Croatia

Tonight's meal comes to us from Croatia!

Did you know that parts of Game of Thrones are filmed on the coast of Croatia? The meal I made tonight, however, is from the northern part of the country, and is called zagorski strukli. It's made from a dough filled with cheese and covered with sour cream. So basically all the dairy! There are two ways to prepare the strukli, baked and boiled. Some people even boil them and then bake them. I was planning on doing both, but the first batch I did was filled a little too much so I was afraid to boil them because I didn't want all the cheese to seep out.

The dough is very simple: flour and salt mixed with egg, vegetable oil, a bit of vinegar to make it stretchier, and water to bring it together. The first dough I made didn't turn out that well, however, and I made Chris go out and get me some prepared puff pastry from the store. While he was out, though, I pulled myself together, watched a Youtube video on how to make it, and banged out another dough that actually turned out perfectly.

After mixing the dough, I kneaded it for about 10-15 minutes to make it nice and soft and elastic. It was actually really fun to work with and a bit therapeutic after the frustration with the first dough not working out.

After kneading, the dough then rested for 15 minutes while I made the filling.

The filling is also very simple; the original recipe uses cottage cheese but I decided to use a mix of ricotta and feta since I thought that would be more flavorful and less...chunky.

Usually the dough would be rolled out on a clean tablecloth, but since I don't own one of those, I floured a few tea towels instead.

After rolling out fairly thin, the dough is then stretched by hand to get it paper thin.

The filling is then added to half of the dough. This is the first batch which I over-filled.

You then have to take the ends of the cloth and quickly roll the dough like a jellyroll.

You then cut the roll into equal pieces using a plate, which helps seal the ends of each piece.

They look and feel like soft little pillows.

For the baked batch, I nestled them all into a buttered baking dish, covering with some melted butter and sour cream and let them bake while I worked on the second batch.

The boiled batch I made sure not to fill too much, but I did cut them a little irregularly and I think I left the dough a little thicker than the first batch, probably because I was trying to move more quickly. They ended up tasting a lot like Polish pierogi.

The baked batch ended up with some nice and crispy edges.

Although not traditional, for the sake of the picture and flavor, I did top them with some paprika and dill. Not the healthiest meal, but pretty good and very filling! Definitely not something I would eat every day, but I can imagine these would be very satisfying on a cold day.

Recipes Used: Zagorski Strukli (video) // here // here