Wedding bread
Ingredients:
wheat flour, 1–2 tbsp. sugar, ½ cube yeast, lukewarm water, salt, oil
Method:
Dilute the yeast in lukewarm water with a little sugar and let it rise. Sift the flour and add to it the leaven, some more lukewarm water and salt. Make soft dough. Grease a baking dish with oil and spread the dough. Use the spatula to decorate the dough with the symbol of the sun.
Homemade peppermint
Ingredients:
stalks of fresh mint, about 300 g sugar, 1.5 l water, 500 g homemade rakiya, juice of 1 lemon, green food coloring
Method:
Soak and wash well the stalks of fresh mint, put them in a pan with water together with the sugar, bring to the boil and let cook for about 20–30 min. Next filter the syrup and add the juice of the lemon. Leave the mixture to cool down. When it is cold, add the rakiya grape brandy and a little green food coloring. Keep the beverage in the fridge for one day, and then serve. You may replace the fresh mint with 20–30 drops of peppermint tincture.
(written down as narrated by Zaharinka Oblakova)
Langidki
Ingredients:
1 egg, 1–2 tbsp. yoghurt, water, 1–2 pinches baking soda, 1 pinch salt, 200 g flour, lard or oil
Method:
Beat the egg in a bowl. Add the yoghurt with the baking soda, a pinch of salt and a little water. Stir the mixture and gradually put in the flour until a thick mash is obtained (slightly thicker than pancake mixture). With a spoon, scoop from the mixture and fry on both sides in heated oil or lard. Serve the langidki for breakfast with castor sugar, jam, white cheese or other additives – at your will.
Komachki
Ingredients:
500 g flour, yeast, ½ tbsp. sugar, salt, white cheese, 5–6 tbsp. yoghurt, 5 tbsp. oil, 2–3 eggs
Method:
Sift the flour. In advance, mix the yeast with the sugar, yoghurt and a little lukewarm water to let it rise. Add a pinch of salt, 2 eggs and oil. Gradually add the flour to the mixture. Make soft dough which won’t stick and leave aside to rise. Use the dough to make small balls, arrange them in a greased baking dish spaced out from each other and sprinkled with flour. Crumble white cheese in the wholes between dough balls and leave the komachki to rise again. Then pour over a mixture of 1 yolk, oil and yoghurt. Bake in a preheated oven at a moderate temperature until they turn golden both from the bottom and the top.
Lyutenka
Ingredients:
fermented cabbage juice, leeks, slightly hot dried red peppers, salt
Method:
Bring the fermented cabbage juice to the boil. Add to it the finely chopped leeks and the dry red peppers torn into pieces. Season and let simmer for a few minutes more until ready. Serve as appetizer to fatty dishes.
Snail soup
Ingredients:
10–20 snails, 1–2 onions, 1 cup groats, 2–3 stalks spring onion, 4–5 dock leaves, fresh mint, salt, water, oil
Method:
Leave aside the snails for 24 hours: in a pan covered with a lid. After that salt them and clean well. Cook in a deep pan, constantly removing the foam. Fry the chopped onion, spring onion and the dock in the oil. Add the groats, stew and put into the pan with the boiled snails. Cook the soup for a few minutes more until the ingredients soften. Finally season and add fresh chopped mint.
"Donko le, mari, hubava" folk song
