Tryavna

Shtirnik

Ingredients:

amaranth (or dock), spring onions, 300 g white cheese, 500 g yoghurt, 4 eggs, sunflower oil, 1 tsp. baking soda, mint, parsley, 1 pack round sheets of pastry, butter

 

Method:

Wash the amaranth (or dock) well, scald with boiling water and cut finely. Add to it the crumbled white cheese, the yoghurt, eggs, mint, parsley, sunflower oil, the baking soda and some salt, if the white cheese is not salty enough. Stir the mixture and set aside for a few minutes to rise. In some oil, stew the spring onions needed for the stuffing.

Sprinkle each sheet of dough with the mixture and with the stewed spring onions, then roll up the sheet and arrange loosely in a greased baking dish. Top the sheets with the rest of the stuffing, add some butter and bake the shtirnik in a moderate oven.



Tryavna-style flat loaf with white cheese

Ingredients:

500 g yoghurt, flour, 200 g white cheese, 1 egg, 1 tsp. baking soda, vinegar

 

Method:

Mix the yoghurt and the egg, add the vinegar and the baking soda. Gradually add flour to the mixture to obtain thick mash. Spread the mash in a baking dish and top with crumbled white cheese. Bake in a moderate oven for 20 min. – first only from the bottom, then both from the bottom and from the top.



Tryavna-style mekitsi (doughnuts)

Ingredients:

500 g flour, 500 g yoghurt, 2 eggs, 1 cup sunflower oil, baking soda

  • for the leaven: flour, sugar, 1 pack yeast, lukewarm water

 

Method:

Use some flour, lukewarm water, sugar and 1 packet yeast to make the leaven for the dough and set aside to rise.

In a deep bowl, mix the flour, yoghurt, leaven, eggs, sunflower oil and the baking soda. Make dough and set aside to rise, then mix with flour again two times so that it won’t turn out sticky. Take some of it, roll out with a rolling-pin to make a doughnut, pull slightly with your hands and then fry in hot sunflower oil. Serve the mekitsi to taste with castor sugar, white cheese, jam or honey.



Roasted pumpkin with onion (a recipe older than 100 years)

Ingredients:

pumpkin, flour, sugar, onion, sunflower oil, paprika

 

Method:

Peel the pumpkin and cut into small cubes. Arrange them in a thin layer at the bottom of a baking dish. Sprinkle with some flour and sugar. Brown an onion in sunflower oil and sprinkle with paprika. Spread the onion over the raw pumpkin, add a little water and put in the oven. Serve either as a main course with bread or as pudding.


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