Kosovan Pite

Moonlight

When I woke up in the morning I opened the window with a big smile on my face: the sun was rising. I went downstairs and I gave my mum a kiss on her cheek. As usually, I went to brush my teeth and she prepared my breakfast. When I was checking my backpack for school and I was about to go out, she suddenly told me that that evening we would cook “pite”! I screamed of joy. I really love preparing Pite!!!
I went to school and the lessons seemed endless: I wanted those five hours to become five minutes. When I turned back home I threw my backpack on the floor, I washed my hands and I was ready to put them in the dough.

Pastry dishes are very popular in Kosovo and the most consumed is “Pite”: that’s a pie filled with beef, spinach or cheese.

If you want to prepare a special Pite here is the recipe for 6 people

 For making pite with cheese you need only few ingredients: cheese, cream, salt, oil, yeast and flour.

For the dough: take a bowl and start putting your flour in it, begin to pour some warm water, put some salt and a bit of yeast. Mix then all the ingredients together then let it rest for approximately 30 minutes.

 Preheat the oven at 200 °C and take the dough and roll it up into balls in order to obtain 10/12 balls.

Take the balls and roll them one by one using a rolling pin: you will get the phyllo dough. Then put the cheese and the cream in order to have ropes: put all those ropes next to each other and put some oil and cream on top to make them crispy. 

Put your pite in the oven for 45 minutes and don’t forget to have a look at it from time to time or it will get burnt! Once out of the oven let it rest and cut it in some slices: the dish is now ready! You can taste it with peppers, pickles or tomatoes salad. But remember... drink a lot of water because it’s a very salted dish!!!

Glossary

Rising: (to rise) something going from a low position to a higher (in our case the sun was going to a higher position)
Downstairs: the lower floor of a house
Scream of joy: when someone screams because he’s/she’s happy

Dough: it is a thick mixture of flour and other ingredients that can be kneaded, baked and eaten
Bowl: a round container that is open on the top and is deep enough to hold fruit, sugar, etc.
Pastry dishes: some dishes (such as pies) are made of pastry casing that covers or completely contains a filling of a variety of sweet or savory ingredients
Pie: a baked dish with fruit/meat/vegetables, typically with a top and base of pastry. You can have sweet pies or salted pies
Few: a small/ non- specific number
Yeast: bakers use yeast to turn flat, sticky, dough into tall, fluffy bread
Pour: to make a substance flow from a container into another container
Rolling pin: a cylinder used to roll out dough to make it flatten
Phyllo dough: it is a very thin part of dough used for making pastries such as baklava or borek (pite) in Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisine
Pickles: vegetables that have been preserved in a vinegar sauce or salty water.

...That unforgettable taste!

Several years ago I ate a special sweet on my favourite day: Christmas.

I still remember the unforgettable taste of that sweet called Bakllava!

The Bakllava was in the center of the table. Its golden color made me drool. That sweet always makes me think of my homecountry: Kosovo!
The Bakllava was hot, but I blow it over and put it in my mouth. It was delicious. I could feel my mother’s love at every single bite I had. It was not the first time I ate Bakllava but that one had something that made it unique and unforgettable.

INGREDIENTS

400g phyllo dough
300g walnuts
200g butter
200g sugar
300ml water
4 eggs

PREPARATION

Melt the butter in a pan and allow it to cool. Butter the pan then put a first layer of phyllo dough mixed with sugar, start brushing with melted butter and egg and put it over a second and a third layer always buttering them. After the third layer put the walnuts and restart the process. Every three sheets of phyllo dough insert a layer of walnuts until the phyllo dough begins. 

Bake at 180° for 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare the syrup with sugar and water (at medium heat and mix constantly). Once cooked, pour the syrup on the Bakllava, let it cool down and cut into small rhomboids... and enjoy!

GLOSSARY
Bakllava: traditional Kosovan sweet;
Sweet: having a taste similar to that of sugar, not bitter or salty;
Pan: a metal container that is round, used for cooking things on top of a cooker;
Phyllo doughy: flaky, tissue-thin layers of pastry used in backed dessert and for appetizers;
Mix: to combine so that the result cannot easily be separated into its parts;
Sugar: a sweet substance especially from the plants sugar cane, used to make food and drinks sweeter;
Butter: a pale yellow solid food containing a lot of fat that is made from cream;
Egg: the oval object with a hard shell that is produced by female birds, especially chickens, eaten as food;
Walnuts: a nut with a slightly bitter taste and a series of folds in and a hard shell;
Syrup: very sweet, thick liquid;
Rhomboids: a type of flat shape with four sides in which the sides next to each other are not of equal length but the side  opposite each other are;
Drool: to allow saliva (liquid in the mouth) to flow out of your mouth;
Blow it over: when an argument blows over, it becomes gradually less important until it ends and is forgotten;
Pour: to make a substance flow from a container, especially into another container, by raising just one side of the container that the substance is in.

Pancakes Time

Bittersweet

Hello guys!

Who among you doesn't like pancakes? Well, we love them!
Our pancakes take certain characteristics from the Holland pancakes and some peculiarities from the

British ones.
Furthermore we add a personal touch: the yeast. It is at this point that the pancakes road is separated
forever from that of waffles and get a recipe of their own.
This tasty recipe includes simple but nutritious ingredients: milk, flour, eggs, butter and
sugar, mixed together to obtain a fairly liquid batter to be poured into a pan placed on a
high heat. The pancakes are cooked first on one side and then on the other, until both sides
assume a brown color. As "dressing", then you only have to choose: honey or maple syrup,
butter and banana slices, berries and powdered sugar. Anything that makes you come up
with the idea of a tasty breakfast is fine for pancakes… but they are also good natural!
Let's see how to prepare this tasty dish!

What we need?

200 gr of flour
2 teaspoons of yeast
1\2 teaspoons of salt
1 spoon of sugar
2 eggs
250 ml of milk
3 spoons of oil

Sift the flour into a bowl, add a pinch of salt,
 a teaspoon of sugar
and baking powder.

Divide the egg whites from the yolks: mix both with electric mix.

In another bowl mix the milk and melted butter in a double boiler, combine the egg yolks,
add powdery ingredients and finally the egg whites. Now mix!

Butter to grease a pan, pour a ladle of the compound rolling the pan to distribute it well and
cook on both sides until you reach a brown color.

And finally enjoy these wonderful desserts in good company!

(Special thanks to Irene's Closet and Cucina con Federica for the photos!)

Glossary
Recipe: If you follow the recipe closely, your meal should turn out fine
Yeast: Bakers use yeast to turn flat, sticky dough into tall, fluffy bread. The yeast interacts with sugar and fills the bread with pockets of air as it bakes
Yolk: A yolk is the inner, yellow part of an egg. If you order eggs "sunny side up," those "suns" are the egg yolks
Melted: changed from a solid to a liquid state
Teaspoon: a small spoon used for stirring tea or coffee
Bowl: a bowl is a rounded dish that holds food. Many people start the day with a bowl of cereal
Sift: to bake a cake, you sift the flour to get out the lumps. When you sift, you separate one thing from another
Maple syrup: made by concentrating sap from sugar maples
Furthemore: just when you think your friend has finished her long list of complaints, she begins a new sentence with, “Furthermore…” a word that signals she has even more to complain about
Waffle: you might think of a waffle as a grid-patterned pancake-like food that's tasty with syrup, and you'd be right. But the word is also a verb that means to avoid making a definitive decision
Batter: a semiliquid mixture of flour, egg, and milk or water used in cooking, especially for making cakes or for coating food before frying
Poured: to pour is to flow rapidly in a steady stream, or to cause something to flow. You can pour good coffee into a cup and pour bad coffee down the drain
Dressing: something used as "filling"
Honey: a sweet, sticky, yellowish-brown fluid made by bees and other insects from nectar collected from flowers.
Baking powder: any of various powdered mixtures used in baking as a substitute for yeast
Double boiler: two saucepans, one fitting inside the other
Butter: a pale yellow edible fatty substance made by churning cream and used as a spread or in cooking
Ladle: a large long-handled spoon with a cup-shaped bowl, used for serving soup, stew, or sauce.
Rolling: move or cause to move in a particular direction by turning over and over on an axis
Pinch: To pinch is to squeeze or grip with your fingers