Groats with armia (sour pepper)
Ingredients:
1 cup groats, 1 onion, pickled vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, carrots), lard, 3 cups hot water, salt, dried and crushed mint
Method:
Wash the groats thoroughly and brown in lard together with the chopped onion. Next, add the water and the chopped pickled vegetables. Season with salt to taste and cook at a moderate temperature until fully ready. Finally sprinkle with crushed dry mint. This used to be a traditional dish during fasting.
Lamb soup (kurban)
Ingredients:
lamb meat (from a weaned animal) taken from the ribs and neck; 2–3 onions, water, salt
Method:
Cut the lamb meat into pieces and put into a copper with water to be cooked. The ratio of meat to water is 1:3. Skim the kurban several times. When it clears, add the chopped onions and some salt. After a while, remove the onion from the soup as it continues to simmer, and taste to check whether the salt is enough. During cooking, the fire should burn from all sides, and the firewood pieces should be slimmer. The kurban is ready when the meat separates easily from the ribs. Optionally, you may add hot peppers to it. Kurban is traditionally consumed during weddings, christening ceremonies, local festivals and name days.
Madzhun halva
Ingredients:
madzhun (water-melon syrup), oil, flour, water
Method:
Brown the flour in oil until golden. Add the madzhun diluted with some water. As the mixture simmers at a low temperature, stir until it thickens. Scoop servings from the halva with a spoon and place on a plate. Serve as pudding.
Сервира се като десерт.
Milky milina
Ingredients:
flour, 1 egg, vinegar, salt, sugar, white cheese, oil
- For the topping: 300–400 g yoghurt, 300–400 g milk, 6–7 eggs
Method:
Sift the flour, add the water, the beaten egg, the salt, vinegar and sugar and make soft pastry, then leave it to rise. Roll out the pastry into sheets. Sprinkle crumbled white cheese on each sheet and arrange the sheets – rumpled in a greased baking dish. Pour over the topping made from the milk, yoghurt and the beaten eggs. Bake in a preheated oven. Optional: consume with water-melon syrup.
Fundichki
Ingredients:
wheat flour, 1 cup yoghurt, 2–3 eggs, baking soda, sugar, salt, oil
Method:
Sift the flour, make a well and put into it the yoghurt, the beaten eggs, the baking soda, sugar and salt. Make soft dough and roll it out into a sheet. Use a knife or a glass to cut figures shaped like ribbons or circles, and fry them in heated oil. These fundichki are taken as a gift to the young mothers after childbirth or to midwives for Babinden (Midwife Day).
Bride’s milina
Ingredients:
flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, lukewarm water
- For the stuffing: white cheese, walnuts, sugar
Method:
Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar and the lukewarm water to make dough, and leave it to rise. Use the dough to roll out sheets and after winding them up on the rolling pin, take them down and into a baking dish. Spread stuffing made from crumbled white cheese, crushed walnuts and sugar over the sheets. Bake the milina in the oven, at a moderate temperature. It the past the milina was made by the bride prior to the wedding.
Sorghum syrup
Method:
Clean the twigs of the sorghum plant from the leaves, then cut and press them. Cook the sorghum juice until it thickens. The sorghum syrup is lighter in color than the water-melon syrup. Use the sorghum syrup as topping for various pastries.
