SlovakCooking.com

100% Whole Wheat Bread (Celozrnný Chlieb)

lubos — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 20:36:06 +0000

As my wife will attest, I love bread. There is nothing more satisfying than a slice of bread topped with green peppers, tomatoes, or cucumbers. While white breads have their place, what I really crave is that flavorful crunchy crust and moist center that you find in a whole wheat loaf. These days it’s easy to find “rustic” breads thanks to local bakeries and chains such as La Brea. The downside is that many “whole wheat” breads are made partly with white flour. Store-bought bread can also be quite pricey, often even six dollars for a single loaf. Hence, for the past months, I’ve been experimenting with baking my own 100% whole wheat bread. It’s been a challenge! I even said that getting a whole wheat loaf that is not dense, dry, and sandy may be more difficult that qualifying for the Boston marathon. This was attempt #20 (or so). While not completely perfect (the loaf looks like a Frisbee), it turned out airy and moist so I decided to share the recipe with you. The total cost of ingredients is only around a dollar. In making this recipe, I used the lid of the Lodge Cast Iron Double Dutch Oven. I greatly recommend this product. It’s been in constant rotation in my kitchen since buying it few months ago. The skillet lid is great for any type of sautéing and pan frying, while the pot works great for making popcorn without burning it. Buying it through the above affiliated link is also a great way to support this site, as I receive a small percentage of the purchase price from Amazon.

Ingredients: 2 cups of whole wheat flour, 1.5 cups warm water, tablespoon of yeast, handful of salt, caraway seeds (optional)
Prep Time: most of the day spent waiting for the dough to rise, slightly over an hour for baking

Mixing

Add 2 cups of whole wheat flour to a large bowl and then pour in 1.5 cups of warm water.

Mix well and let sit for 30 minutes. This is known as autolyse and allows the dough to develop better flavors. Pictures show before and after photos.

Below is a video showing the consistency of the dough at this point:

https://www.slovakcooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/bread01.mp4

First Rise

Now add about a tablespoon worth of yeast. I used yeast in bulk, but if using single use packets, use about 2/3, saving the rest. Mix in, cover, and let sit for about 2 hours.

Second Rise

The dough should now be well risen. Stir until it collapses, cover, and let rise for second time. This second rise was for about hour and half.

Here is a video showing the dough after the second rise:

https://www.slovakcooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/bread02.mp4

Seasoning

Next add about a teaspoon worth of yeast (or the rest of the packet), handful of salt, and optionally other herbs, such as caraway.

Kneading

We next knead the dough to better develop the gluten that gives bread its structure. This is typically done by dumping the dough onto a floured surface and repeatedly stretching and folding over with your hands. What I am showing here instead is the method I use, in which I do the kneading in the bowl using a wooden spatula. It seems to work just as fine and your hands stay clean.

Knead the dough by making a ball and then folding over from underneath. I snapped few pictures and also took a video of this process.

https://www.slovakcooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/bread03.mp4

Third Rise

Next dust a baking pan (I used the lid of the Lodge Cast Iron Double Dutch Oven) and transfer the dough. Let rise once again, this time for about 30 minutes.

Baking

Towards the end of the rise, preheat the oven to 390F. Bake for around 80 minutes. I also placed in the oven another pan containing several ice cubes.

The bread should just slide out of the skillet. Mine ended up looking like a Frisbee, but regardless turned out airy and delicious.

Here is a picture of one of the many previous attempts. It’s hard to see here, but this bread was more crumbly and sand-tasting, due to insufficient water content.

Plasma Medicine Conference 2016

lubos — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 22:09:48 +0000

Family visits bring me to Slovakia once every year or two, but this September was my first time ever traveling there for business. I was attending the 6th International Conference on Plasma Medicine, ICPM6, organized by researchers from Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The conference was attended by almost 400 people with the largest group of about 70 coming from Japan. The organizers, including Zdenko Machala and Karol Hensel, did an amazing job. Not only was the quality of presentations superb, they also put together a wonderful program to highlight Slovakia. This included various excursions. I settled for the walking tour of Bratislava. At the conclusion, we were brought to the Flagship restaurant. I figured the free tour will end here. Instead, the waiters started bringing out beer and wine for everyone. These were then followed by family style portions of baked meat, halusky, and pierogi. At the banquet we were treated to traditional singing and dancing – including a dance lesson for the attendees to partake in.

I attended the conference with my doctoral advisor, Prof. Keidar from GWU. The last photo is a group shot of the attendees, taken from the ICPM6 website.

I took the opportunity to also spend some time with my family. My mom has been living in Prague for the past few years and came to visit for a day. I did not realize prior to this visit that she had never before been to Bratislava! I think she left with a great impression. I am starting to very much like this town. The center is pretty, but not as packed with tourists as Prague.

Here my mom and I area having the traditional sauerkraut soup in Mestiansky Pivovar. My wife swears this place has the best ribs anywhere, so we also ordered those – mainly to tease her.

I also managed to find some nice running trails. Bratislava is so close to Vienna that on a 6 mile trip around town I was able to stop by Austria. How often can you say you visited a different country on your morning run?

Pictures from morning and afternoon runs around town. One morning I ran up to the Kamzik TV tower overlooking Bratislava. The trail from Zelezna Studnicka winds through a forest past a picturesque lake, but unfortunately there was no view from the top. For that, you need to visit the Altitude restaurant.

As mentioned above, I am starting to very much like Bratislava. It’s the right size city – not too small and not too big. The public transport is great, and prices are very reasonable, especially if coming from the US. A small glass of Slovak wine at Trunk Wine Gallery will cost you only one euro. Slovak wine is surprisingly good. That machiato and pastry were only about 2 euro total. There is also a tremendous amount of growth, with cranes dotting the skyline. Just next to my sister’s condo is rising a new 23-story apartment building.

Few more photos from Bratislava. I ended up buying those three bottles to bring back as that was all that would fit in my bag. I will need a bigger suitcase next time!

Banska Bystrica

After the conference ended I took a train to my hometown of Banska Bystrica, to spend some time with dad. Among other things, we visited the grave of my grandmothers, both of whom passed away in the recent years. As you know, my grandmas Pavka and Terka were a great inspiration behind this cooking site.

We don’t get sausages like this in the US. I also did more running, this picture was taken about 6 miles out near the town of Molca.

No trip to Slovakia would be complete without going mushroom hunting. These amanitas are living up to their name (muchotravka – fly ‘killer’). We found few edible mushrooms, but not too many.

I took my dad to a new sushi restaurant in Banska Bystrica, where he tried chopsticks for probably his first time. It didn’t go too well! Another day we stopped by a koliba for more traditional specialties – eaten with more traditional utensils.

Finally, here are few more photos of delicious home cooking. That cake looked quite easy to make so look forward to that as one of the future recipes.

Just a sample of the many delicious home cooked meals. Clockwise from top we have a bean soup with frankfurters, Hungarian goulash, pork cuts rolled in some bacon, and a berry cake.

Tart Cherry Rum Cake (Višňové Rezy)

lubos — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 19:04:38 +0000

Hope all of you had a great year and wonderful holidays. Our Christmas was quite non-traditional, but at least I ended up baking a cake. Here it is. The motivation for this recipe came from this site. I made few adaptions along the way, such as using a bag of frozen cherries instead of something called “Frutafil”, and by adding rum. The cake turned out quite well. The cherries and the rum give it a refreshing, juicy feel, and the cream is light and not heavy as in American cheesecakes.

Cake: 3lb bag of frozen variety cherries, 6 medium eggs, 2/3 cups sugar, 1 cup all purpose flour, 2 tbsp baking soda, about quarter cup cocoa, quarter stick of butter, rum
Cream: 16oz cottage cheese, 12 oz sour cream, 16oz heavy cream, cherry juice, four small gelatin packs (one box), one cherry-flavored gelatin pack, powdered sugar to taste, cocoa, chocolate topping
Prep Time: About two hours
Baking: 10 minutes at 355F, followed by 30 minutes at 300F

Fruit Filling

I used this 3lbs of frozen “mixed variety” cherries. I used a potato masher to squeeze out more juice. I then transferred the fruit to a pot, and started cooking it along with some sugar and rum (maybe a quarter cup)

Cake Layer

Next beat the egg whites with half of the sugar into a foam. Then do the same with the yolks and the other half of the sugar. Add flour into the yolks.

Also add the butter, baking soda, and cocoa. Lightly stir in the egg whites.

Transfer the dough onto a baking pan greased with butter and dusted with flour. Bake as shown above. In the mean time, I continued simmering the cherries and transferring juice into a separate container. Once they were soft, I added one pack of gelatin and set aside to cool off.

Cherry Cream

To make the cream, mix the cottage cheese (tried to find an unsalted, small curd variety) with sour cream and the juice from the cherries. Mix together, trying to work out as many curds as possible.

Also whip the cream with a bit of granulated sugar. Mix in, and add powdered sugar to taste.

I also used one packet of this artificially cherry flavored gelatin. I mainly used this because I couldn’t find food coloring in the grocery store, and this had some Red 40 in it. Also add in the remaining 3 packets of gelatin. Once the cake was ready, I flipped it onto a cutting board, and used a knife to cut off the top crispy layer.

I then poured rum quite generously over the cake. I then topped it with the cherry filling before scooping on the cream. Let chill in the fridge over night.

The next morning I made yet more whipped cream, but this time I mixed in a bit of cocoa for color and flavor. I also topped the cake with a piece of dark chocolate.

Baked Plum Jam (Pečený Slivkový Lekvár)

lubos — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 03:30:00 +0000

If you are a frequent visitor to this cooking site, you have surely come across multiple posts in which I am grumbling about the difficulty of finding plum jam in the United States. Plum jam (slivkový lekvár) is an essential ingredient in Slovak cuisine. It’s thick and does not run, which makes it the ideal filling for koláče, buchty, sweet pierogi, or jam turnovers. There is also a popular dish made with whole plumes, plum dumplings.

Long story short, I decided try making my own plum jam. The difficulty is that I couldn’t actually find fresh plums. I started this project in December, long after the plum season ended. On top of that, the plums that can be found in my local grocery stores are the big red kinds, not the small blue Damson plums used in Slovakia. However, I noticed that the plums on the cover photo of the package of D’Noir prunes looked very much right! So I figured, perhaps I could try making jam from prunes – which are basically just dehydrated plums. The end result was quite satisfactory, although the color of the jam ended up more brown than blue. Below you will find the recipe. As you will see, making your own plum jam is actually quite easy.

Ingredients: either fresh plums (Damson) or prunes (I used 2.5 packages), shot of rum, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, brown sugar to taste, plus mason jars and canning thongs
Time:About two days from start to finish, but the baking part takes between 3-4 hours

This post is actually the result of three different tries. They all started with the same ingredients but there were differences in the processing. The first try, for which I don’t have any pictures, was made in a pot by cooking the jam. This is a little bit messy and time consuming. I later stumbled upon a recipe on a Slovak recipe site calling for the jam to be baked (pečený). This actually makes perfect sense. On the stove top, the heat is delivered from one end only. Unless you continuously stir the jam, it becomes quite easy to burn it. On the other hand, the oven gives you a nice uniform heating from all sides. Brilliant!

Try #2 (Baking)

The issue with the first jam was that it was quite thin – I didn’t cook it long enough. I used the baking method in try #2.

If using prunes, let them first soak in water overnight. I then added one tablespoon of vinegar and a shot of rum, for taste. I also added about two heaping tablespoons of brown sugar.

Next place the pan in the oven preheated to 390F. Wait for the jam to come to a boil and then lower the temperature to about 350F to maintain boiling. Stir the jam about once per hour. It will take about 3 to 4 hours for the jam to sufficiently thicken.

I actually let this jam bake too long (about 5 hours) and it ended up being too thick for spreading on bread. However, it was fine as a sweets filling, so I used it to make some kolache and buchty. I also made a poppy seed roll.

Try #3 (Blending)

The other issue with #2 and also #1 was that since I used whole prunes with the skins intact, the jam was not particularly creamy. So I figured I could improve the texture by first running everything through a blender. This was try #3. The texture ended up better, but I was less impressed with the resulting color. It ended up more brown and less the desired dark blue / black.

Start as before by soaking the prunes overnight, and then adding rum, vinegar, and sugar. I then ran everything through a blender.

And bake just as before. First use a hotter oven to bring the prune jam to boil, and then lower the heat to “simmer”. Don’t forget to stir. I continued baking until the jam got to the consistency shown in the second picture.

Preserving (Canning)

Finally, if you are making a lot of jam, and need it to last the whole year, you will need to preserve it. This is done by spooning the jam into mason jars, and then heating them fully covered in boiling water. This heating accomplishes two things: it kills off harmful bacteria, and provides an airtight seal that prevents new bacteria from getting in.

While the plum jam is baking, disinfect your mason jars and lids by boiling them in water with some dissolved vinegar. Next transfer the jam to the jars. Wipe off any jam from near the top. You should also try to eliminate any air bubbles, although I found this quite hard to do. I suspect the concern is that if these air bubbles escape from the jam, they could repressurize the volume, and release the lid. Screw on the lid and place in boiling hot water for at least 5 minutes to seal the jars. Then finally, use special canning thongs to carefully remove the jars from the hot water.

And that’s it! It’s actually quite easy. We used this jam to make little thank you gifts for friends and family who have sent us Christmas cards.

Meat Roll (Mäsová Roláda)

lubos — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 01:42:30 +0000

Here is one dish that is very popular in Slovakia: a meat roll with a hard boiled egg in the middle. It’s similar to a Scotch egg. By the way, this is just one of many various meat rolls that you may find on your travels through Slovakia. For some reason it is popular to serve meat in the shape of a roll. Some other recipes consist of layers made of different kinds of meats, or with a salad as the filling.

Ingredients: 500g ground pork, 4 hard boiled eggs, 1 uncooked egg, one medium onion, 2 cloves garlic, fresh parsley, half a bread roll squeezed in milk, salt, pepper, paprika, bread crumbs, baked potatoes and green peas for the side
Prep Time: About 30 minutes prep, then some 1-1.5 hours baking at 375F

Dice the onion (cibuľa) and crush two cloves of garlic (cesnak). Also chop the parsley leaves (petržlenová vnať). Mix into the ground pork (mleté bravčové mäso along with one whole egg (vajce), bread roll (rožok) squeezed in milk, salt (soľ), pepper (korenie), and paprika. Then add just enough bread crumbs (strúhanka) to get the meat dough to stick together.

In the mean time, hard boil 4 eggs. Flatten the meat dough onto an aluminum foil and place the peeled eggs in a line about 1/3 from one edge.

Then with the help of the aluminum foil, roll the meat into a “meat burrito”. Tuck the meat along the ends in, and closeout the sides. Then place onto a baking pan.

Bake in a 375F oven for about 30 minutes, wrapped. I then unwrapped the foil and continued baking until the meat got nicely brown on the outside.

Baked meat roll, delicious!

It went particularly well with green peas (hrášok), baked potatoes (pečené zemiaky), and european style mustard (horčica). Dobrú chuť!

If you enjoyed this recipe, check out fašírka, the Slovak take on the hamburger. Also don’t forget to send the link to friends, share on Facebook, and tweet on Twitter. Thanks!

Fruit Pierogi (Ovocné Pirôžky)

lubos — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 03:49:01 +0000

This year, Christmas sort of sneaked (or snuck?) up on us. Before we knew it, it was here, and there was no time to prepare the traditional Slovak Christmas dishes (although I am at least going to cook a pot of kapustnica). However, this past weekend I was experimenting with making plum jam. Well actually prune jam, since finding Damson plums is difficult in the United States, and prunes seemed like a good substitute. The jam turned out ok, and I also ended up with half a cup of prune skins spooned off the top of the boiling jam. Debating if I should just toss them, I remembered a dish I particularly liked as a child: sweet jam-filled pierogi topped with toasted bread crumbs. I figured the skins would work well as a filling. If you have never had anything like this dish, give this recipe a try. I think you will like it! I made these with dough made of white flour, yeast, sugar, water, and a bit of oil.

Ingredients: sweet leavened dough (flour, yeast, sugar, bit of oil), plum jam (or similar) filling, powdered sugar, bread crumbs, butter
Prep Time: About 3 hours for the dough to rise, then 30 minutes

Using a pin, roll out the dough to about 2 millimeters thick. Then use a glass or a mug with the rim dusted with flour to cut out circles. Form the left over dough into a ball, and continue rolling out and cutting out circles until all is used up.

Place about a teaspoon worth of the jam in the middle of the circle. Fold over, and then use a fork to seal the edge.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook the pierogi for few minutes, until done. In the mean time, melt butter in a large frying pan. Add bread crumbs and powdered sugar (in ratio roughly one to one, to taste) and toast on medium heat while stirring. I then added strained pierogi to coat them and to also make them lightly crispy.

And that’s it. Enjoy one of my favorite Slovak “sweet lunches”.

Meteník (Sauerkraut Biscuits)

lubos — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 03:00:36 +0000

On my recent trip to Slovakia this past October, we visited the UNESCO World Heritage historical village of Vlkolínec. There I got a chance to try something I have never heard of before: a sauerkraut filled thin bread called meteník. This food was also news to my dad, but the lady working the shop confirmed that this in fact is a traditional dish. Sure enough, there are quite a few variations floating around Slovak recipe sites, although I must admit I was disappointed not to find it in any of the three Slovak cookbooks I own. But it’s quite possible it’s hiding in there, just under a different name. When I got back home to the USA, I tried one of the recipes, but it was a straight to trash disaster. This second one, with some of improvisations, turned out much better. Even my wife, who is not a big fan of Slovak “koliba” food, approved!

Ingredients: 2/3 to 1 lb of sauerkraut, half a cup of milk, 1 2/3 cups flour, yeast, teaspoon of sugar, three tablespoons of lard, salt, garlic + oil for topping
Prep Time: about an hour (including rise time), then another 1h15m baking at 350F

Dissolve the yeast in a bit of milk and sugar. Then, rinse the sauerkraut well, otherwise the meteník will be too sour. You may also want to chop the sauerkraut into finer pieces.

Combine the sauerkraut, yeast, milk, flour, two tablespoons of lard, and salt to taste and work together to form dough. Next let rise for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a baking pan, and spread the dough into a fairly thin sheet, based on how thick you want the bread to turn out. Bake for about 75 minutes. About 20 minutes from the end, I brushed the top with another tablespoon of lard. I then let it bake more, and finished with 5 minutes under a low broiler.

While the bread is baking, press 2 cloves of garlic and mix with oil (I used olive) to make the topping. Some people also put bacon on top, but it was served like this, with garlic spread, during our visit to Vlkolínec. Enjoy!

Caramel Nut Wafers (Griláž)

lubos — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 17:53:51 +0000

Griláž, or grilážky, are a favorite treat of mine. I am always looking forward to visiting my grandma Pavka as she makes these often. They are wafer sticks filled with a sweet nut caramel filling. Sandra and I made these last Christmas for our annual Christmas cookie gift baskets.

To make griláž, you will need a waffle iron. Our first experience was with an iron I got from my mom for Christmas few years ago, and it turned out to be a disaster. That iron, a small red thing from Bella Cucina, got too hot to handle, and the waffles came out burned on one side and not done on another. At one time, the lids got stuck, and we had to yank the power plug from the wall before the iron almost caught on fire. This second time we used the Chef’s Choice Waffle Cone Express with much more success. Highly recommended!

Ingredients for “Gourmet Waffle Cone”: 1 whole egg, 1 egg white, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 2/3 cups sifted all purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of melted butter
Ingredients for griláž filling: 1.5 cups granulated sugar (I used brown sugar), 2 cups chopped (not ground) nuts, 1 can (14 oz) of condensed milk (Lechera), 2 sticks margarine
Prep Time: About 20 minutes to make waffles, 30 minutes for the filling, another 20 minutes for filling, and overnight in fridge

Start by making the waffles. We simply used the recipe for “Gourmet Waffle Cone” that came with the waflle maker. Simply combine the ingredients and blend together. Do not overmix. Preheat the waffle oven and bake according to the oven instructions.

Next let’s make the filling. Start by grinding the nuts. You can start using a food processor, but to get the smooth texture needed to make the creamy filling, you will need to run them through an old-fashioned nut grinder like the one shown above.

Melt the sugar on low heat until it turns into caramel. Then add the ground nuts.

Add in the condensed milk and margarine and stir until you get a creamy filling.

Once the filling cools down, fill the wafers. We made ours with 4 wafers and 3 layers of filling. Weigh them down by placing a plate over them and place in the fridge overnight to let set. This will make slicing easier as the wafer will soften and be less brittle.

Next day, slice the wafers using a wet knife to make the waffle cookies. Enjoy!

Apple Cake (Jablkový Koláč)

lubos — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 22:15:45 +0000

Here is a recipe for an easy traditional Slovak apple cake. It consists of a cinnamon apple filling between two layers of dough.It is based on recipe from sme.sk. We made this desert to go with our “Thanksgiving” stuffed trout.

Ingredients: 400g flour (~4 cups), 2 sticks (250g) butter, 1 cup (100g) powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk if needed, 2 lbs apples, vanilla sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Prep Time: 2 hours

Sift the flour and add sliced butter, eggs, and powdered sugar.

Turn ingredients into dough. Add milk if needed.

Cut dough into two halves and roll out one with the help of wax paper. Transfer to a baking pan.

Next grate the apples and mix in cinnamon and vanilla sugar to taste.

Transfer the apple filling over the dough layer.

Next roll out the second piece of dough. Carefully transfer over the apples. Bake in an oven preheated to 390F for about half an hour, until the dough is done.

Let cool down and slice into squares. Top with powdered sugar. Enjoy!

Stuffed Trout (Plnený Pstruh)

lubos — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:11:56 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here in the USA, the custom for Thanksgiving is to bake a turkey stuffed with a bread-based “stuffing”. Since neither Sandra nor I are huge fans of baked turkey nor the stuffing, we decided to prepare a Thanksgiving meal with a Slovak twist – a stuffed trout. This is just one of many different kinds of stuffed trout recipes. We stuffed it with potatoes, onions, spinach, and spices. You could also use bacon, mushrooms, or other vegetables you like.

Ingredients: 2 pieces of trout, 3 potatoes, one onion, handful of spinach, handful of fresh parsley, 1 teaspoon marjoram, 1 tablespoon paprika, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, olive oil
Prep Time: 90 minutes

I started by peeling, dicing, and cooking potatoes. I then washed two pieces of sea trout I picked up in Grand Mart in the Seven Corners area. According to “normal” American grocery stores (I am looking at you Giant!), there are only 3 types of fish: salmon, tuna, and tilapia, and they exist in the wild in the form of filets. If you want to find a whole fish, you’ll need to venture into an international market, which luckily we have quite a few here in Northern Virginia.

Wash the fish, and also run a knife against the skin to remove the scales. Then slice open the “stomach”, remove internal organs and gills, and wash the insides well.

Slice open the “back” and remove the spine and bones.

Next, take a thread and needle and sew the stomach shut. In theory you should use a special baking thread but we didn’t have any so we used a regular thread instead.

In the meantime, I also quickly steamed the spinach, and mixed it with a finely diced onion. I didn’t fry the onion, only mixed it with the spinach in the warm pot. Next, I added potatoes, paprika, parsley, marjoram, oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

Place the trout on a greased baking pan. Fill the trout with the stuffing. Lightly sew the top together. Then dust the top with bread crumbs, cover with aluminum foil, and place in oven preheated to 380F for about 45 minutes.

Our kitten April was not too interested in the trout.

Finally carefully transfer the baked trout onto a plate. I briefly fried the leftover stuffing and used it as a side dish. Enjoy!

By the way, in the picture is a traditional Slovak apple cake we also baked for Thanksgiving. The recipe will be posted soon.