Crispy Pork Cracklings for Saint Dimitrius Day

In spite of being one of the tastiests appetizers which match perfect with a glass of ice-cold beer, pork cracklings are not a type of food poets dedicate poems to.

Most of the women I know think that eating pork skin no matter how prepared, is disgusting. But I love to eat most of the things declinded by 'sophisticated people' - I prepare myself and order in restaurants where offered such things like crispy chicken cracklings (you can not imagine how crunchy they are), trippa alla fiorentina, pacha, the typical Bulgarian Shkembe chorba, pig trotter's soup...But let's go back to the pork cracklings. They are crunchy and dry on top and melting soft inside.  And something also important - they do not need much time to be prepared. My husband loves them and today I make them for him - he has a nameday. Today is Saint Dimitrius day - one of the most important Orthodox saints who is celebrated every year on October 26. Happy nameday, Dimiter! Wish you all the best!

Deep Fried pork belly - the crunchy winter relish

Do you like fatty food? Probably not. But if you take the fattiest part of the pig - its belly, and fry it in even more fat, you will get a crispy delish which is enjoyed in many countries placed thousand of miles away from each other. In Bulgaria the fatty chunks are called 'prujki', in Spain and Colombia - 'chicharrón', in Portugal - 'Torresmo'. 'Pork rind' in England or 'шкварки' in Russia, it is all the same. Here is the way I prepare this appetizer. And do not worry about calories - there is a whole stream into the diet science which calls for eating fat if you want to loose weight. So take a glas of wine or beer and enjoy it. 

Sarmi (Sauerkraut rolls with chopped meat)

"Sarmi" is a popular Bulgarian dish, which stands for sauerkraut rolls prepared as a vegetarian dish (stuffed with chopped onion, rice and spices and served traditionally on Christmas Eve) or the other popular variety, for the meat lovers (stuffed with onion, minced meat, little rice and spices). The recipe I share with you today is called "Tsarski sarmi", which mean sauerkraut rolls for the King. The reason for that - they are prepared with chopped meat insted of minced meat and you can feel better the taste of the meat. There is leek instead of onion, which adds a slightly sweet taste to the dish and matches so well with the pork. No rice, no onion, just some crushed dry peppers - hot if you like the sweet taste and sweet if you do not. So this is a dish for special occasions. Bulgarian sauerkraut is not sweet and shredded, as it is in Germany and some Central-European countries - the whole heads of cabbages are prepared without any additional flavours and we enjoy the sour taste of the cabbage. 

Many families still prepare homemade sauerkraut in Bulgaria, but this is a long and hard process which requires a lot of patience and results depend a lot on the quality of the cabbage, on the temperature in the place where the fermentation takes place and of course on the skills of the housekeeper. The good thing is, that these days there are lots of vendors who sell heads of sauerkraut cabbage in plastic bags on every farmer's market, so I can enjoy the tasty Bulgarian sarmi without making all that efforts.

Pork and leek stew (Kavarma)

If you sit in a restaurant in Bulgaria and ask for something typical for the country, Kavarma will be most probably one of the dishes offered. It is a rustic stew for meat lovers which pairs soft pork and leek. 

Trippa alla Fiorentina (Florence-style tripe)

Can you put in one sentence sophisticated words like Renaissance, paintings and architecture and a humble ingredient like tripe? Yes, if you describe the landmarks of Florence. There are lots of stalls and stands around this city, where tripe is prepared accordoing to various recipes and you will miss part of the Florence experience if you don't taste it.
Trippa alla Fiorentina is a specialty of preparing tripe with vegetables and tomato sauce. As most of the Tuscan dishes, it is simple and tasty, nutritios and unexpensive and could be easily prepared at home. Little pretence, deep and satisfying taste.

Patiency is the key word when talking about tripe - the more you cook it on medium heat, the more tenderness you will get at the final dish. The spongy honeycomb part of the tripe is the most tender and so my favourite. It is a good idea to buy a pre-cooked tripe,  this will save you 3 hours of preliminary boiling. 

Chicken soup for my body and soul

It is not enough to say I don't like winter, I really hate it. 

And I have my good reasons for that. There is a lot of snow outside, streets are slippery, people wear at least 5 kg of clothes, which makes them look heavy and clumsy. 
There are so many restrictions in winter. For instance - it is not a good idea to talk in the street (the cold wind will cause you a soar throat), to walk fast or run (you will fall onto the ice), to wear your new boots, produced again in a country where people haven't seen snow for years (of course, the boots are elegant, but they let in water, have no lining and their smooth soles makes you more unsure than while figure skating). 

But these are only the weather/fashion limits of winter. For me the main problem with it is the drop in my immune system. I don't know why I am so hospitable to all the viruses and bacilli all around, but every winter I have my bad days, when I take lots of pills and there are piles of used handkerchiefs around me. The last ten days were that kind. I took a sick-leave, but instead of using this opportunity to cook or shoot I could only keep the bed grumbling everything was unfair. 

What helps me to recover when I feel so low? A cup of chicken soup. Hot, comforting, restoring health. 
One of the simple things of life, which create miracles with the way I feel. Here is my recipe.

Steak tartare

Some years ago a friend of mine went to Paris with his family for two or three weeks . 

We met soon after he came back from his journey and he told me enthusiastically how much he and his wife liked the French cuisine. There was only one huge disappointment, he said. A kind of steak presented in the menu. 

'We ordered it and, Good Lord, the garçon brought us a heap of minced meat, some chopped onion, a raw egg yolk and some spices. We could not believe our eyes', my friend said, it was like somebody has stolen the ingredients from the chef before he was able to prepare the dish, even before he could mix them. 

So, in short, my friend and his wife sent the dish back to the kitchen angrily, asking the chef to prepare the tartare on the grill. 
Yes, this is a true story. I tried not to laugh when I heard it and I would have probably forget about it, but one of my colleagues came back from France this summer. He spent there some weeks with his friends and when they ordered Steak tartare…, well, you already know the end of the story.

So, the moral – if you don’t like the taste of raw meat, Steak Tartare should not be amongst your orders. But if you are a devoted meat lover like me and my three beloved ones, this is a good and easy to prepare dish which is best enjoyed with a glas of good red wine. 

It is not a good idea to prepare the mixture of the ingredients in advance and to put it in the fridge - everything should be mixed some minutes before serving or even like in the case of my friend - everybody should prepare their mixture in their own plate. Meat and eggs should be very, very fresh and from a trusted source in order to avoid any digestive complications. Classical recipe calls for hot pepper sauce as an ingredients, but we like it with fresh chopped hot peppers.

Pulled pork with pasta

Long simmering of dishes is part of my winter cooking entertainments.
House full of nice smells, warm and cosy - this is something which mitigates my winter feelings. It is a good idea to have a pot full of pasta sauce on the stove.
This is a simple recipe, but it requires rather a long preparation time, so it is good for a weekend dinner. The long simmering of the meat makes it tender and juicy and easy to shred and the preliminary roasting gives the caramel flavour. The ingredients are quite similar to those ones used in Bolognese sauce, but it tastes different, more home-made and tasty. We enjoyed it much.

Italian Wedding Soup

It was a soup weekend.
I felt slightly under the weather on Saturday and the best medicine for the flu is a bowl of hot, steaming soup. Its smell is really appealing (imagine the little meatballs with the melting parmesan browning slowly in the oven, who can continue sleeping with such a tasty alarm). Children came to the kitchen still wearing their pijamas, asking: Mmmm, what are you cooking today, Mum? So I knew, I would have to share it with them. D. also didn't need an invitation to take his spoon, so the below mentioned amounts of ingredients were enough only for one meal for four hungry "Italians". We all liked it very much and I do not know whether the Italians really eat it on their weddings, but it is tasty and nourishing, herby from the spices and fresh from the spinach. 
Why exactly this soup? While watching Desperate housewives some weeks ago I heard for a first time about it (of course, Bree Van De Kamp prepared it and did I tell you, that I deeply admire her cooking success?). The net is full of recipes for this dish and the main ingredients according to them are meatballs (most often from ground chicken or turkey or from chicken sausage), small pasta and spinach. We prefer pork meat, so I used minced pork. 
I suppose, you can use whatever meat you like most of all.
This will not make somebody run from the wedding, you must be sure. 

Fabada Asturiana - Giant Beans with blood sausage and Chorizo

Fall is in the air, so it is time for warming and comforting dishes. I mean something hot, really hot and nourishing. I tasted this dish about ten years ago in Spain where we spent some days at the end of December. According to the Internet, there is such typical Spanish dish, called Fabada Asturiana. It is a warming stew of large white beans and sausages (blood sausage and Chorizo should present according to most of the recipes). There is a roasted garlic included and its creamy and nutty and caramel touches play an important part of the whole symphony of tastes in the dish. The following recipe is written from memory and it included the ingredients I suppose were included years ago in that Spanish restaurant. The smell of the different ingredients is really intoxicating.