Broccoli cream soup

Preparation time: 35 minutes

Served: warm

Ingredients (for 4 persons):

• 30 dkg broccoli
• 4 dkg butter
• 3 tablespoon flour
• 100 ml whipped cream
• 1 300 ml water
• 200 ml milk
• salt, pepper
• depending on taste, a bit of nutmeg

Description:

Clean broccoli, separate the flowers and wash well (it can be also quickly blanched)

Separate the flowers from the stalks and cut the stalks in short pieces.

Melt the butter, add the flour, mix shortly and pour the hot water over. Continue mixing to get the smooth mixture. Add salt.

When it starts boiling, add the cut stalks and let it cook slowly (10 – 15 minutes)
Do not cover the pot, while cooking!

Add milk, whipped cream and the remaining broccoli flowers. Continue cooking until soften (5-10 min)

Add pepper and the nutmeg.

Zagorska bućnica (Buchniza, pumpkin cake)

Needed time: 45 minutes
Served: as a starter or the main dish

Ingredients (for 4 persons and 31 × 23 cm loaf pan):

Dought (pastry):

• 15 dag flour


• 1 tablespoon sunflower oil


• a bit of salt


• water 100 ml

Filling:

• 30 dag cottage cheese


• 30 dag grated zucchini


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 egg


• 2 tablespoons sugar


• 100 ml sour cream


• 1 slice of white bread dipped in 100 ml milk

Cover:

• 100 ml sour cream mixed with 100 ml whipped cream

Description

Grate the zucchini, salt them and leave them half an hour aside. When they let the watter out, dry the zucchini (but not totally) and mix with

the cottage cheese, cream, an egg and the crashed bread that was dipped in the milk. Add sugar and salt according to your taste. Mix the ingredients well.

Mold the dought: in the sieved flour add oil, salt and water. Mold the mixture to get the smooth dought. Split the dought in two pieces (one a bit bigger than the other).

Thinner the bigger piece in a flat sheet (35x40 cm) and put it in the loaf pan that was sprinkled with butter.

The sheet should cover the pan totally and exceed a bit.

Put the filling on the dought and cover it with the visible piece of the bigger flat sheet. Thinner the smaller piece of the dought in a flat sheet (25x20 cm) and put it on the filling.

Sprinkle the butter over the dish and pour over the 1.5 dcl of the cream. Preheat the owen to 200 ˚C and bake for 35-40 minutes (until golden brown).

When finished, pour over the remaining cream and add sugar as wished.

Serve warm.

Even the longest journey starts with a small step

Living in Japan for more than a year, I am enjoying the richness of the Japanese and Asian cuisine. This encounter is expanding my horizonts, showing me a completely different philosophy of the food preparation and consuming. Yet, being in a position to receive so much from this beautiful country, I feel obliged to give something back.

And that's why I start this blog: to reveal a bit of cooking tradition of my home country. Croatia is a small country in South Eastern Europe, famous by its beautiful sea, old cities and untouched nature. In the same time, Croatia is on the crossroads of different cuisines: Italian on the southern part, Hungarian and Austrian in the northern part and a bit of oriental influence in the central part. All these influences are combined in a typical Croatian cuisine and I would like to share with you the excitement of this long tradition.

There is an old saying in my homeland that love can come through the stomach. I would be more that happy to reach your hearts through these recipes. I would also like to send them as the best ambassadors of my homeland, as a gift for all the open hearts I encounter here in Japan.