Chicken Stew, Slovenian-Style and Salt-Free

"Obara?"  Mia's eyes twinkled. "That means you can put anything in it!"

I was in my favorite spot at San Francisco's Slovenian Hall: the small upstairs library, hanging out with Mia, who is originally from Slovenia.  She is a warm, charming woman who retired a few years ago from her position as a university librarian.  Mia always seems amused by my ethnic cooking adventures.  She even recalled my disaster with žganci and had brought back some buckwheat flour from her most recent trip to Slovenia, just in case that was the source of my problem.

So now I had it on good authority:  The Slovenian stew known as obrara or ajmoht really is an "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" dish.  That was a good description of my most recent version.  It had to be salt-free, so I tried to boost the flavor with as many additions as possible, without departing too much from tradition.

Obara or ajmoht can vary, depending on the meat used and the assortment of vegetables added.  The distinctive element, at least to the American palate, is a certain Slovenian tang, thanks to a brown roux and sometimes a tart addition like lemon zest, wine, or vinegar.

It all started with my mother's recollection of a childhood dish she called "aye-macht," a sort of roux-thickened veal soup.  For my first attempt at recreating the dish, Chicken Ajmoht I, I used a simple recipe from the Progressive Slovene Women of America.  I also tried to make žganci as an accompaniment, but the little dumplings ended up as buckwheat polenta.

For my next attempt, Chicken Ajmoht II, I consulted a couple of additional sources, The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe and Slovenian Cookery.  That's when I started adding wine.

This time around, I had my newest cookbook to consider, Janez Bogataj's The Food and Cooking of Slovenia.  I also had a sous-chef, since my husband volunteered to do the actual cooking.

For the result, read on.

Chicken Stew, Slovenian-Style and Salt-Free (chicken ajmoht or obara)

2 whole boneless chicken breasts (skin on), cut up
olive oil to brown chicken
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. butter
2 T. olive oil
2 T. flour
1 c. white wine
2  ribs celery, chopped
1 leek, bulb and a bit of green, soaked well and sliced
2 carrots, peeled and  sliced
1/2 c. cauliflower florets
2 potatoes, peeled and cut up
water to  cover
peel of 1 lemon, grated
1 T. fresh marjoram, minced
1 T. fresh thyme, minced
1 cup peas, fresh or frozen
4 T. fresh parsley, minced
pepper to taste
optional: no-salt seasoning (or salt) to taste

Heat oil in a Dutch oven or large deep skillet. Brown chicken and set aside.  Add onion and garlic and brown.  Now make a roux: Add 1 T. butter, 2 T. olive oil, and 2 T. flour and cook until brown.  Add wine and celery, leek and carrots.  Add water to cover.  Add lemon and seasonings. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Add potatoes and simmer until tender.  Taste and adjust seasonings.  Sprinkle with additional parsley and serve.

The verdict?  The mixture of flavors was delicious. My husband had a generous hand with the wine, which gave the dish a particular zest.  He did leave the chicken in larger chunks than I might have, and there seemed to be less liquid than in my previous versions.  But you can easily adjust for a saucier dish.  All in all, another LoSoSlo winner!

Chicken Ajmoht (chicken ragout, kurji ajmoht, obara)

This recipe is based on what the Progressive Slovene Women of America call chicken ragout.  Like true scholars, they carefully list those alternative names you see below.  My changes were minimal.  I used chicken breasts instead of a whole cut-up chicken.  I increased the vegetables and the seasonings.

We found this to be a very tasty dish, with a subtle kind of tang.  Much more to it than I expected from the simple recipe.  Next time, I might increase the seasonings and the vegetables even more.

There was one dissenting voice.  My mother.  I froze a single serving and delivered it to her the next week.  She never mentioned it, so I finally asked.

She didn't mince words.   "Not good."

Why not?

"It wasn't like a soup."

I explained that it wasn't  supposed to be a soup.  More like a ragout.  But she recalled that veal soup of her childhood.  And she didn't like the little chicken bones she discovered.  

(I'm still waiting for her verdict on the žganci!)


Chicken Ajmoht  (chicken ragout, kurji ajmoht, obara)

2+ lbs. chicken breasts, with bone and skin, cut up
2 T. olive oil
2 quarts water (about)
2  ribs celery, chopped
½ onion, chopped
4 T. fresh parsley, minced
1 T. fresh marjoram, minced
roux:  2 ½ T. flour, 2 ½ T  olive oil and butter mixed
salt and pepper to taste
white wine vinegar to taste

Heat oil in a dutch oven and add onion and celery.  Brown vegetables.  Add chicken and seasonings and continue to brown  Add water to cover and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes or until tender.  In a separate pan, make a roux, cooked to medium brown.  Add to the pot and stir well.  Add remaining water, white wine vinegar, and adjust seasonings.  Simmer about 15 minutes more.  Sprinkle with additional parsley.  Serve with dumplings, noodles, or (if you dare!) žganci.

A word about roux:  None of my vintage cookbooks belabor the process, because it is so fundamental.  You heat shortening of your choice ("oleo or fat" was the original in this recipe.)  Then you stir in flour and keep stirring as it browns.   We figured that the final color should be browner than a pale American cream sauce, but not quite the deep brown of a Louisiana roux.

Full disclosure:  I  put my husband in charge of making the roux.  He is locally famous for his Louisiana gumbo, so I knew he would do it right.

Besides, at that point in the proceedings, I needed all the help I could get.  I was elbow deep in the žganci.


Update: Almost a year later, I made a second attempt at this tasty dish, with a few more vegetables and a splash of red wine.  Curious?  Take a look at my Chicken Ajmoht II recipe! 

2022 10th Anniversary Update: Gave it a try with chicken thighs and it came our very well, with a slightly heartier flavor.

Slovenian Dinner Week 3: A Tasty Roux and a Buckwheat Volcano

Menu

Chicken Ajmoht (Obara)

Buckwheat Žganci with Bacon

Green Salad

After a couple of successful Slovenian meals, I had begun to feel confident. True, I had started out with the familiar.  Stuffed cabbage.  Jelly rolls, otherwise known as palačinke. Then, that little side trip into šmoren.  So far, so good.

It was time to branch out into less familiar territory.

Except it wasn't as unfamiliar as I thought, because it revolved around a core element in a cuisine I had come to know well.  Roux.  The foundation of Louisiana French cooking.  I'd been immersed in that culture since I fell in love with the Cajun accordion, twenty years earlier.

Roux is simple enough:  Flour browned in fat, used as a base for thickening sauce or gravy. But a Louisiana roux is something else.  Cooked long and slow, with constant stirring, it can take an hour until it turns the requisite dark brown.  Roux gives that special rich zest to Cajun and Creole favorites like gumbo, along with so many other dishes.  

There is even a popular Cajun cookbook: Who's Your Mama, Are You Catholic and Can You Make a Roux?  

But it wasn't just the Cajuns and Creoles of Louisiana who had figured out the magical powers of roux.  My Slovenian forbears were also in on the secret. Who knew?

Well, my mother knew, as it turned out.

She had started to talk about a veal soup her mother used to make.  "Aye-macht" is what she thought it was called.  When I started to browse through my vintage cookbooks, I came across something called "ajmoht."  It seemed to be a cross between a soup and a stew.  The key element was something called ajprem, or roux.  It turned up everywhere.  Stews. Vegetable dishes. Cucumber gravy. There was even a soup that seemed to be nothing but water and roux.

So I found a dish that looked easy.  A sort of chicken ragout made with roux.  Maybe a very simple version of the Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo my husband had learned to make so well. 

To accompany it, I decided to try something that was supposed to be a uniquely Slovenian dish.  It was a sort of buckwheat dumpling. Or maybe it a kind of polenta.  The preparation seemed a little. . . unusual.  So was the name, at least if you don't speak Slovenian.

Žganci.  Pronounced "zhe-gahn-see."  At least I think so.

Buckwheat volcano would be more like it.  That žganci would turn out to be my biggest challenge so far.