One of my favourite traditional dishes is japrak (dolma). It is prepared in spring when nature is so generous with greens. Japraks (dolmas) are cooked in all Balkan countries, Middle East and Central Asia. They’re basically vine leaves stuffed with greens and rice. Many recipes call for meat, but I prefer them without. I’m pretty…
Traditional
Asure aka Noah’s pudding – the easiest recipe you can find
Asure is a special dessert with an eastern origin that is traditionally cooked also in Albania. The dish has a fascinating story behind. When Noah and his animals were running out of food, he mixed whatever was left and cooked them together to feed his companions. The result was asure, a beautiful and so adaptable…
Orange & chocolate Bundt cake
Sometimes I get nostalgic about moms cooking and try to recreate her recipes. I end up calling her to check if I missed something, which for sure always happens. Mom starts explaining in her way, without mentioning concrete measures or amounts at all, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, even when…
Red wine liquor – tradition at its best
I love learning about traditional recipes and experimenting with them. They are paths to the past and make me understand and love Albanian culture and culinary even more. Red wine liquor is one of the recipes I’ve had so much fun with, because, you know, it includes wine. It’s practically wine, cooked with sugar and cloves…
Pispili – Albanian cornmeal flatbread with green leafs
If someone asks me, which is my favorite recipe ever, my answer will be without any doubt “Pispili”. It is a traditional dish cooked in many regions of Albania in different ways, but they all have something in common, they are made of corn-meal and leafy green vegetables. Even the name differs from region to…
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin pie is one of the most popular autumn dishes. There are many varieties sweet and savory that are traditionally cooked in Albania, but they all require filo dough. Since filo dough is a bit time consuming to make, I prefer going with the western version that is made with pie crust. It is still…
Pumpkin and honey halva – my favorite Halloween treat
Every Halloween my aunt makes a very nice halva with Pumpkin 🙂 I had never tried to make it myself, till last week, when I got a big pumpkin and I had to find some creative ways to cook it. The recipe is easy to follow and needs few minutes to prepare, so I thought…
Hasude – cornstarch pudding
Hasude is a very old recipe, cooked in different areas in Albania. It is a kind of pudding made with water and corn-starch. I believe it has Turkish origin. It is not the prettiest dessert, but it’s very easy to make and tastes really nice. I crave it time by time, especially in summer, because…
Olive oil cookies
These are maybe my all-time favorite cookies, where the olive oil taste matches perfectly the orange and cinnamon flavor. My mom used to make them all the time and I expressed my support by eating them all. I don’t know why they never come as perfect as when mom bakes them, maybe they lack mom’s…
