dish 8) pasulj

Zdravo! Today i'ma get all Serbian up in yo asses. Let me teach you the first thing you need to know in the Serbian tongue. This will get you through any situation without fail. OK. Imagine you are on a holiday. Around Europe. You've been travelling blissfully for 3 months, and then you decide "Sure, I''ll hit up Serbia. I mean, why the hell not?". Before you know it, you are bound and gagged and under interrogation by the Serbian Mafia. They believe you are single-handedly trying to sabotage a massive drug trafficking operation, but you have absolutley no idea what they are talking about. The translator tells you you have one chance to defend yourself before they blow your fucking brains all over the damp brick wall behind you. You start to breath heavily and fear hyperventilation... but you must remember this lesson. Say one thing, and one thing only: Govno. It means 'shit'. Now, you're probably thinking you will have barely uttered the full word before they pistol whip you across the face spraying your blood and teeth across the room for being a smart arse. You are wrong. I have it on good authority that the Serbian Mafia like to cuss and even look favourably upon smart mouths and in this situation would admire your Chutzpah, proudly welcoming you into the murky depths of humanity that is their organisation.

So now that you know how to cuss in Serbian, you can learn how to cook. Those things are more closely related than you would believe. Last weekend my Serb friend Dragana came over to my place to show me how to make a traditional Serbian dish called PASULJ (pass-ool[y]) the "Y" is like the y in Yes. You have to say the lj together like ll-yuh kind of. Oh i dont know. Too hard. Too much.

So we hit up the Vic market on our lunch break, visiting the Polish Deli to get some Kranskys and Frankfurts and spicy pancetta. We also went to the nut place and got 1.5 Kg of dried beans. I got the minestrone mix which had Kidney, Borlotti, Lima, Great Western, Cannellini, Chick peas and... maybe that's it. In hindsight I bought waaaaaaaay too much BUT i wasn't to know as this was my first time cooking with dried beans!


So I gathered all of my ingredients and then Drags came over and we started COOKINGGGG!!! Firstly, roughly chop your 2 large onions, and then slice your Kranskys and Viennese Frankfurts into little rounds or semi-circles.

Put the onions in your soup pot with some oil (supposedly not Olive Oil but i used it anyway). Cook them off for a bit, then add your sausages. I also put in 2 bay leaves for a bit of flavour.

Stir around for a while, then add the beans and put enough cold water to cover everything.

Put the lid on and bring to the boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down slightly and take the lid off slightly so air can escape. Leave this for approx 1.5 hours- or until all beans/chick peas etc are soft. Once the soup is nearly ready - Mix together in a bowl flour and paprika, adding some boiling water from the pot. Mix into a paste ensuring to remove all lumps (Drags used a desert spoon for this – this bit takes a bit of practise until you get to know how much flour and paprika is required to how you like it. For Dragana it is usually two-ish heaped tablespoons of flour and 2-3 tablespoons of paprika for the colour you want)

Add this to the pot of soup stirring until all paste has blended and the soup thickens and colours. Add salt, pepper and "vegeta" to taste. You are supposed to serve with a crispy salad but we didnt :)

yum! It had such a comforting flavour, and if you spend the money to buy good quality kransky you will not be disappointed. I was really impressed with the difference in dried and soaked chickpeas - they are so much tastier and softer. Canned varieties are a little dry and carry on the tin juices flavour. ick. So i am definately going back to the market to get lots of dried beans to play around with at home. Chick peas for sure!

INGREDIENTS:

2 x large onions

2 x 750g tins of 'four bean mix'

1 x 410g tin of chick peas

1 x 410g of any other legume you want - like soy beans, butter beans etc..

2 plain Kransky

2 vienesse Frankfurts

100g spicy flat Pancetta

2ish tbl sp. plain flour

2ish tbl sp. sweet paprika powder

salt, pepper, vegeta (gourmet veg stock)

Alternatively you can buy all beans, legumes fresh and then soak them overnight in a large bowl of cold water. Be careful not to buy too much like i did. I went by how much you get in the cans... but buy less!

Doviđenja!