Posts Tagged ‘vinegar’

Cod Salad (Treska)

Ingredients: 2lbs cod fillet (defrosted and boneless), 2 big onions, 1 cup vinegar, 2 carrots, 3-4 table spoons mustard, 6 bay leaves, salt, whole and ground black pepper, 300-350 ml mayonnaise (about 1.25 cups)
Prep time: Only about 30 minutes, but you need to let it sit in the fridge at least overnight

Treska is my favorite Slovak salad. So I was really excited when Kristina posted a recipe for it on the Facebook page! I made it and it turned out quite tasty. Here I show you how to make it. But, there is a caveat. When I went to buy the ingredients, I learned that my grocery store was having a 60% off sale on fillets of “blue fish”. This was a deal too good to pass! Well, this is a problem because, you see, the word treska means “cod”. So here you have a cod-free cod salad. You’ll see that when you make this salad out of the right fish, the resulting creation will be of much lighter color.

Start by preparing “vinegar stock” by combing 3 liters of water, one cup of vinegar, whole black peppercorns, 6 bay leaves and salt. Let boil for 5 minutes. Then add the fish fillets. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Then take the fish out and place in a large salad bowl. Let cool down.

While the fish is cooling, cook two whole peeled carrots. Place them into boiling, salted water, and cook for about 3 or 4 minutes. Let them cool down. In the mean time, finely flake up the fish with a fork. You could also use a mixer.

Next finely grate the carrots and two whole onions.

Add mayo (3/4 of this medium sized tub), …

…, two tablespoons of vinegar, 4 tablespoons mustard (I used spicy brown), …

…, black pepper and salt. Then let sit in the fridge for 24 hours. This will let the flavors mix through. Enjoy with few fresh rolls, or even better, with rožky, Slovak mini baguettes. Dobrú chuť!

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Lettuce Soup (Šalátová Polievka)

Ingredients: one head of iceberg lettuce, 30g of butter, 35g of flour, 0.5L of water, 0.5L of milk, sugar, vinegar, dill

Prep Time: 20 minutes

In Slovakia, we sure do eat some strange soups! There is the sauerkraut soup (kapustnica), garlic soup, and the topic of this recipe, soup made out of pretty much nothing but iceberg lettuce. Still, this is one of my favorite Slovak dishes, although I do admit it is bit of an acquired taste. You should definitely try it.

Start by preparing "zápražka" by browning 30g of flour (múka) on butter (maslo). Add 0.5L of water (voda) and bring to boil. Use a wooden spoon to break up any remaining flour chunks.

Dissolve the remaining flour in 0.5L of milk (mlieko). Add to the pot and let everything boil.

Chop up one head of iceberg lettuce (šalát) and add to the soup. Use only the outer, green leafy parts. Next season the soup with salt (sol), sugar (cukor) and vinegar (ocot). I used about one tablespoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 5 tablespoons of vinegar. Boil the soup until the lettuce gets tender (about 5 minutes).

Finally, chop up few stems of dill (kôpor) and add to the finished soup.

And there you have it, the lettuce soup. Serve with a slice of hearty bread.

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Sour Bean Soup (Kyslá Fazuľová Polievka)

Ingredients: beans (300g), one potato, 2 bay leaves, two cloves of garlic, 1.5L of water, 3 whole black peppercorns, 3 slices of smoked bacon, sour cream, milk, flour, salt, vinegar, sugar
Prep Time: 1.5 hours, plus a day to soak the beans

This weekend I wanted to go for something healthy, so I decided to make a soup. Here is the recipe for the Slovak sour bean soup, kyslá fazuľová polievka. This is one of my favorite soups, along with kapustnica and the lettuce soup. The beans (fazuľa) that grow in Slovakia are, well, bean-shaped, have spots and come in many different colors. I couldn’t find anything like that in my grocery store, so I ended up using “cranberry beans”. These were very much like the Slovak beans, except that they were all uniformly colored. To make the soup cook faster, you start by soaking the beans overnight. Rinse the beans, place them in a large pot and add 1.5L of water. Let sit overnight.

The dry beans

And after an overnight soak

Some people like to use fresh water, but the traditional way is to use the same water in which the beans had been soaking. Either way, the soup will turn out good. Add 2 cloves of crushed up garlic (cesnak), 2 bay leaves (bobkový list), and 3 black peppercorns (čierne korenie). I also added one potato (zemiak), cut into half-inch cubes. This is optional, but I like this soup better with the potato.

Add the ingredients and bring to boil

The soup will foam up so stick around to reduce the heat. This foaming is due to the protein in the beans changing shape (denaturing). It’s similar to what happens when you add hops when brewing beer (I’ve made couple batches of beer in the past).

Let the soup cook until the beans and potatoes get soft. This will take about 40 minutes. Then, make a mixture of sour cream, milk and flour. You want to use about 2 or 3 tablespoons of sour cream, maybe little bit more of flour, and enough milk to make the mixture liquid. Slowly pour it in while stirring.

You next season the soup. First, add salt. I ended up using about 1 tablespoon, but this is just an estimate. Next, add one teaspoon of sugar. Finally, add vinegar. I added about 5 teaspoons, but this again is just an estimate. You want to go slow, and keep trying the soup after each addition. It’s very easy to ruin it by adding too much…

Take 3 slices of smoked bacon, and cut it into small pieces. Fry the bacon for about 3 minutes. You want it to turn pink, but not crispy brown. Add into the soup, and cook for another 10 minutes, until the sour cream mixture completely dissolves.

And there you have it, Slovak sour bean soup! Enjoy!

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