Croatia

Turkey with Mlinci and Blitva

I made this national dish of Croatia on Wednesday, July 20.  Andy and I both really liked this one, even though it was super salty.  This must be the result of Vegeta, a flavoring from Croatia that I ordered off of amazon.com:

Vegeta

Proof it's from Croatia!

It smells and looks like the flavor packet in chicken flavored ramen noodles, but is made mostly of dehydrated vegetables.  This is the dry rub used on the turkey and the flavoring used in the blitva.

The turkey was really moist.  I bought a 9.43 pound turkey, and it took about 3 hours, 15 minutes to roast to 165 degrees in a 325 degree oven.  I basted it every half hour.  My oven tends to run hot, so I bought an oven thermometer and realized that my oven runs about 100 degrees hot!  Isn't that ridiculous?  I'm glad I bought the thermometer, and I'm also glad to be moving out of here to greener pastures and better ovens.

The mlinci were easier to make than I thought.  They start out as cracker-like, but become chewy once they are baked with the turkey drippings.  These, too, were very salty, which is not suprising considering the amount of Vegeta that was part of the drippings.

The blitva was very easy to make, and very tasty.  It reminded me of Trinxat, a similar side dish that I made for my Andorran meal.  This is something I could see myself making as a side dish outside of my international cooking.

TURKEY WITH MLINCI

INGREDIENTS

MLINCI

-3 c. flour

-1/2-2/3 c. lukewarm water

-1 tsp. salt

-2 T. oil

TURKEY

-1 turkey (10-18 pounds)

-Salt

-1 c. water

-Vegeta

-olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

1) Rub salt and Vegeta to taste into turkey.  Let rest overnight.

2) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a dough from flour, oil and lukewarm, salted water.  Knead well.

3) Divide dough into 4-5 lumps.  Roll each into a round shape, about 1/8" thick.  Bake each piece on a sheet pan, 25 minutes.

Before baking

Mlinci baked

4) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Before roasting, brush turkey with olive oil.  Place in a roasting pan with water.  Roast 20 minutes per pound, basting it in its own juice, until a meat thermometer inserted into the thigh reads at least 165 degrees.

All ready to go in the oven!

Done cooking

5) Remove from oven and roasting pan and let stand in a tinfoil tent 15-20 minutes.

6) Meanwhile, remove fat from roasting pan.  Break mlinci into small pieces and mix into roasting juice.  Bake briefly.

Mixed in and ready to go in the oven

Post-baking

BLITVA

INGREDIENTS:

-2 bunches Swiss chard, stemmed and ripped into pieces

-2 potatoes, cubed into 1/2" chunks

-garlic

-1 T. Vegeta

-3 T. olive oil

DIRECTIONS

1) Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Add garlic and Vegeta.

2) Add potatoes and Swiss chard.  Cook until done, about 10 minutes.

3) Drain well, top with oil and serve.