Đul-pita, or ružice – one of the most charmingly named sweet treats from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Đul means roses, a word derived from the Turkish word for roses…
The Foodnetwork in the USA asked me to write an article about, and develop a recipe inspired by, how we celebrate Orthodox Christmas. One of my family’s favorite…
An incredibly easy and delicious layered apple cake without egg or dairy – another one of the many incredibly inventive dishes made for periods of fasting in the…
Milibrod is a type of sweet yeasted bread that in the Balkans is typically eaten for Easter. The name “milibrod” I suppose comes from the German milchbrot, though…
Roast lamb is how most families across the southern Balkans who celebrate Easter break the Lenten fast. Špikovanje (larding) is a technique I first came across watching my…
“Kyfte na kromid”, and also called chufte sa lukom, chufte u umaku od crnog luka or souvan kyfte and loved across the southern Balkans. Essentially these are meatballs…
Imam Bayildi, a dish so good legend goes it once made an imam (holy man) faint of delicious delirium, hence the name. Another Ottoman dish with variations on…
I call this sarma (od kisel kupus) or sarma from sour/pickled cabbages. You may call it dolma (Turkey, Greece, Cyrpus), sarmale (Romania), holubtsi (Ukraine), gołąbki (Poland), kåldomar (Sweden),…
“Piperki za ajvar!” Peppers for ajvar! It is early autumn and the cry echoes across the pazar (food market) in Skopje from nearly all the market stall holders….
This is, quite simply, my ultimate comfort food. It is something I adored as a child and still do. Although I have now been making this for myself…
“Ah! But you are ours!” said a wonderful Montenegrin lady in Perast to me a few years ago when I told her I was from Macedonia. We were…
“Of course, you also need to add some sweet paprika.” “How much?” “As much as it needs.” An instruction frequently repeated to me whenever I ask my mother…
A combination of baked chicken and rice is never far from a Balkan table. To me, it embodies the Balkan ethos of cleverly utilising a little bit of…