I owe most of you an appology - I've promissed lots of Serbian Recipes, but haven't had the time for it. Real quick, to reply to many at once: That "nice, tasty thing" is called "URMASICA", and that is not a Serbian dish. It would be lovely if Serbs could say "hey, this awesome thing was first made by us" (I'm a Serb myself), but it is completely - Turkish (Ottoman times). Some places in DC are even selling it and it goes for about $3.50 per Lb here. ************************* STUFFED PEPPERS - I have the recipe, and it is very similar to a stuffed cabbage: Ground meat (mix - veal and pork, but I recommend lamb, tastes even better) is fried on sunflower or veggie oil for a short period of time - 2-03 minutes, untill it loses the red color. Add white rice and spices - Pepper, Vegeta*(look below), Paprika and Bay Leaves, some salt. Let this sit for an hour or until it cools down so you can hadle it. Red Bell peppers are best for stuffing - best if you pick the smaller ones. Take all the seeds out, stuff your peppers until 2/3 full (and rice inside will take care of the rest while cooking). You can close the pepper tops with tomato slices. Boil in water on medium heat (actually precise temp is not that important) for about 2 hours, making sure there is enough water in the pan. 2 hours later, you can take stuffed peppers off the stove, put them immediatelly in range oven and bake them on 250-275 for about 45 min to an hour. (pix available) Cabbage (Kraut): same as peppers, just add smoke-curred bacon and ribbs. The dish is served extremely hot and is called "Sarma". Origin - Austro-Hungarian. (pix available) Bon apetit! ************************* CEVAPI (pron. “Chevapi”) – “chevapchichi” is a diminutive of “cevapi” Origin – Turkish, again. Ground veal, lamb and (not necessarily) pork are mixed together. Add spices (pepper, but careful – not too much, it will dry them out). Let it sit for about 2 hours. Re-grind. 2 hours. Re-grind. 2 hours. I am not repeating myself – this is the process, and only this way will the chevap be perfect. Push the mixture through a bottleneck (shaping it in your hands will not bring the right results to your table), cutting to pieces as they come out – 1-1/5 inches long. You can let them sit on a plate and rest until the day after (I can provide some pix to accompany this, but need help from the admin in “Serbian recipe” section). Fry on the grill (medium to medium hot) for 5-7 minutes each side. The dish is usually server with chopped onions and is very popular in Bosnia. Just an FYI: this dish is harder to prepare than it seems. ************************* Dalmatian language - I'm affraid no such thing even in Dalmatia (southern, coastal part of Croatia), the closest thing to it is "ikavski" dialect. While Yugo was in one piece, the language that was officially used was called Serbo-Croatian (equal rights for all and stuff). The language is actually Serbian, but there are many dialects reflecting different areas of former Yugoslavia. It was a nice place once, but this is not the topic... How did you like the piggy? It tasted... well, what do you think? (Vegeta - Croatian made spice or Veg - Hungarian are a must. In Serbia we have "Zacin C", not as popular as "Vegeta" though). You can obtain this spice in Mediterranean, European or even Russian stores across the US. It is used in almost all dishes in Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian or Macedonian cuisine. Bozic (= Christmas in Serbian)
