Tasty - tastier - sirnica

Dear all,

For our second post, we, Viktoria and Monika, decided to write about one of our favourite meals – “sirnica”, which is a traditional food in Croatia and other countries of former Yugoslavia.  It is similar to the Austrian apfelstrudel but it looks slightly different. The ingredients for the pastry are flour, water, oil and salt, for the filling, however, you can use nearly everything you want: from cheese (in Croatian sir that's why it's called sirnica), mince, pumpkin, potatoes, chard and apples, cherries or sour cherries.

To prepare the filling for the sirnica, you have to stir cottage cheese or curd, eggs, sour cream, salt, and pepper with a pinch of Vegeta. Vegeta is an all-purpose seasoning nearly every household in Croatia has in its kitchen. For my filling I used about 700 grammes cheese, two eggs and 500g sour cream but there is no harm if you use more                                                                                       or less of something.

This time, we decided to make the cheese for the pita ourselves because the cottage cheese from the supermarket dries out and gets hard, whereas, the homemade one stays soft and it tastes better. To prepare the cheese we boiled three litres of milk, then removed it from the heat and first stirred in yogurt and added then 3 tablespoons of vinegar essence. Shortly after, the milk turns into curds and whey. Curds are the solid parts and whey is the liquid one. Let it cool down and then pass the curds and whey through a cotton handkerchief and a draining spoon. Press the cheese to get most of the moisture out and leave it overnight in the fridge. In the morning unmold it from the draining spoon and the cheese is ready.

To make the pastry for the pita: Knead together about 

• 500 g flour, 
• 300 ml lukewarm water, 
• 5 tablespoons oil and 
• 1 teaspoon salt

until it gets smooth and elastic. Baste it with oil, put it in a plastic bowl and let it stand for about an hour.

Before you start with the cooking, we strongly recommend putting away your chairs and your carpet. Make sure you can get to the table from each side and cover it with a tablecloth. For the next steps look at this video linked below. We tried to explain it in words, but people who read through it, said they do not know what they would be supposed to do because some words do not exist in English (e.g. oklagija what means rolling pin but not the one you probably think of).

For us it was the first time to try this out without our mums giving us instructions. We have to admit that some accidents happened (We had to make the pastry twice because the first time we forgot to cover it with a plastic bowl). What is more, after preparing this meal for the first tame, you will surely get some sore muscles. We speak from personal experience. 

While cooking, we spoke English (of course) and we tried to translate some words like pita in English. After some time we came up with “leafy cheese-pie” but as we were not sure if this translation fits, we decided to leave pita. What do you think about this translation?

We wish you bon appétit, dobar tek and have fun =)