Gypsy Kitchens: After-Beach Blitva (or, Lime Basil Potato Salad)

These are the kind of meals accompanied by the smell of salt water and the slanting, still-warm sunlight of high summer.  It's the kind of meal to eat in a swimsuit, with dripping hair, in a group of friends.  There is a reason to envy the people of the Balkans, who have Montenegro as a playground.  It's not the beaches - everywhere there are beaches.  It's not the sticky bars or sunburns, the mosquitos or busloads of Russians.  No, the reason to envy is the seafood; simple, charred and slicked with olive oil.
There is a part of the Adriatic seaside where grilled squid are as common as seashells, baby red snapper appear crisped by the plateful and octopus tentacles make knots on every table.  From Croatia down through Montenegro and into northern Albania, the seafood is generally the same - shrimp, cephalopod, grilled fish; all very simple, all served with not much more than a slice of lemon and a pile of blitva.

Blitva is boiled by the potful in every restaurant in the region.  Essentially, this is a dish of garlic, chard and potato, cooked together and drizzled with olive oil.  It's great, it's filling, and it can get kind of boring.  This is our second blitva July, and, after a week spent hugging the mediterranean and eating lots of seafood, we were ready to dress up the recipe a little.  Our version was made for a Montenegrin evening spent cooking out on our rental balcony, using a tiny hotplate, watching the sun set as some little sprat-like fish sputtered and sizzled in the pan.  What we wanted from a side dish was: bright and herbal flavors, a bit of a tropical feel and (really) something different.  So, here's our experiment, a potato salad with basil and lime that we've named "after beach blitva."

We experimented with blitva last summer, in the sweltering seaside resort of Opatija - there, we put it on a plate with cous-cous stuffed squid, standing around a barbecue with some family and drinking lots of strong liquor.  That time, we cooked carrot and red onion in with the standard chard and potatoes.
By rights, this latest version shouldn't be called blitva at all, because the name actually means "chard," which there is none of here.  Calling a potato salad by another name is fine, but calling something chard when it's not… well, it's a liberal definition.

Here are the familiar elements: boiled potato and garlic.
Here are our deviations: lime (juiced), celery root (chopped and raw), red onion and - the biggest transgretion - fresh basil instead of chard.  None of it was cooked, except for the little boiling potatoes, and we also mixed and served the ingredients cold, so that they'd stay fresher-tasting and snappier.  The onion and celeriac add a little texture and crunch, the basil adds flavor and greenery, the lime gives it a very bright note - what a success!

This is a recipe to futz around with, not to let lie, so here are some of our ideas for the brave: mustard would have been good added to the dressing, or some other spice, like chili paste, sambal oelek or horseradish.  Ginger could give it more flavor, and cilantro would be an easy addition.  Chili oil could be substituted for some or all of the olive oil.
As it stood, the easy play between starch, lime, garlic and basil was enough for our plates, and was cool comfort beside our fried fish and sea breeze.

Like all potato salads, the most difficult part is cleaning and cooking the potatoes, which isn't difficult at all.  We kept the skins on - the cardboard box we'd picked them out of at the market was a mix of colors.  After cooking, we let the potatoes cool to room temperature so that the basil wouldn't wilt.
For the dressing, use three ripe limes (the brighter green a lime is, the more un-ripe it is, some yellow is a good thing), olive oil and salt, plus whatever spices or other flavors you're going to add.  We mixed the garlic and chopped onion in with the oil so it would incorporate better, but otherwise kept it simple.

Here is the recipe, to be used as a base for greater things or to be followed for a simple, summery, seaside accompaniment:

After Beach Blitva or Lime Basil Potato Salad
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 lbs. small, boiling potatoes, well-scrubbed and cubed.
- 1 celery root, peeled and roughly matchsticked
- 1 medium-sized red onion
- 3 cups fresh basil
- 3 ripe limes
- 3/4 cups olive oil
- 2 or 3 large cloves garlic, crushed and minced
- salt


Method
- Clean the potatoes, cut into one inch (really, about 3/4 inch) cubes, boil in salted water until tender. Drain and let cool.
- In a large bowl, mix together oil, juice from all limes, garlic, onion and some more salt.
- Add potatoes, basil and celery root, mix all ingredients well.
- Serve cool alongside simple fish, cephalopod or crustacean.

 

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Gypsy Kitchens: Bulgarian Tarator

Tarator (таратор in cyrillic) is the soup version of a gin and tonic: refreshingly cold, simple, herbal and perfect for a summer evening.  A cynic might call this cucumber and yogurt soup, but it's more than that.  Tarator's a curative.  As we endure a Balkan heat wave, this is the kind of food we crave.

Tarator is served in countries from Albania to Turkey (with varieties popping up, we've heard, as far away as Iran and Armenia), but it feels particularly Bulgarian to us.  Why?  Because this is the heartland of yogurt.  Bulgaria even claims to have invented the stuff (though others doubt this) and traces its "culture" of culturing to ancient Thrace, some 2,000 years ago.  In 1908, a bright young Bulgarian named Stamen Grigorov identified the bacterium that causes natural yogurt to occur and later named it after his homeland - Lactobacillus bulgaricus.  Bulgarian yogurt really is tasty, with a wonderfully clean sourness that is more refreshing than other types.  The strong tang is perfect for mixing with the other soup ingredients.

We started with cucumbers and fresh dill bought from this old woman on Graf Ignatiev street in Sofia. She was wearing an adorable little paper hat.
We picked up some walnuts from another stand, and some garlic.  We didn't have time to go to the big market, so the yogurt came from a bodega near our rental apartment.  Olive oil, mustard and salt - the only other ingredients - were already in the kitchen.  This is partly what makes tarator so great: it's incredibly simple to make.

Start by julienning two sizable cucumbers into less-than-bite-sized pieces.  Grating the cucumber will make it mushy and slimy, it's better to put in the extra knife work.  Add to this about a third of a cup of finely chopped walnut, two crushed and minced cloves of garlic and a good dose of fresh dill.  Then, add two cups of plain, unsweetened yogurt and between two tablespoons and one third cup olive oil.  Salt generously.  Add two tablespoons coarse mustard - horseradish also might be good, or wasabi.  The mustard isn't a traditional ingredient, but we liked how it supplied a deep, complex note to the soup.

Stir everything together thoroughly.  At this point, the mixture is essentially what is known as Snezhanka salad (Салата Снежанка), or "snow white" salad, which is a relative of tzatziki.  It could be served as is, with soft bread or pita.
If you're still set on soup (you should be), slowly mix in cold water until it's a good, soupy consistency.  Put in the fridge for at least two hours before serving.  That's it.  It's delicious.  Serve sprinkled with a little more dill and crushed walnut and maybe a drizzle of olive oil.

The sourness of the yogurt is a perfect foil for the sweet crispness of the cucumber and the grassiness of the dill.  The walnuts add earthiness, the mustard provides spice.  It's a refreshing, bright mix.
It takes about twenty minutes, most of which is spent chopping, to do the "work" part of the recipe.  The rest is waiting - you could have a gin and tonic in the meantime.

Bulgarian Tarator
Ingredients:
2 large cucumbers, julienned into short pieces
2 cups unsweetened, plain yogurt
1/3 cup crushed or chopped walnut (plus a little more to garnish with)
2 crushed and finely minced cloves garlic
1/3 cup fine quality olive oil
2 tbsp coarse mustard
2-4 tbsp fresh dill, de-stemmed and given a cursory chopping
Cold water and salt


Method:
- Combine cucumber, yogurt, oil, walnut, garlic, mustard and dill in a large bowl.  Mix and salt well.
- Pour in cold water and mix until thoroughly combined, adding more water if not yet a "soupy" consistency.
- Refrigerate at least two hours before serving.

This, by the way, was the first bowl of tarator we encountered in Bulgaria, at our very first meal in the country.  This was on a hot day in Balchik, sitting by the placid Black Sea.  It was delicious.  We were hooked.  It made up for a particularly bad bowl served to us later, in Vidin - that one tasted as though the restaurant had just poured milk over grated cucumber.

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Gypsy Kitchens: Gyuveche, a Catchall Casserole

At every Bulgarian mexana (tavern), someone next to us inevitably gets brought a small, glazed and painted earthenware pot full of something piping hot and seductively aromatic.  The top is removed, steam escapes and a fork digs right in, the diner puffing on each forkful to cool it down before the bite.  The pot is called a gyuveche, derived from the Turkish güveç, and the word often serves to describe any dish that is made inside.  Ordering one is like getting your own personal casserole, comfort food for one.  Making a gyuveche yourself is even more satisfying, as the general rule is 'use whatever you've got in your fridge.'  With one night left in a rental, a fridge that needed to be cleared out and pretty little gyuveche pots staring at us from our cupboard, we decided to try out this traditional Bulgarian dish.

What we wound up with closely resembles a dish called sirene po shopski , which combines cheese, egg, tomato, chili pepper and herbs.  However, there's no real point in defining it.  Gyuveche can be whatever you want it to be.  There are a few suggested guidelines that can be applied to any number of ingredient combinations.  The first is that there really should be sirene and kashkaval.  In Bulgaria, all cheese is called one of these two names which are most often translated to "white cheese" and "yellow cheese."  Sirene looks and crumbles like feta but, unlike its Greek lookalike, can be made from sheep, goat or cow.  Kashkaval is basically everything else, any and all Bulgarian cheese that resembles something from a deli counter (cheddar, muenster, swiss, emmental, etc). At the bottom of your finished product, sirene will remain fluffy, a lot like scrambled eggs.  At the top, the kashkaval will provide a melted seal.

It is a very simple casserole with no added liquid or starch needed.  The gyuveche is sometimes referred to as 'the original crock pot.'  It steams, boils and bakes its contents all at once.  The sirene goes into the pot first.  No oil.  The brined cheese exudes enough liquid when cooked that there's absolutely no way it will stick.  Whatever else you have goes on top of the sirene and then sliced kashkaval covers it all.  In the case of sirene po shopski, along with many other gyuveche meals, an egg is cracked on top.  The savory icing on your layer cake.

So, what leftovers did we have hanging around?  Eggs, tomato, hot peppers, onion, a bag of frozen peas (which we'd used to keep our groceries cool en route home) and olives stuffed with almonds.   We went out to the local shop for the kashkaval and tried to find the fresh herbs that are ever-present in Bulgarian cuisine.  Most people just go to their own backyard for herbs, so they are difficult to find in small towns.  Luckily, our rental's owner keeps a pot of thyme on the kitchen window sill.

Once you have your ingredients figured out, dice everything up to a nice forkable size.  Layer them into your gyuveche - white cheese, all non-cheese items, yellow cheese - and place in the oven, pre-heated at 375° F.  Cook for 20 minutes, then remove lid and add an egg.  Since we were making two pots, we tried cracking an egg on one and pouring a beaten egg onto the other.  The cracked egg stayed mostly separate, binding to the kashkaval.  Its yolk could then be broken and mixed in after serving.  The beaten egg seeped down and was incorporated into the whole dish.  Go with what sounds better to you.  We each had a different preference.
Once the egg is added, recover and cook for another 10 minutes (less for a runnier yolk if using the cracked egg method).
Garnish with ground black pepper and fresh herbs and wait at least a minute or two before serving.  We know it smells too good to wait, but tomatoes can be a real tongue-burner.

Our Gyuveche Recipe - Sirene po Shopski with Olives and Peas
makes two single-serving pots

Ingredients:*
1 large tomato 
3 small hot peppers 
1/2 frozen peas (defrosted) 
3/4 cup crumbled sirene (outside of Bulgaria, go with feta) 
about 3 cubic inches of kashkaval (cheddar, emmental or even mozzarella would work) 
fresh rosemary (parsley would be ideal, any herb will do) 
8 large green olives - ours were stuffed with almonds, which was a nice touch 
white onion 
black pepper 

*please don't just stick to these ingredients, have fun with it! salt is not listed because the cheese should give you a good dose. 

Method: 
- Preheat oven to 375° F. 
- Dice tomato, peppers, onion and olives. Tomato should be a little larger than the rest, about the size of a die. 
- Crumble your white cheese into the bottom of each gyuveche until you have a good base layer. 
- Add your diced vegetables, as well as your peas and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary. 
- Slice your yellow cheese and lay over the top. Allow some veggie to peak through. 
- Lid your pots, place in oven and cook for 20 minutes. 
- Put on an oven mitt and THEN uncover each pot and add in your egg by either cracking it right in or beating it and pouring it over. Cook for another 10 minutes. 
- Remove from oven and let sit for a minute or two. Garnish with black pepper, some more fresh herbs and enjoy.

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Gypsy Kitchens: Salată de Vinete

In the rural town of Ieud, we stayed with two local schoolteachers.  Their house was on the edge of a meadow, we ate on a porch looking at wildflowers and old barns.  Over two nights, our hostess made us a staggering array of delicious food: green bean stew (thick with butter), honey cakes, carrot and potato patties, crepes, a soup of matzo-like dumplings, creamed peppers, candied plums, stewed cabbages, fried cheeses… everything, she said, was from their garden, everything was "very natural."  We ate until we couldn't anymore.
The star, though, was her homemade salată de vinete.  She scooped it out of an old canning jar and put it on the table with fresh bread.  We ate an embarrassing amount.  Something like baba ganoush, salată de vinete is what Romanians love to do with eggplant.  Creamy, smokey, lusciously textured, it's a dish that's hard to believe isn't full of mayonnaise or oil.  In fact, it's one of the richest-tasting healthy foods you can imagine - and it's about the simplest thing to prepare.

Salată de vinete doesn't have to be any more complicated than eggplant, cooked and skinned and mashed with salt.  In fact, the name means nothing more than "eggplant salad."  We decided to do it a little bit differently, though, to make the recipe worthwhile.  So, we added onion, garlic, dill and green olives, plus a little oil and white wine.  Throwing in just the dill and raw garlic would have been fine, or just the olives.  Paprika would also be a great addition, or another kind of chili powder.  Cumin could work, tahini would make it more like baba ganoush, lemon juice would have been excellent.  The idea is to use the eggplant as a base for some other flavors, and, really, whatever appeals to you would probably work.
What we did was simmer about half a yellow onion and three cloves garlic in a little white wine and oil until it was soft and the wine was almost gone.  This mixture got added, along with minced olive and de-stemmed fresh dill, to the mashed auborgine.  But lets not get ahead of ourselves - the main thing is to soften up the eggplants.

There is a strange myth about eggplants that they're hard to cook - some spook story handed down through generations of American cooks has frightened us all into thinking there's only one way to cook them (breaded and fried, smothered in a casserole, pressed and steamed, whatever your mother told you).  We can see and taste other results - meltingly soft roasted dishes, delicacies off the grill, baba ganoush - but aren't really sure how these things relate to the toughened rounds of flesh we're used to.  Well, stop being afraid.  It turns out that there is almost nothing easier to cook than an eggplant.

Start by preheating the oven to 350° F.  Then, turn on one of your gas burners and char the skin of your eggplants from tip to tip.  The fruits turn a sickly orange-purple, and blister a little, but they're pretty hardy.  Our stove also wasn't that powerful.  A fork helps, as they get pretty hot.  Don't worry about this process too much - it's more to give them a nice smokey flavor than to cook them.  Really, don't expect to blacken the skin - aim for a second degree burn.
We had fantasies of doing this over a grill or open fire, then cooking the eggplants wrapped in foil, tucked into the coals.  It'd work perfectly - humans haven't always had indoor ranges, after all.
When your fruits have a nice char, put them into some kind of coverable, oven safe container.  Prick them a few times with a fork, if you haven't already.  Cover them tightly and put in the oven for half an hour to an hour or until soft all the way through (don't worry, you'll be able to tell… they melt into puddles).

The nice thing is, it doesn't really matter how long you keep your auborgines in the oven, they really won't overcook.  When we made Imam Biyaldi in Istanbul, we simmered the pot for hours.  When they're soft, split open the skin (which will barely have enough tensile strength to hold together) and scoop out the watery, steaming innards.  Combine this glop with whatever else you'd like to add and mash until smooth.  We used a pair of kitchen shears to help things along.  If you have the luxury of owning a blender or food processor (our rental apartment wasn't well equipped), a few seconds of pulsing should result in something even more luxuriously smooth.
It may not seem believable, but the salată de vinete doesn't need anything other than salt.  It will taste oily and delicious without anything additional.  We added a little oil (about two teaspoons), plus our onion and garlic mixture, the olives and as much dill as we'd bought.  Let the mixture cool in the fridge at least an hour to bring out the full flavor, or serve warm - it's a hard thing to mess up!
(Throw the skins out, they're bitter.)

Salată de Vinete with Green Olives and Dill Recipe

Ingredients:
2 medium sized, ripe eggplants
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, diced
4 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
1/3 cup green olives, pitted and chopped
Dill, de-stemmed
Salt

Method:
- Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Simmer onions and garlic in white wine and 2 tbspn. oil until softened and wine is almost all gone, about ten or fifteen minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside.
- Over an open gas burner, singe the skins of both eggplants from tip to tip, using a fork if your fingers get hot, working quickly and not burning the skin too badly (if your range is very powerful).  Put the fruits into an oven safe container, cover tightly and place in oven.  Cook until soft - between 1/2 and 2 hours, with about an hour being ideal.
- Remove eggplants from oven, split open skin and scrape flesh into a bowl.  Discard the skins.
- Add to the bowl the onion mixture, olives, remaining oil and dill and mash well, or use a food processor to make really smooth.
- Let mixture cool at least an hour in the refrigerator, then serve with bread, crackers, chips or spoons.

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Gypsy Kitchens: Serbian Tomato Paprika Kačamak

A woman in a small Belgrade market overheard us talking about “kačamak” and interrupted with her own recipe.  “Put corn in water on fire and then…”  She trailed off and made a motion with her hand like she was shooing us away.  “Kačamak,” she said, and shrugged.
The woman is right.  It’s one of the simplest dishes in the Serbian repertoire, but it isn’t and doesn’t need to be boring.  Essentially the same thing as grits or polenta, Serbs usually eat it as a sweetened porridge for breakfast. Other varieties turn the cornmeal into a firm cake or a kind of hardened, simple bread.  Some recipes use milk or yogurt instead of water, and a lot of cooks add cheese, lard, ham or bacon to the mixture.  The most common addition, though, is potato – it’s what separates Serbian kačamak from other polenta-like dishes.
We wanted a cake that was flavorful, vegetarian, savory and distinctly Serbian.  This is a non-traditional dish that mixes ingredients and elements from a handful of traditional varieties: tomatos from the greenhouse, coarse paprika, leeks, parsley, sheep cheese.  Also, beautiful, pink-skinned fingerling potatoes.

Kačamak begins with cornmeal (the genitive element), but the cooking process begins with everything else.  At the market, we bought dark, shiny dried peppers in a bundle.  They were mild and tasted of the Hungarian plains to the north – the kind of low-intensity, woody peppers that have given this region its primary flavor.  Chopped small, they added flavor more than heat, and a pleasant sweetness.  To give our cake a little more spice, we also used a more fiery type of paprika, already ground into flakes and sold to us in a loosely-tied bag.  In America, one could use a combination of paprika and ancho-chili powder, or something similar.  Or, of course, the recipe could forgo spice altogether.

We found a wonderful Serbian cheese called “zlatarski sir” to add to our cake.  It’s a semi-soft, sharp, sheepy cheese that releases salty liquid from its holes and smells strongly of the barn.  Substitute feta as a poor approximation, or any other strong, soft sheep cheese.  A blue sheep type like Roquefort would be interesting.
The main divisional line between types of kačamak is drawn by comparing the fineness of the cornmeal.  Finer, white meals are typically used to make more-breadlike versions or very uniform mush.  Coarse, yellow corn is used for gruels and cakes.  It cooks easily.  It's a tactile process. You can tell when it's done by the movement of your spoon.

The potatoes we found were yellow-fleshed, bright pink and deeply flavorful.  About half the market vendors were selling them, piled up in glistening heaps on their tables.  The sellers kept them fresh and damp by sprinkling water on them from dirty plastic bottles.  They had already been cleaned and de-eyed when we bought them, their ruddy-cheeked skins scrubbed and ready to eat.

Before you can cook the potatoes, though, immerse yourself in the more vibrant flavors and smells of cooking alliums and spices.  Begin with a little olive oil (or butter!) and one big, chopped leek.  Sautee until beyond fragrant, adding the spices along the way and working them into the oil – how much you used depends, as always, on how spicy you want the meal to be and how powerful your ingredients are.  When the onion is satisfyingly softened and on the verge of browning, add in two medium tomatoes (chopped casually into whatever size chunks) and a few cloves of diced garlic.

Cook the mixture however you’d begin a favorite tomato sauce – we kept it very simple, softening and bleeding the nightshades, letting the mixing sugars of leek and tomato caramelize a little, waiting until we could smell the cooking garlic.  Towards the end of this process, add in about a half cup or a cup of fresh parsley.  Things don’t have to be cooked well – they’ll have plenty of time.  But it’s a good thing if the ingredients seem irresistible right then.  That’s the best part about cooking – it’s also a process of building the appetite.
The next step is to ruin everything by dumping in a quart and a half of water (color diluted, heady scent diminished, bits of pepper and parsley floating palely).  With the water, add two cups of loosely cubed potatoes (skin on or off, it’s up to you).  Bring to a boil and then simmer rapidly for half an hour or so until the potatoes are very tender when pricked with a fork – they should be cooked, in other words.

When the potatoes are done, add two and a half cups of cornmeal to the water and keep boiling.  Make sure to stir the liquid well as it cooks and take the opportunity to smush the bits of potato as much as you can in the process.  The Serbs use a special tool called a "kačamalo" for this mashing and stirring – it’s a four pronged, wooden implement that’s something between a crusher and scraper.  The point is to loosely break up the potato and assimilate the two starches into one mixture without letting it stick on the bottom of the pot.
The cornmeal should soften and begin to congeal within a few minutes, the whole pot should be orange with tomato and spice, the bubbles should become bigger and more purposeful (volcanic, maybe) as everything thickens.  If there’s not enough water, add a little.  If, after about twenty minutes of stirring, the mixture seems nowhere near thick enough, add a quarter cup more cornmeal (and more if that’s not enough).  When you sense that it’s done enough, add in your cheese.

The density of this batter is difficult to describe, and it might be hard to get it right without guessing.  Basically, it should be difficult to stir and seem almost ready to hold it’s shape.
Pour or scoop everything into a greased, pre-head pan and cook over high heat for a few minutes until it seems the underside might be about to begin actually frying.  Then, remove from the heat altogether and let cool for an hour.  Carefully flip the kačamak cake out onto a plate when you think it’s hardened enough.  If it’s too soft, it’s not really a problem – it’s still good if it’s broken up or a little loose.
Here’s the recipe:

Tomato-Paprika Kačamak Cake
Ingredients:
3 cups coarse, yellow cornmeal
2 cups chopped fingerling potatoes
2 medium tomatoes, cubed
1 leek, cut up
4 cloves garlic, diced
¼ pound semi-soft sheep cheese
1 cup de-stemmed fresh parsley
Spices derived from peppers
Olive oil or butter
Salt
1 ½ quarts water


Method:
-In a large pot, sauté leeks in oil for a few minutes with the spice.  Add tomatoes and garlic when onions are cooked.  Cook at a nice simmer for a while until everything is sweet, thick and delicious.  Add the parsley.
-Add potatoes and water.  Bring to a boil and then cook at a rapid simmer for about half an hour, or until potatoes are very fork-tender.
-Stir in cornmeal.  Break up potatoes with a wooden or slotted spoon, or lightly with a masher.  Keep stirring as meal breaks down and thickens, making sure to keep the bottom of the pot clean and un-stuck.  If the mash thickens too quickly, add a little water.  After about twenty minutes, begin adding cornmeal until the mixture becomes very thick and seems about to become cake-batter like.  Use good judgment and trust yourself to guess.  Stir in the cheese.
- Serve the kačamak as is, as a hot polenta, or pour into a greased saucepan and cook over high heat for a minute or two, until it seems the bottom might be about to begin frying.  Remove from heat and let cool for about an hour, or until firm enough to slice or plate.

Before we found kačamak, it seemed impossible to cook Serbian vegetarian dishes.  Serbs themselves might dismiss it as peasant food, but we were in love - it's both decadent and light, flavorful and versatile.  The cake reminded us of a savory, moist corn muffin made large, something you could use for a hearty sandwich or a starch alongside a meat, fish or salad.

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Gypsy Kitchens: Gozitan Stewed Rabbit With Green Sauce

Though it's that time of year, this isn't an Easter recipe.

The Maltese love fenek. Rabbit, that is. In the old days, when Malta and Gozo were isolated and poor, there was very little meat other than rabbit, which they used to catch in the wild. Today, it's mostly farmed, but it remains as popular as ever - there are even special parties, called fenkata, held at tiny bars. We decided to try out a traditional Gozitan preparation, stewing the meat in olives and red wine to keep it tender. It went particularly well with another Maltese peculiarity - the island's bread based, herby green sauce, which is more starchy side dish than condiment.
The butcher we bought the rabbit from asked if we wanted it pieced or whole. Initially, we told him we'd take it whole - but he was very suspicious. Eventually, he decided it would be best if the thing was dismembered and began hacking. We stopped him before the back was cut apart, but not before he'd taken the head off and neatly split it open. With the meat came the liver and two other small organs, which we discarded. Too many rabbit livers in restaurants - they're tasty, but not great stewing meat.

Rabbit meat is very lean, and so it's important to cook it carefully, as it can get tough. First, we marinaded the meat in red wine. Also in the marinade were two onions, some garlic, a handful of mint, a handful of parsley, four or five sprigs of thyme and a few pinches of Maltese rabbit seasoning (we don't use a lot of pre-made rubs or seasonings, but this local "Tiger Brand Rabbit Seasoning" was too interesting to pass up - very curry centric).

Marinade it at room temperature for about two hours, or longer in the refrigerator. Use a full bottle of wine.

While the meat is being soaked, make the green sauce. Zalza Ħadra is one of Maltese cuisine's oldest and vaguest recipes. In Apicuis' De Re Coquinaria, an ancient cookbook said to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century, the recipe simply says to take some "Alexandrian" bread, dunk in water and vinegar, put in a mortar with honey, mint, salted cow's milk and oil and then place in a container over snow. Since then, the recipe has maintained its basic method of soaking crustless bread in water and vinegar and mixing it, in a mortar, with at least one green thing.
We went with a derivation of a recipe from the 1908 Maltese cookbook Ctieb Tal-Chcina. Soak two thick slices of crustless Maltese bread (any country loaf will do) in water and vinegar. Smoosh out as much liquid as you can and then pound with two cloves of crushed garlic, a few capers, chopped parsley, mint and rocket. Add the greens in as you go so you can really get a lot in there. We wanted to use the very popular local herb marjoram - but it's so popular that it's always sold out. Once done working that pestle, cover with olive oil and refrigerate. Mix before serving.
About fifteen minutes before cooking, preheat the oven to 325° (fahrenheit) and get together the other ingredients. Cut a few good strips of lemon rind, strip (or cube, if you prefer) three or four carrots, drain olives and capers. Capers are extremely popular here, Malta's famous for them. Use the best green olives you can find - we could have found better ones. We used a spoonful of coarse mustard, but that's not really traditional. If you have a bay leaf, of course it would go well.
Remove the pieces of rabbit from the wine (but keep the marinade!) and let semi-dry while you heat oil in a frying pan. Brown the meat well and quickly, using high heat and making sure to get as much of the surface cooked as possible. Don't leave the rabbit in too long, though - this should only take about five minutes. Put the meat back into the marinade and add the other ingredients (carrots, olives, lemon peel, etc...) and salt. Cover and bring everything to a boil on the stove top, cooking for about five minutes. Then remove to the oven.
This is a picture of the pan BEFORE cooking, not after.

Bake the whole thing, covered, for between one and half and two and a half hours - ours took a little longer because the stove we were working with isn't great. The meat will be pretty firm when it's done, and will be coming off the bone. Check regularly - you don't want to overcook it.

We served the rabbit with the olives and carrots, with the green sauce alongside and none of the cooking liquid. If you'd like, you could certainly thicken the juices and wine and make a very nice, more traditional stew or sauce. The green sauce was herby and a great accompaniment, though, with a lightness and freshness that served the stewed meat very well.

Here are the recipes:

Gozitan Stewed Rabbit and Maltese Green Sauce

For the rabbit,

Ingredients:

1 rabbit, pieced and cleaned

1 bottle red wine, uncorked

2 onions, chopped

5 cloves garlic, sliced

4 carrots, peeled and stripped

3/4 cup green olives

2 - 4 tablespoons small capers

4 - 6 sprigs fresh thyme

1 handful fresh mint, lightly chopped

1 handful fresh parsley, chopped

1 tablespoon mustard

Olive oil or other good cooking oil

Ground black pepper, perhaps a bay leaf, salt

Process:

- Marinade the rabbit in red wine in a large roasting tray or a deep casserole. Into the wine, scatter herbs, onion and garlic. Grind pepper into the mix. Cover and let sit 2 hours at room temperature, or longer in the refrigerator, up to 24 hours.

- Preheat the oven to 160° fahrenheit. Assemble other ingredients.

- Remove the rabbit from its bath, retaining marinade. Let dry for a few minutes, then fry quickly in oil over high heat until browned but nowhere close to cooked. Return to marinade.

- Bring the liquid (with the rabbit in it) to a boil on the stovetop and let simmer for about five minutes, then cover and put into the oven.

- Cook between 1 1/2 hours and 2 1/2 hours, checking for doneness and making sure not to overcook. When the rabbit is nicely firm and definitely falling away from the bone, it's likely done, but check to make sure just in case.

For the green sauce,

Ingredients:

2 thick slices crusty country bread

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 cups mixed herbs (parsley, rucola and mint - but feel free to add in other greens on hand)

1 tablespoon capers

Olive oil

White vinegar

Salt

Process:

-Remove the crust from your bread slices and let soak in water with a splash of vinegar for a few minutes.

-While that soaks, chop your herbs and crush your garlic.

-Remove bread and squeeze until as much liquid as possible is wrung out. This will turn into a gloppy mash. Don't get too preoccupied with getting it "dry." You just don't want it sopping.

-Put bread, garlic, capers and a quarter of your herbs into a mortar and mash.

-Continue to add herbs until they are all mixed in.

-Salt, cover with olive oil and set aside in the refrigerator.

-Stir before serving. Check out all of our recipes.

Gypsy Kitchens: A Mediterranean Crustacean Feast

Without our car and our well-stocked travel kitchen, we've had to work with whatever comes with a rental apartment. This can range from a microwave to a full stove and oven set. It almost always includes dull knives, which is why a light weight knife sharpener just may be the best investment for a traveler who plans on self catering. Sometimes, a kitchen's limitations can be frustrating. Other times, it can lead you in a direction you may not have gone. Our apartment in Valletta had a few badly scratched up non-stick pans and a bottle of corn oil. It also had a big ole pot. A pot so large that it could be best described as, you guessed it, a lobster pot. And with a name like that, who are we to use it for anything but?
Shellfish is just about the easiest thing you can cook, especially if you haven't yet invested in butter, olive oil, salt or pepper and have a broken plastic spatula to work with. Sure, cracking lobster open might pose its own challenges, but that's one of life's more pleasurable battles. Ever heard of the old lady who lifts a car to save a baby? Where there's a will. Curiosity and indecisiveness are traits that we, as a couple, carry with us on any market visit. So, our supper became a study in Mediterranean crustaceans. Our dinner was upgraded to a feast.
Also to blame (or credit) is the Marsaxlokk fish market's abundance and variety. Here is the man we purchased our crustaceans from. The shallow pan in front of his gutting slab is where the lobsters sat. You can see the big pile of langoustines and few scattered red prawns. With everything local and freshly caught, the sizes were far from uniform and the numbers varied. Our order went something like this: one ugly lobster, one pretty one, two shrimps with those long arms, yeah, those and ummm four of these red ones. He handed them off to his wife who weighed them and people crowded around to get their turn. He was the most popular monger of the bunch.
We have eaten a lot of shellfish in our day and, still, the field of crustacean identification remains a mystery. We just go with what looks interesting. What we thought were crimson shrimp are actually red prawns, and there is a difference. The paler "shrimp" with the long arms are actually lobsters, called "langoustines," "Dublin prawns" or "Norway lobsters." They are considered by some to be the single most important commercial crustacean in Europe. They would be the only true lobsters put in our pot.
The, left, spiny lobster and, right, slipper lobster are not true lobsters since they do not have claws. In the crustacean world, these two are each others closest relative - which would be why they were snatched from the same bay. From the top, side, underside, they couldn't have looked or acted more dissimilar. The pretty spiny tried to crawl away from us at every chance and the big, oafish slipper only really acted out when we went to uncurl its tail. THWACK! It curled back violently and forcefully - it is what the slippers use to move across the ocean floor and all. Still, it was incredible to feel its tail strength.
The beautiful spiny is considered a delicacy, able to appear on a plate in all its attractive. Its torso is spiky and furry, but the rest of it is a smooth, vibrant purple and orange pattern. The tail was as gorgeous as tortoise shell. The slipper is furry all over and brown. A combination which winds up resembling a kiwi. As you can see, it is almost all tail. So, its meat is what you are usually getting when eating lobster bisque or buying frozen lobster tail chunks from Trader Joe's. In the "lobster" world, the slipper is kind of the fat opera singer who is used to dub over the tone deaf starlet. Those plates on its head are actually its antennae.
After a day of exploring, we came home to free our lobsters from their refrigerator prison. A bittersweet freedom. They had been lulled to sleep by the cold and we worried about their livelihood. The more lively lobsters are, the healthier. The healthier, the meatier. Have you ever opened a lobster and found that there was less meat inside than you were expecting? It was probably kept in a tank too long. When a lobster is kept out of its natural environment its flesh begins to shrink. Anyway, it was sorta sad but also encouraging that the spiny began to climb on slipper's back to escape. We had to thwart their mission, but it was good to see they still had some healthy fire in them.
We were curious to see how all our little guys would look after their steam bath. The slipper needed a little makeover and we were delighted to see that it turned that wonderful lobster red that makes you want to dig in. The spiny lobster lost its beautiful purple color, but kept some of its orange flecks. The prawns' hue became a little subdued, less blood red, more brick red and the almost translucent orange-y langoustines' bodies turned pastel pink and its claws, red and white. With all the red lobsters before us, we got to missing our homeland variety. Call us Yankees, but there's just nothing like an Atlantic lobster. We're Team Claw in the great Claw vs Tail debate, after all.
However, you can't really argue with this plate of food. Indulgent but healthy. Decadent but simple. Having them side by side really brought out the subtle differences in each meat. The langoustine had the delicate almost watery taste and consistency of crab legs. The prawns were dense, snappy and sweet. The slipper lobster's tail was so chewy, meaty and substantial that we actually wound up pulling it apart and laying it on a piece of buttered toast to savor it longer and do better justice to its thick, tasty one note. The spiny lobster's tail was stringier and sweeter. The skirt steak to the slipper's flank. They may not be "true" lobsters, but they sure tasted like lobster. Our meal was beyond delicious and actually educational. What more can you ask for?

Note: As you can see from the first photo, those branded wet naps accumulated throughout our time in Turkey really came in handy.

Check out all of our recipes.