This weekend was Slovenia, and I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to pull it off at one point. Between not finding our recipes until Saturday morning, being in town longer than expected, trying our hand at saltwater taffy, and going ice fishing after church our dinner ended up being later than planned. We also ended up making four different dishes, causing us to continually trip over each other in the kitchen. Good thing our kitchen isn’t small!
Due to timing we began with Pogača (bread) as an appetizer. To make this bread I began by heating milk and butter in the stove before adding yeast and icing sugar. While this cooled I formed a well in some flour, placing in the centre sour cream, lemon juice, oil, salt, and egg, adding the yeast mixture when cool. This mixed up well and was set aside to rise. I didn’t seem to rise as much as I expected, rising only a small amount. This was made into two round loaves with slits before rising again.
This bread was good, but didn’t seem to have much flavour. Though I’d added the sour cream and lemon juice, it didn’t taste any different than regular bread from what I recall. I thought it might be sweeter or something with these ingredients, but it was still good. We even got to have it fresh out of the oven still piping hot with butter melting on it.
While this was doing its thing we also made the dumplings and stew. The dumplings, or Idrijski Žlikrofi, are similar to what we made before for Armenia, so for the sake of time, we opted to make these a bit larger and I am so thankful we did or we may not have eaten yet!
We started these by making mashed potatoes and frying up some bacon. These were added to filling that consisted of the mashed potatoes, bacon bits, onion, savory, chives, marjoram , salt, and pepper. The filling was put into dough we’d made and let rest. They were to be made into small boat like shapes, but we instead made them larger and almost more like a ravioli shape it seemed. To cook, we put them in boiling salt water for a couple of minutes, or until they floated to the surface.
Paired with the dumplings we ate Idrija Bakalca, a type of stew. We browned some beef in our instant pot, adding onions, and then carrots. We simmered this for a while to soften the carrots before adding white wine. I spiced this with thyme, bay leaves, savory, salt and pepper. Once things cooked a while we added a can of diced tomatoes, then cooked it again for about a half hour.
We chose to have these together in a bowl, and though tasty, I think we would all have them separate next time. The dumplings were good with the bacon and potatoes, but I think we needed to roll the dough a bit thinner. The stew was also good, but there are others I prefer. This was sweeter (maybe not the right wine?) with a tomato taste. I prefer those with more of a gravy taste, but this one wasn’t bad.
Kremšnita for dessert was made by Ashaya for the most part and took a while. We began by cooking the puff pastry while the filling was on the go. This was made by combining 10 egg yolks, flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, milk, and the seeds of a vanilla pod in a food processor. While this was mixing she took milk, water, vanilla sugar, and rum, bringing to a boil. We added the first mixture and cooked until thickened.
During this time we took the 10 egg whites and beat them with icing sugar until stiff. This was then folded into the main mixture. This topping was then placed on top of one sheet of puff pastry, cooled for 15 minutes, then topped with whipped cream and the second sheet of puff pastry.
The dessert was pretty good and most liked it, but unfortunately it became lumpy and some weren’t too fond of the texture. The taste was good and I would try it again.
Did you know that the oldest wheel made was found in Slovenia? They are located at the cross roads of main European cultural and trade routes and 0.7% of the land is water. One percent of the world’s organisms are located on 0.004% of the Earth’s surface area. The etruscan shrew, at 2 grams is the lightest mammal and is found in Slovenia.
Even though they have a race called the death race, some say Slovenia is the safest country in Eastern Europe. They are home to Europe’s cheapest ski resort, have a winery for every 70 people, like to play dress up, and 1 in 20 people keep bees.
I loved this. How lovely all the effort you went to so that you could enjoy your traditional dishes. And isn’t it such a good reminder that perfection isn’t here, but awaiting us in Heaven.
Oh yes, we are definitely not perfect here! But there is a hope that awaits us