I grew up with the understanding that my father's parents came to the United States from Yugoslavia in the early 1900s. Now I understand that Yugoslavia was a union of countries at that time, but the area in which my grandchildren came was Kukur, Baka, in the province of Vojvodina, in what is today Serbia. My Yugoslav or Serbian grandmother and grandfather lived on a farm in rural Ohio. They had chickens, so there were a lot of them. They grow crops. They lived far differently than the people of my mother during the years of depression and world wars. My mother recalled that at the beginning of her conversation with my father she passed on to her parents. house after church one sunday for breakfast. She was shocked that grandmother had more than 13 eggs in a bowl to make scrambled eggs. She felt it was almost indecent to have so many eggs for a family of five. It brought me huge differences between town and country in those days.
I really never knew my grandfather when he passed before I was 2 years old, but most of all I remember my Yugoslav grandmother for her desserts. No one was better. It was her one hobby, for lack of a better word. She made strudel out of thin flocculent dough, similar to phyllo, and was filled with poppy seeds, nuts or cheese. She made Kifli, flaky little cakes that were rolled into squares and filled with things like Prune Lekvar, filling poppy seeds and filling apricots. Here is the recipe Kifle I use.
bagel
1 1/2 tsp dry dry yeast, about half a pack
3 cups flour
1/4 pound fat
1/4 pound unsalted butter
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup whipped cream or heavy whipped cream
1/4 cup condensed milk
1/2 cup poppy filling, Lekvar pruning or apricot filling
confectionery sugar, for rolling and spraying
Yeast pastries or instantly dried yeast into flour. Work in fat and butter, as for pastry dough. Add the egg and cream and work with your hands until it pulls and pulls from the sides of the bowl. Do not mix.
Sprinkle your work area with powdered sugar and deflate some of the dough. The use of confectioners. sugar to roll the dough is important because adding more flour should tighten the dough. Cut the rolled dough into 3-inch squares.
Fill in these small squares by placing a scant teaspoon of the filling of your choice in the center. Lift the opposite corners, moisten the edges with milk or cream and squeeze together, then fold the bevelled piece. Bake on parchment pastry sheets for 15–18 minutes at 375 degrees. Bottom will be gold, and the peaks will only begin to become a golden color. Remove from the oven, place on a rack to cool and sprinkle more confectioners. sugar.
Makes about 100
Grandma made so many varieties of baking, and unfortunately, Kifli is one of the few who survived as a recipe in our family. I never learned to do a tesorund, although I remember how the child watched as the grandmother quickly manipulated a small ball of dough into a thin piece of paper covering the entire tablecloth covered kitchen table and hanging at the edges at least another 8-10 inches. It was an amazing feat that I can remember to this day. She sprinkled a mixture of poppy seeds or an apple mixture, and then persuaded the dough and into a very long loose roll. Placed on a cookie sheet in a large coil, she baked this confection and sprinkled it with powdered sugar. Grandmother cooked and baked when cooking with lard was common. And here, again, the fat was in vogue.
Grandma also made many different foods for Easter or Christmas. Beetroot with horseradish for Easter and cheese, like a ball with eggs and milk, she called Siretz. She made Bobalki for Christmas, and, fortunately, this recipe was given to us. She made the most fantastically fragrant soup, sometimes with beef, sometimes with chicken, and sometimes with both. She made her own noodles to use in her soup. She made tomato sauce, which she called Machanka, to eat meat from soup. What made the soup so unforgettable for me was saffron. The smell, the color, the way the smell of saffron in the soup soaked the house when we entered. The love of saffron is the legacy of my grandmother to this day. I am so grateful to her for the wonderful tastes and memories of the products that are transmitted from her Yugoslav, Serbian heritage.
Thanks for taking the time to read my article. I hope he was informative and helped you on your culinary journey. You will find many more recipes and tips on my website. I'm on Facebook at A Harmony of Flavors and every day I offer a recipe or a tip to fans who like my site. I hope to see you there soon.
