Mlinci Brei, Slovenian-Jewish Fusion

There wasn't much left in the package of  Ljubljana Farmers' Market mlinci we brought back from our July trip to Slovenia. Just a few sheets and crumbles. I had the perfect solution. Matzo brei for our weekend breakfast, with the Slovenian dried flatbread substituted for Jewish matzo.

Matzo brei is Jewish comfort food. It is traditional at Passover, but in many families it is a year-round favorite. The dish is simple: pieces of matzo are soaked in beaten egg and browned in oil or butter. It is often referred to as fried or scrambled matzo, which sounds more elegant than "mash" or "pulp," the literal translation of the German word "brei."

My husband pointed out that my timing was perfect, since that package of mlinci had just passed the expiration date!

In most matzo brei recipes, the matzo is softened in warm water before it is mixed with beaten eggs. But I skipped that step, because these Ljubljana mlinci were so thin. I just broke up the crispy sheets and added them to the beaten eggs. I skipped the salt but added a little cinnamon, a suggestion I found in one of my Jewish cookbooks, and scrambled the mixture up in melted butter.

Mlinci Brei (Matzo Brei with Mlinci)

4 eggs, beaten

2-4 sheets of mlinci, crumbled

cinnamon (or salt and pepper)

butter or oil for frying

Beat eggs with seasonings. Add crumbled mlinci. (If necessary, mlinci can be softened briefly in warm water and drained before adding.) Let mlinci soak in egg mixture for a few minutes. Heat butter or oil in skillet and add mixture.  Can be scrambled or cooked in larger chunks and turned. 

The result? Slovenian-Jewish fusion at its best. Matzo brei can be either savory or sweet. I took the sweet route and served the mlinci brei with Greek yogurt, fresh apples, and orange marmalade on the side.  Delicious!

Now I have a new challenge: To tweak my recipe for homemade mlinci, so it comes closer to the real thing!

Lost Kosovo Kugel and the Politics of Food

Slovenian American cooks were practical.  They didn't waste food.

In that spirit, I decided to put together a dessert for my Week 41 Dinner, using leftovers.

The leftover in question:  An opened box of chocolate-covered matzo. Languishing in my pantry since Passover.  Six months old.  Begging to be used.

Granted, the key element in this dessert did not exactly qualify as Slovenian.

Chocolate-covered matzo is a Passover novelty, probably designed with Jewish children in mind. It is an amusing way of circumventing the austerity of unleavened bread, without violating the dietary laws.

For six months, a box of the stuff had been sitting in our pantry. It had quite a pedigree.

According to the package, the matzo itself had been baked in Israel.  The dark chocolate mint coating was added in New Jersey.  I purchased it in California, just before Passover. I planned to send it to our journalist son in Kosovo, along with some homemade mandelbrot.

But the package never arrived in Kosovo.

Eventually, the lost package re-appeared on our doorstep, looking much the worse for wear.

Inside, my homemade Passover mandelbrot had survived intact. But when when I opened up the commercially made box of chocolate matzo, it was a sorry sight.

Unfortunately, I had failed to address the package properly.  I should have sent it “via Albania” or with the address written like this: Pristina (Kosovo), Serbia.

Kosovo as an independent country still has a murky status, at least in some quarters.  So the package was intercepted in Serbia, where the post office folks sent it back to California, with a stamp that referred to "an unexpected situation.”

It gives “the politics of food” a whole new meaning.

Meanwhile, I had a box of matzo crumbs and minty dark chocolate flakes. But I hated to throw it away.  So there it sat, growing stale in a drawer.

On Week 41, I was seized by a peculiar inspiration.  I would turn that aging chocolate matzo into an impromptu dessert.  I had in mind a sweet kugel, a traditional Jewish pudding that is made with noodles or, at Passover, with crumbled matzo.  You can crush the matzo yourself or purchase the prepared variety, called matzo farfel.

A sweet kugel is something like a dense bread pudding.  So I figured it would be easy to inprovise a recipe. How could I go wrong?


Lost Kosovo Kugel

1-¾ c. crumbled chocolate covered matzo
2 c. lowfat milk
½ c. sugar
3 eggs, beaten
pinch of salt
butter for dish

Soak the crumbled matzo in milk for 10 minutes to soften.  Stir in the sugar,  a pinch of salt,  and the beaten eggs.  Bake in a buttered 6x9 ceramic dish at 350 for 40 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

I don't know what went wrong with this.

My husband was blunt.  He did not like it.  “It takes so eggy.”

So?  It was supposed to be a sort of eggy custard.  Nothing wrong with that.

But he was right.  Something was amiss.  The kugel was watery.  The egg seemed to have coagulated in a strange way.  Maybe it was the mint flavoring.

But we dutifully ate it in small portions, over the next week.  On that final night, I agreed: it had developed a strange eggy taste.

This is one Slovenian-Jewish fusion dish that won't be repeated.

Slovenian-Jewish Fusion Dinner Week 26: Chicken Paprikash and Potato Latkes, Fit for Company

Menu 
Chicken Paprikash II
Latkes (Jewish Potato Pancakes)
Applesauce and Sour Cream
Green Salad


My husband had invited a co-worker and her spouse to join us for dinner.  The date happened to fall on a Tuesday. 

“Don't worry, “ he assured me, “I already told them to expect a Slovenian dinner.”  In his mind, it wasn't even a question.  If it was Tuesday, it had to be Slovenian.

There was just one stipulation. His young colleague had a food request: Potato pancakes—or latkes, in the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition she and my husband share.  He had mentioned preparing them, a few months back, and she had been impressed, or maybe just nostalgic. 

So all I had to figure out was a main course that would go well with potato pancakes.  It shouldn't be too difficult.  I had come to realize that Slovenian and Ashkenazi Jewish cooking styles have a lot in common.  

So this would be my first official attempt at a Slovenian-Jewish fusion dinner.*

I wanted to make a reliable entree that was tasty but not too unusual. Something that would naturally pair with a starchy side dish like potato pancakes. Then it came to me.  

Chicken paprikash.

Four months earlier, I had made a nice simple version, from the 1950s cookbook published by the Progressive Slovene Women of America.  (The homemade egg noodles were the bigger challenge!)

For this week's  “company” dinner, I devised a slightly more elaborate version.  I combined two recipes:  Chicken paprikash from Woman's Glory, another one of my vintage Slovenian American cookbooks, and a chicken pepper stew with potato dumplings from the 1985 Yugoslav Cookbook, the newest addition to my library.  

The version below has more vegetables than the first one, and it includes bacon and tomato puree. And there is an added step at the end: the chicken is removed and the sauce is finished separately and then poured on top.


3 slices bacon 
2 ½ to 3 lbs of chicken breasts, cut up
1 onion 
2 stalks celery
1 green pepper
1 carrot
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parsley
1 T. paprika (mix mild, sweet, and smoked)
1-2 T. red wine vinegar
chicken stock to cover 
1 T. tomato puree
1 T. flour
2 T. sour cream

Cut the vegetables into small dice and brown in olive oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven. Add diced bacon. Sprinkle with paprika, salt,  and pepper and cook for a few minutes. Add cut up chicken and brown. Add parsley, vinegar, tomato puree, and enough stock to cover chicken. Cover and simmer for about an hour.

To make sauce: Remove chicken pieces and arrange on serving platter. Mix 1 T. flour in a little broth and add to the drippings and vegetables that remain in the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens.  Remove from heat and stir in sour cream.  Pour sauce over chicken and garnish with additional fresh parsley.

My husband's latkes were wonderful, as always.  He doesn't use recipes and he likes to experiment. (I think these included some zucchini.)   Maybe I'll watch him closely next time and see if I can write down an approximation.  

As for the chicken paprikash: It was a success.  Even better than the first time around. But I have to admit that a flour-thickened sauce, though traditional, can be a little too heavy for today's sensibilities.  Next time, I might skip it. The sour cream probably adds enough richness. 

*An important note: If you were following Jewish dietary laws, you would not serve bacon. You could substitute turkey bacon or simply leave it out.  And the sour cream would be omitted, since dairy cannot be combined with meat.