Škampi na Buzaru (Scampi a la Buzara)

Today I made Škampi na Buzaru or Scampi a la Buzara.  It is a traditional Croatian dish that is made in Dalmatia by the Adriatic Sea coast.  It is made by cooking shrimp in a tomato and garlic sauce and it is a great appetizer and tastes great with fresh bread that you can dip in the sauce.  I served a traditional bread from Bosnia and Croatia called somun/lepinja with this dish that we bought at City Fresh Market.

Ingredients:
- 1 pound of shrimp (I used cooked shrimp)
- about 3 tablespoons of olive (or to taste)
- 2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped)
- 1/2 cup of tomato sauce
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- about 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
- 5 teaspoons of bread crumbs
- 1/8 teaspoon of Vegeta (optional)
- 3/4 cup of dry white wine
- salt to taste
- fresh ground pepper to taste

Directions:

- Wash shrimp

- Quickly put tomatoes in boiling water and take out, then peel them (this makes it easier to peel the tomatoes) and slice them

- Mince the garlic

- Chop the parsley

- Heat up the olive oil and saute the bread crumbs for a few minutes until toasted, but don't let them burn

- Add garlic, parsley, sliced tomato, tomato sauce and Vegeta and saute until tomato starts to break down

- Add salt, pepper and white wine and mix well

- Add shrimp and mix well

- Cook covered for about 15 minutes or until shrimp are cooked.

- Serve with Polenta or fresh bread

Prijatno!  Enjoy!  : )

Kvrgusa - Bosnian Chicken Pie

Kvrgusa is a traditional Bosnian dish that is made by baking pieces of chicken in a flour, egg and milk batter and when it is done it tastes like a chicken pot pie.  It is a very simple dish and very tasty too.  My family did not make this dish at home that often, but whenever I ate it when we visited our friends or family I loved it.  The last time I had this dish was a few years ago when we visited our close friends and neighbors while visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina and like anything that they make, it was very delicious.  Today, I decided to try making it myself and we had it for dinner.  Here is the recipe that I came up with:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 1 1/2 pounds of chicken (or 1/2 of a chicken)
• pinch of Vegeta (or to taste)
• 3/4 cup of sour cream
• 1/2 cup of milk (to add to sour cream at the end)

Directions:

• Heat oven to about 450 F
• Beat the eggs, then mix four, salt, eggs and 1 1/4 cups of milk well until batter is smooth

• Cut up the chicken into pieces
• Pour some oil into the baking pan to coat evenly and put in oven to heat up for a few minutes
• Take out the baking pan and evenly pour mixture into it

• Transfer chicken pieces into the bowl where you had the batter and sprinkle with Vegeta (or salt) and mix well
• Place chicken pieces onto the flour batter in the baking pan

• Put in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes until it starts browning a little
• Lower temperature to about 420 F and keep baking until chicken is fully cooked and browned
• In the meantime mix 3/4 cup of sour cream and 1/2 cup of milk
• Take out Kvrgusa and pour the sour cream and milk mixture over it evenly

• Put back into the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes
• Take Kvrgusa out and let cool for a few minutes
• Serve with green lettuce salad seasoned with olive oil, vinegar and a few pinches of salt

Prijatno!  : )

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

A couple of days ago Maja and I started to discuss and reminisce how much we enjoyed going to Jamaica years ago. Maja was still a pescatarian, so she didn't get to eat anything with meat back then, but I enjoyed a lot of Jamaican dishes, especially jerk chicken. Since I never tried making it myself, I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so.

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of skinless chicken breast
• 1 minced onion
• 1/2 minced jalapeno pepper
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup  olive oil
• 1.5 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons of Jamaican jerk spice

Directions:

Combine and mix very well all ingredients for the marinade. Here I am using a vacuum marinator which helps marinate the meat better and faster, but you can also use just a regular bowl or a ziplock bag. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, and preferably overnight.

Oil the grill or griddler and set it to high heat. Place chicken on the grill and pour some of the marinade over it. Grill chicken for 6-8 minutes. Don't worry if it gets blackened a bit - that's to be expected.

In the meantime, put the leftover marinade into a pot and put it to slow boil.

Serve with Jamaican beans and rice, and a Red Stripe or a caribbean cocktail. Pour some of the cooked marinade over rice and chicken to taste. Enjoy!

Shepherd's Pie

Since this is still the week of St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to use the opportunity to make a traditional Irish Shepherd's Pie for dinner a few days ago.  I combined a few recipes I found online to make dinner and was happy with the results.  We also invited my mom for dinner that evening and it seems like everyone liked this pie.  I made it with ground beef, mashed potatoes, carrots, onions and peas.

I have been planning on making this type of a pie for a while now.  The first time Ivan and I tried something similar was when we were in London.  I ordered a lamb pie and Ivan ordered a beef pie and they were both very good.  So this is my recipe for the Shepherd's Pie:

Ingredients:

• about 2 pounds of potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons of sour cream or softened cream cheese
• 1 large egg yolk (reserve egg white for later)
• 1/2 cup of cream, or for a lighter version substitute vegetable or chicken broth
• salt and freshly ground black papper (to taste)
• about 1 tablespoon of olive oil or to taste
• 1 3/4 pounds of ground beef or ground lamb (I used ground beef this time)
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of butter (I substituted some olive oil)
• 2 tablespoons of all-purplose flour
• 1 cup of chicken or beef stock
• 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce or to taste
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• 1/2 cup of red wine
• 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
• 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley
• couple of pinches of dry thyme (optional)
• some tomato paste to taste (optional)
• grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions: (Servings: 4)

• Preheat oven to 200 C / 400 F
• Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes.

• Drain potatoes and transfer them into a bowl. 
• Combine sour cream, egg yolk and cream (or broth) and add the mixture to the potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth

• In the meantime, preheat a large skillet over medium-high heat
• Saute carrots in the olive oil until starting to get tender, about 5 minutes.
• Add onions  and saute for about a minute or two 

• Add meat and season with salt, black pepper and thyme
• Cook until browned, then drain fat
• Add the butter (or olive oil) and peas

• Sprinkle with flour and stir through
• Add wine, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste (if using)
• Let this reduce slightly, then add the stock and allow to reduce down until you have a thick meaty gravy
• Season to your taste
• Remove from heat
• Grease an oven-proof dish (I used a pie dish like seen in the photos) with butter (or olive oil) and add the cooked meat

• Spoon the mashed potatoes over the meat evenly

• Brush with the left over egg white evenly and sprinkle with paprika and some parmesan cheese (if using)

• Bake for about 20 minutes or until the potato is nice and browned on top

• Sprinke with some parsley if you would like and serve with some dark beer or Irish whiskey. ; )

This pie is so tasty and pretty easy to make!  I think that from now on we'll make this once in a while, since this pie can be eaten throughout the year, and not only for St. Patrick's Day!  Cheers! : )

Slow Cooker Corned Beef with Vegetables

For this year's St. Patrick's Day we've decided to make corned beef in our new slow cooker. Online there are many discussions about the origin of this dish (is it even Irish?) and many different variations on the basic recipe. The recipe below is a combination of several different recipes we found online. It is simple to make, although it does require a lot of time to cook in a slow cooker, so it's best to start it a day before you want to serve it (especially since it's best served cold). The recipe doesn't go crazy on spices or other flavorings. Instead it lets beef and basic spices provide most of the flavor profile which is slowly released during the long cooking process.

Ingredients:

• 1 corned beef brisket with spice packet
• 1-2 quartered onions
• 3-4 chopped celery stalks
• 1 head of cabbage sliced into eighths
• 4-5 coarsely chopped carrots
• 5-8 quartered red potatoes
• 2-4 sliced turnips
• 1 coarsely chopped parsnip
• bay leaf
• black peppercorns
• 0.5-1 cup of light beer (Here I am using my homemade beer. Do not use Guinness or other dark beers.)
• mustard
• horseradish

Directions:

Place potatoes, carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions, along with a generous helping of black peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves on the bottom of the slow cooker. Pour 4 cups of water over the vegetables. Don't worry if water does not cover all of it - vegetables and meat will let out a surprising amount of water during the cooking process. 

Place the brisket on top with the fatty side facing down. Slowly pour beer over the brisket. Evenly spread spices from the spice packet over the brisket. 

Set the cooker on Low and cook for 8 hours.

After 8 hours stir in cabbage and celery. Depending on the size of the slow cooker and the cabbage, it may require a little effort to squeeze everything into the pot while still being able to tightly close the lid. Slicing cabbage into smaller pieces helps with this. Leave the cooker set to Low and cook for another 4 hours.

After 4 hours everything should be cooked and smelling wonderfully. Turn off the heat and let it cool.

Serve cold with rye or soda bread, and mustard and/or horseradish on the side. Wash it down with a glass of dark beer, such as Guinness.

Enjoy and happy St. Patrick's Day! 

Chicken Mole Enchiladas (Enmoladas)

I have to admit that I am no expert in cooking Mexican food, and whenever I try to make it at home, it never tastes as good as real authentic Mexican food that you can find at places such as Nuevo Leon (that has some of the best Mexican food in Chicago and I would recommend going there if you have not tried it) or homemade Mexican food that we tried at our friends' house.  But since we both love Mexican cuisine, we try to make it at home often and I feel that we are gradually getting better. : )  Mexican food is not easily made and often requires ingredients that we can not easily get.

The Mole sauce is made with chocolate and chili peppers and of course it tastes better when it is home made, but I already had this store-bought Mole paste that I used for this recipe.  If you do not like Mole sauce, you can substitute it by just using regular Enchilada sauce.

This time we had a store-bought guacamole, but we usually like to make it at home and serve with corn chips.

So here is my version of the Chicken Mole Enchiladas or Enmoladas that I made for dinner today.

Ingredients: (Serving Size: 2)
- 2 chicken breasts (cooked and shredded)
- 1/2 cup of Mole paste
- 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth or water
- 6 corn tortillas
- oil for cooking (in this case I used canola oil)
- shredded cheese (I used Chihuahua cheese)

Directions:
- Cook chicken breasts and shred (This time I baked the chicken with onions and some olive oil and seasoned it with salt, pepper, paprika and you can add some herbs or cayenne pepper to make it more spicy.  You can also boil the chicken with some chopped onion, jalapeno peppers, hot sauce, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and shred it with forks after it cools)

- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Mix Mole paste and chicken broth/water in a pan and heat up on low heat, stirring constantly.

- When Mole sauce is heated, pour about 2 tablespoons of it onto the shredded chicken and mix to add some moisture - add salt and pepper and cayenne pepper to chicken if needed
- Pour the Mole sauce into a dish from which it will be easy to dip tortillas and place close to the stove.
- Place a baking dish close to the stove as well
- Heat oil in a frying pan and fry tortillas for about 15 seconds each on both sides.

- Stack tortillas on a plate and let cool a little so they are easy to handle and not too hot to touch

- Dip the first tortilla in Mole sauce on both sides and place in the baking dish

- Place about 3 tablespoons of chicken on the tortilla and form into a log
- Sprinkle some cheese (and you can add some chopped up cilantro) over the chicken and roll it, turning the finish end to the bottom of the baking pan

- Do the same with the rest of the tortillas and place next to each other in the baking pan

- Pour the remaining Mole sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese

- You can reserve some Mole sauce for the end and top the already baked enchiladas with it
- Bake enchiladas for about 15-20 minutes
- When serving, you can top enchiladas with sour cream (crema) and serve with refried beans, rice and guacamole

For refried beans, I sauteed some garlic and dried chili pepper for a minute, then added canned pinto beans (drained the liquid from the beans and saved it for later), added beans to the garlic and chili pepper and sauteed for about 15 minutes, mashing the beans gradually with the spatula.  If the beans get too try, I added some of the preserved liquid to make them more moist.  When done, transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle shredded cheese on top.

This is my version of the Chicken Mole Enchiladas (Enmoladas).  The enchiladas did end up breaking a little when I served them, but not as bad as they did in the past when I tried making them, so I am gradually getting better.  I would love to learn how to make them even better, so if you have any suggestions on how to make them more authentic, please send me a message and I will try it next time.  If this is your first time making them, please let me know if you have any questions and how they turned out!  

Buen provecho! : )