Slovenian Dinner Week 33, a Meal to Impress: Buckwheat Struklji with Tarragon Cheese Filling, Rosemary-Paprika Chicken Breast

Menu
Buckwheat Struklji with Tarragon Cheese Filling
with Ajvar and Greek Yogurt
Rosemary-Paprika Chicken Breasts
Cole Slaw
Sauerkraut
Baked Flancati


I wanted to make an impressive Slovenian dinner for our son, who was visiting from Kosovo.  But I didn't want to take too many chances.  So variations on a previously successful theme seemed like a wise path.

Struklji immediately came to mind.  The rolled boiled dumpling is unusual, quintessentially Slovenian, and it offers many filling options. The dish was quite a success, the first time around, when I made a cheese-filled buckwheat version.   It was also one of the recipes featured in the Slovenian cooking article I wrote for Kosovo 2.0 magazine

Buckwheat Struklji, the first time

And just in case the struklji seemed too much like a side dish, I decided to add a meatier entree: a variant of the thin, grilled boneless smoked paprika chicken breasts I had made a few weeks earlier.

I had started to become curious about the herbs used in Slovenian cooking.  So this seemed like a good time to try out a sweet tarragon version of the cheese filling for the struklji.   And maybe I could add some rosemary to the paprika chicken breasts, along with a little pumpkin seed oil, for an extra Slovenian touch.

I already knew that a tarragon filling is traditional in struklji and potica.  But I wondered about rosemary with chicken.  Is that something that a Slovenian, or at least an ex-Yugoslav, might do?

In searching the Internet, I found my answer in an amusing essay called Dinner with Tito, in a blog called Palachinka.

Josip Broz Tito, the fabled Yugoslav strongman, had a mixed ethnic heritage that personified his country's vision of South Slav unity:  He had a Croatian father, a Slovenian mother, and a Serbian wife. His Croatian village, which we had visited on our trip to Eastern Europe, was shouting distance from the Slovenian border.

Tito was also “a communist with style,” according to the blogger. He was a World War II hero of the Resistance, a ladies' man and a gourmet.  Evidently, Tito's favorite dish was Russian Style Chicken.  It was a pressed boneless chicken, flavored with rosemary and cognac.  The other favorite mentioned in this blog post? A Croatian version of struklji.

So I had come up with a meal that would have impressed Tito.  But what would our Balkan journalist son think?

Rosemary-Paprika Chicken on the grill

Rosemary-Paprika Chicken Breasts

Follow the directions for Smoked Paprika Chicken Breasts, with the following change:

For 2 whole chicken breasts, make a paste with:

1 T. olive oil
½ T. pumpkin seed oil
2 t. seasoned salt (I used a Mediterranean blend)
1 t. smoked paprika
1-2  t. chopped fresh rosemary

Buckwheat Struklji, boiled

Buckwheat Struklji with Tarragon Cheese Filling

Follow the recipe for Buckwheat Struklji in Week 10, with the following change:

For the cheese filling, omit the chives and parsley.  Add 2-3 T. sugar and 2-3 T. chopped fresh tarragon.

Rosemary-Paprika Chicken, sliced and ready to serve

The chicken breast looked and tasted good. But I preferred the first version, which had a deeper paprika color and a crustier coating.  In this second version, the oil-spice mix seemed more like a conventional marinade. Perhaps it was the result of using less paprika, coupled with the addition of fresh, rather than dried, rosemary.

The struklji presented a challenge.  I'd had my doubts about the filling, because I associate tarragon with salad dressings and savoury dishes.  But I discovered that tarragon has a faint taste of licorice, which works well in a mildly sweet cheese filling. So the filling tasted just fine.

The problem emerged when I tried to unroll the long, boiled dumpling from the cheese cloth.  The first time, it worked like a charm.  But this time, the cheesecloth stuck.  It was as though the outer layer of dough had created a gummy glue.

My husband came to my rescue.  But the buckwheat dough still wouldn't come loose from the cheesecloth wrapping. Those mangled slices did taste good. But the brown-and-white spirals weren't nearly as pretty, this time around.

Buckwheat Struklji with Tarragon Cheese Filling, sliced

I don't know what created the problem.  Using farmer cheese instead of ricotta? Perhaps that created a moister filling.  Replacing an egg with two egg whites? Adding a little too much water to the dough?  Not wringing out the cheesecloth enough, or adding too few layers?  Cooking is always an adventure.

Despite my fretting,  the dinner was a success.

Our son seemed to enjoy it.  Of course, he couldn't resist a back-handed compliment.

“Good color, Mom.”

“Good color?”

“Yes.  It's pale.”

Just like authentic Balkan food, he explained.

Well, except for the bright red ajvar, I suppose the dinner was a study in pale earth tones.

Tito would have been easier to impress.

Slovenian Dinner Week 10: Buckwheat Struklji, Dumpling for the Bold

Menu
Buckwheat Štruklji with Cheese Filling (Ajdovi Štruklji)
Ajvar and Greek Yogurt
Green Salad
Coleslaw

It took time to build up my courage to tackle the most unusual dish so far:  Štruklji.

All three of my vintage cookbooks included recipes for štruklji.  The dish certainly sounded odd.  A giant boiled dumpling? I had never tasted it, or even heard of such a thing.

But a Slovenian government tourist website proudly proclaims struklji as a unique national dish, rivaling potica in importance.  In fact, a common Slovenian surname, Štrukelj, is derived from it.

That gave me pause.  This oddball dish had a connection to my own family's immigration story.  My great-grandmother's maiden name had been Josephine Strukel, at least in America. But my genealogy research had turned up something else.  She was Jožefa Štrukelj when she left her small Slovenian village in 1899 to join her brother Janez in Ely, Minnesota.
  

Struklji ("shtroo-klee") really is a giant filled dumpling.  It begins with a thin sheet of dough, usually  pasta or noodle dough, although some versions are leavened with yeast.  The dough is rolled around a filling, either savory or sweet. The štruklji is wrapped in cheesecloth and trussed up with twine.  Then the long roll is dropped into a large pot of boiling water.  After cooking, it is sliced and served.

Definitely labor intensive.

I started assembling supplies a few weeks ahead of time.  Cheesecloth and cooking twine turned out not to be so easy to find, at least in my immediate neighborhood.

Since I wanted this to be an entrée, rather than a side dish or a dessert, I settled on a savory cheese filling, one of the most common variants.  The American Slovene Club's cookbook had a recipe that I adopted as a model.

I decided on the unleavened pasta style dough, with a twist.   I’d read about a variant of struklji that uses all buckwheat flour.  I still had plenty of buckwheat flour left over from my adventures with žganci and šmoren.  So I substituted buckwheat for part of the wheat flour in the recipe.  I also made good use of that leftover homemade bread from the previous week's dinner, when I made the filling.

Štruklji  (Rolled Cheese Dumpling)

Dough:

1 ½ c. white flour

½ c. buckwheat flour

1 t. salt

2 T olive oil

1 egg

½ cup hot water, plus 2 T more if needed

Filling:

3 slices bread, cubed

2 T. butter

1 lb. farmer cheese or ricotta

3 extra large eggs, beaten

1 t. salt

½ t. pepper

1 T. fresh chives, chopped

1 T. fresh parsley, chopped

Cheesecloth and cooking twine

For the dough:  Sift the flours and the salt into a bowl.  Beat the egg and oil together and stir into the flour.  Add enough hot water to make a stiff dough.  Knead dough until smooth and elastic, adding a little more flour if necessary.  Form into a ball and let rest, covered, for 30 minutes.

For the filling:  Beat eggs with salt and pepper and set aside.  Brown the bread cubes in butter.  Remove from heat and stir in egg mixture until the eggs are cooked.  Add the cheese, chives, and parsley and stir together.  Adjust seasoning.  (Note: filling can be made in advance and refrigerated.)

To assemble:  Roll and stretch the dough on a floured cloth until you have a rectangle that is about 15” x 20”.  Spread the filling evenly.  Roll up from the long side.  Dampen ends and edges of the roll to seal.

Rinse and then wring out a large piece of cheesecloth.  Roll the long loaf of dough in the cheesecloth, so that it is wrapped in several layers.  Wrap the roll in twine: knot at one end, wrap it around the length of the roll, and knot at the other end.

Boil a large kettle of salted water.  Coil the roll so it will fit and carefully drop into the water.  Let boil for 30 minutes.

Remove the roll, let cool, and unwrap.  To serve, slice into rounds.

I did hold my breath when I sliced into that štruklji.  But it was perfect.  The concentric dark circles of buckwheat dough contrasted so beautifully with the creamy white cheese.  In photos, it looked like a fancy cake.  It tasted just as good as it looked.

Traditionally, štruklji is served with a topping of breadcrumbs cooked in butter.  But I opted for a healthier and, to my mind, a more flavorful choice: ajvar and thick, nonfat Greek yogurt.

Three months into my cooking project, I would have to pick štruklji as my most successful dish so far.  I never would have guessed that it would turn out to be so unusual and delicious.  I couldn't wait to tell my mother about it.

"So Mom, I made this giant boiled dumpling, filled with cheese.  It's called struklji.   Grandma never made anything like that,  did she?"

My mother didn't hesitate.

"Oh, sure she did.  But only for special occasions."

Amazing, all the Slovenian kitchen lore she is starting to remember!

#

Hard to picture this?  I felt the same way, even after I found some photos online to guide me.

So, for anyone who might be tempted to give it a try, here is my step-by-step record. Making štruklji as easy as one, two. . . ten!

1. Assemble the supplies:

2. Prepare the ricotta-egg-bread filling:

3.  Mix the pasta dough:

4. Roll out the dough:

5. Add the filling:

6. Roll it up:

7. Wrap it in cheesecloth and truss with twine:

8. Boil:

9.  Remove, cut the twine, and unwrap:

10. Slice and arrange prettily on a platter.  Voilà!