COOKBOOK REVIEW 'COOKING IN CROATIA & BOSNIA:

425 CROATIAN and BOSNIAN RECIPES' by KARMELA KIS

By Katarina Tepesh

We owe a huge debt to Croatian homemakers who have been cooking the dishes listed in Karmela’s cookbook pages for a thousand years, and who continue to inspire each new generation.

Karmela Kis received the recipes from her great aunt Ivana who dominated her kitchen like a maestro conducting an orchestra. She selected 424 mostly traditional comfort foods we remember our mama and baka making all their life.

Among the many enticing Croatian dishes, such childhood favorites as stuffed paprika and cabbage, risotto, blood sausages with apples, pork cutlets, lamb in open fire, puran with mlinci are included, along with many tempting seafood dishes like squid, cevapcici, raznjici, burek, gulas with polenta, fresh fish such as carp and pike. With a nod toward healthful ingredients of buckwheat and barley, using herb infused style of cooking.

For desserts old Croatian favorites are featured inspired by wild blueberries, the apples, peaches, plums, pears along with rice pudding, knedelce plum dumplings, war cookies, kremsnite from Samobor, our ancient Croatian potica, poppy seed, palacinke, strudl, chocolate rum torte, snow balls, apple compote, Istrian fritters, wine foam, rich bishop’s bread, rum balls, almond meringues and many others delicious desserts.

Karmela suggests cooking techniques of boiling, poaching, steaming, sautéing, braising, stewing, grilling and broiling from all areas of Croatia, covering Istria, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Zagorje, Podravina and includes recipes from Bosnia.

Croatian cooking comes both from the heart and intellect, being somehow flexible to substitute in a pinch, but devoted to Croatian spirit.

Karmela Kis owns an organic farm in Istria where she grows her own ingredients and is actively involved in Europe’s perm culture movement. She holds a degree in Language and Literature from Zagreb University.

In her cookbook, Karmela uses metric measurements. You will need to keep in mind how 1 pound = ½ kilogram or 455 grams; 1 ounce = 30 grams; 1 liter = 2 pints or 32 fluid ounces; 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces;

Keep Croatians cooking! Above all, have fun and Dobar tek!

'Cooking in Croatia & Bosnia: 425 Croatian and Bosnian Recipes' by Karmela Kis published by BookSurge available in paperback at www.amazon.com  $16.99
 

Formatted for CROWN by Nenad Bach

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