Zelnik
Ingredients:
- for the stuffing: spinach, 250 g white cheese, 5–6 tbsp. yoghurt, 5 eggs, 1 cup sunflower oil
- for the dough: flour, salt, lukewarm water, yeast
Method:
Finely cut the spinach, season with salt and press with your hands. In a bowl, crumble the white cheese and add to it the yoghurt. In another bowl, beat the four eggs.
Grease a baking dish and lay in it a rolled out sheet of dough sprinkled with sunflower oil, and topped with part of the mixture of the yoghurt and the white cheese, part of the beaten eggs and part of the cut spinach. Put the other sheets of pastry and also sprinkle and cover with the same ingredients. Cover the zelnik on top with a final sheet of dough and pour over a mixture of lukewarm water and one beaten egg. Bake in a moderate oven. In older times, the zelnik was made in a podnitsa (flat clay baking dish) under a vrashnik (convex iron lid). You may replace the spinach with amaranth, nettles or wild beetroot.
Strandzha-style Dyado (Old man)
Ingredients for the sausage:
meat from a leg of pork, pork tripe, paprika, salt, savorymeat from a leg of pork, pork tripe, paprika, salt, savory
Method:
Fry the onion in the oil and stew with the sliced tomatoes. Add the meat from the leg of pork – sliced and slightly fried in advance. Add 2–3 hot peppers, whole cloves of garlic and then season with savory and salt. Boil for about 2 h 30 min. in a slow oven and finally add a cup of wine. Consume mostly in the winter.Fry the onion in the oil and stew with the sliced tomatoes. Add the meat from the leg of pork – sliced and slightly fried in advance. Add 2–3 hot peppers, whole cloves of garlic and then season with savory and salt. Boil for about 2 h 30 min. in a slow oven and finally add a cup of wine. Consume mostly in the winter.Mince the meat from the leg of pork and season with paprika, savory and salt. Mix well. Leave the mixture to rest for one night in a cool place. Then stuff it into pork tripe, stitch up and press against wooden boards using weights. After 40 days hang up the sausage to dry up in an airy place. This sausage used to be consumed during harvesting.Mince the meat from the leg of pork and season with paprika, savory and salt. Mix well. Leave the mixture to rest for one night in a cool place. Then stuff it into pork tripe, stitch up and press against wooden boards using weights. After 40 days hang up the sausage to dry up in an airy place. This sausage used to be consumed during harvesting.
Ingredients for the dish:
4 eggs, sunflower oil, Strandzha-style Dyado (Old man)
Method:
Fry Strandzha-style Dyado slices in sunflower oil. Add to them the beaten eggs and fry until ready. Season to taste.
Strandzha-style Gyuvech (hotchpotch)
Ingredients:
meat from a leg of pork, onion, sunflower oil (or lard), tomatoes, 2–3 hot peppers, salt, savory, garlic, 1 cup wine
Method:
Fry the onion in the oil and stew with the sliced tomatoes. Add the meat from the leg of pork – sliced and slightly fried in advance. Add 2–3 hot peppers, whole cloves of garlic and then season with savory and salt. Boil for about 2 h 30 min. in a slow oven and finally add a cup of wine. Consume mostly in the winter.
Manna honey
The manna honey of Strandzha is dark brown and is yielded in oak forests from the manna (sweet secretion) that appears on the tree leaves early in the morning. The bees collect this natural substance for the production of the honey. Manna honey has outstanding healing properties due to its rich content of precious minerals, amino acids and vitamins.
Folk song
Strandzha jokes
