way we can be sure that we have improved the recipe and that we didn't deprive ourself by changing the original. So I promised to myself one of these day I'll try to prepare ragù bolognese following the traditional recipe.

Till than, this is how I prepare it. Well, not always, I'm one of those who improvise and never succeed to do same thing twice even when I really want to. One more very important fact - I'm no any kind of expert and I have no clue of cooking chemistry, I do not really know why I do things I do when cooking, so do not feel obligate to follow my lead. All I can say that at the end this taste heavenly!

Ragù Bolognese - My Way
500g minced beef
2 onions
4 carotts
garlic
celery
500 g tomato - pelati
1 glass of white wine
salt, paper
I usually use pancetta too, but this time I simply forgot it.



Finely slice aromatics and fry them in olive oil on high heat until tender.


Add minced meat. Keep the heat hight all the time.


Fry the meat until you start to smell meat aroma. You will feel it, no worry.


Majority of recipe ask not to day meat, but I do exactly the opposite. I use this cooking tool (I do not know its name) to "squeegee" the meat's juices and to "break" the meat into the fine crumbs.


I fry meat until all fluids evaporate and meat crumbs get goden brown crust.


Add little amount of good quality white wine. Do not use some cheap wine because it has great influence on final taste. When wine evaporate, add again little amount of wine. Repeat several times.


Add tomatoes - pelati and mix well. Use that cooking tool that I do not know its name to break the tomatoes.


Turn the heat on low and cook for at least one more hour. Stir occasionally. Add salt, paper. I like to add 1 ts of sugar but that depends on carrot. If carrots are sweet enough, no sugar is needed.


Sometimes I like to add just a bit of Aceto Balsamico at the very end and once te meal is over I like to move it from the heat, rest it for few minutes to chill and them sprinkle with a bit of olive oil.
If you do not have the time, you can cook it just until you feel the tomatoes are cooked and meat is tender but longer you the meat will be tenderer and it will taste better!

You can serve it with pasta, palenta, lasagne or lentils tarts as I did!