​This beef short rib bourguignon is delicious. The meat was so soft and tender and the sauce absolutely delicious. My whole family loved this.

This recipe came about because my husband bought wagyu beef short ribs. He asked if I could cook them in a sauce. Now I already have a Short Rib Ragu on here, but I wanted to try something new, and I really wanted to make the stew with mushrooms.

So off I go on a google search and I found a few recipes that I thought I'd try, but none that I loved as they were. So I found this recipe on the food network, but I changed it so much that in all honesty this is a What's Cooking Ella original recipe.

Now I used wagyu beef short ribs, but you can use normal short ribs.

I served it with polenta or mashed potato as I felt they were perfect for this dish.

​This is rich, this is hearty, this is delicious. This is something you need to try.

​Serves 8

1/2 cup plain flour
1 tablespoon ground paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1.6kg beef short ribs, cut into thirds
​1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped pancetta
2 large brown onions, chopped
4 shallots, peeled, quartered
2 celery sticks, diced
2 carrots, diced
​500g swiss brown mushrooms
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 x 400g tin diced tomatoes
​1 teaspoon vegeta
2 cups (500ml) red wine
4 cups (1 litre) beef stock


Preheat oven to 175C/155C fan forced.

​Combine flour. paprika, cayenne pepper and white pepper in a bowl. Add the short ribs, coating them lightly in the flour mixture. Shake off excess flour.
​

In a large cast iron pot over medium heat, add the olive oil and half the butter. Add the ribs. Sear the meat until brown, moving the ribs around covering them with the butter. Remove ribs from the pot.

In the same pot, saute the pancetta for 2 minutes, add the remaining butter, the onions, shallots, carrots and celery. Saute for 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms, saute for a further 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, stir through for 1 minute. Add the tin tomatoes and vegeta. Return the short ribs to the pot, add the wine and beef stock. The liquid should cover all of the meat. Cover with a lid and bring to a simmer.

Once the liquid has come to a simmer, cover, and cook in the oven for 2 1/2 hours.

After 2 1/2 hours, if there is too much liquid, place the pot over a low-medium heat, reduce the liquid to a stew like consistency, it can take up to 30 minutes. Keep stirring to ensure it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pot. You can serve one short rib whole per person. But as the liquid simmers, I like to remove the ribs one by one and shred them into large chucks. Then I return the shredded meat back into the pot and continue until I have done that with all of the ribs. Taste for seasoning.

Serve with soft polenta or mashed potato and a green salad.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/short-rib-bourguignon.html 
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​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​My obsession with the doughnut started in 2017, when I was on holidays in Croatia. I was in Vrsi, my mums hometown village, a village near Zadar, my favourite place on this planet. Every morning I would walk to the local convenience store in the village and buy freshly made custard or jam filled doughnuts (krafne for those in Croatia) for my family. These doughnuts are the most delicious doughnuts I have ever had, they were soft and fluffy, and delicious.

​I kept my promise,  I practiced and I practiced, I'm not even sure how many recipes I have tried over the years. Some were dense, some I browned too much, some had too much of a yeasty flavour, some had too much salt, some didn't rise enough. All were good, but they just didn't taste as good as the ones from Vrsi, until now.

These doughnuts are light and fluffy, they rose beautifully. I finally got the right oil temperature, where they didn't brown too much on the outside, but cooked all the way through. They got the white line through the middle. I am happy, it really was a joyful day in my kitchen today.
​
Now if you look at the Vrsi doughnuts, they are not perfect circles, they look a little rough. Now in this original recipe, mine too would have looked like that if I followed the recipe exactly, as in the original recipe, you hand roll the doughnuts into rounds, so by hand, you never really get the perfect circle. I on the other hand chose to roll out the dough and cut the doughnuts out with a round cookie cutter, that is why mine look more perfect.​

This is a recipe for those that have strong free standing cake mixers. You need a mixer with a powerful motor to make these. You need to have a paddle attachment, now I have made it using the dough hook, and they were great to, but the paddle attachment worked best.

This is a time consuming recipe, not the actual cooking time, but the 'proving' time, however, where I refrigerate the dough for two hours, the original recipe refrigerates it overnight, so you can split this recipe into a two day process, which makes it feel like it doesn't take too long to make. If you want to do it in one day, I start it around 6:30am, so we can cook them around 4:30-5pm. 

The recipe states to use 150g water, now that may seem strange, but it works out to be about 150ml of water. The reason the recipe weighs everything, rather than using cups, is because it is more accurate, I much prefer to weigh everything than use cup measures. Different countries use different cup sizes, some people will pack in ingredients into a cup, some will not. By weighing, you eliminate all variations.

Now I say to leave the cut out doughnuts to prove for 4 hours, but it can take as little as 2 to 3 hours depending on the day. They just need to be puffy and doubled in size. The puffier, the better.

With the fillings, so far I have only filled them with nutella or jam. My focus has been on get the doughnut right. Next time I make them I'll make them with custard, both vanilla and chocolate.
​
 So if you to are looking to try your hand at making doughnuts, give this recipe a go, I'll walk you through it.

For this recipe you need a strong powerful freestanding cake mixer with a paddle attachment. I used my kitchenaid, and it works it. 
Recipe adapted from https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/ 

Makes about 20

500g strong white bread flour
60g caster sugar
15g fresh yeast, crumbled
4 eggs
zest of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g unsalted butter, softened
about 2 litres sunflower oil, for deep frying
icing sugar or caster sugar, for dusting
​

​Put 150g water and all the dough ingredients, apart from the butter, into the bowl of a mixer with a beater paddle. Mix on a medium speed for 8 mins or until the dough starts coming away from the sides and forms a ball. Turn off the mixer and let the dough rest for 1 min.

Start the mixer up again on a medium speed and slowly add the butter to the dough – about 25g at a time. Once it is all incorporated, mix on high speed for 5 mins until the dough is glossy, smooth and very elastic when pulled.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean tea towel and leave to prove until it has doubled in size, this takes about two hours.

Knock back the dough in the bowl briefly, then re-cover and put in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
​
After two hours, or the next day, take the dough out of the fridge.

I'm going to give you two ways to form your doughnuts. I use the rolling pin method, but you can also use the hand rolling method.
​

Fill your deep fryer or heavy-based saucepan, I use a deep sided frying pan, with oil, you need about 5cm oil. Heat the oil to 180C. Now it is so important at what heat you are heating up your oil. If you do it over a high heat, what I found will happen is your doughnuts will brown too fast on the outside and still be uncooked in the centre, as the oil is too hot. Too low and they won't cook fast enough. So here is what I do, I heat up the oil slowly over a medium heat. I don't use a thermometer, I just throw in a cube of bread and when it sizzles as soon as I add the bread, the oil is ready. Then the first doughnut I test the oil with is one of the ones that I made from the re-rolled dough, as they are my imperfect ones. 
​
​When the oil is heated, carefully slide one doughnut from the tray using your hands or a floured pastry scraper. Taking care not to deflate it, put it into the oil. Fry for 2 minutes on each side until golden brown – they puff up and float, so you may need to gently push them down after about 1 min to help them colour evenly.

Remove the doughnut from the fryer and place it on kitchen paper. Open it up to see if it has cooked through.

Now if your oil is at the right temperature, and the doughnut is golden brown and cooked through repeat with the more doughnuts, frying 2-3 per batch, depending on the size of your fryer or pan. Repeat the steps until all the doughnuts are fried, but keep checking the oil temperature is correct – if it is too high, they will burn and be raw in the middle; if it is too low, the oil will be absorbed into the doughnuts and they will become greasy.

Remove the doughnuts from the fryer and place them on kitchen paper.

While still warm, dust the doughnuts with sifted icing sugar or toss the doughnuts in a bowl of caster sugar.
​
Set aside to cool before filling.

To fill the doughnuts, make a hole with a small knife in the crease of each one, anywhere around the white line between the fried top and bottom.

Fill a piping bag with your filling and pipe into the doughnut until nicely swollen – 20-50g is the optimum quantity, depending on the filling; cream will be less, because it is more aerated. After filling, the doughnuts are best eaten straight away, but will keep in an airtight tin.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/nutella-jam-or-custard-filled-doughnuts.html 
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​This recipe is amazing. The bread turned out so good, it was better than store bought turkish bread, as it doesn't get any fresher.

Fresh out of the oven it was delicious. Once it cooled it was delicious. My son made a toasted sandwich with it and it was delicious.

It's quite easy to make, any one can make this bread.

Now I used bread flour, but the original recipe used plain flour, so either one would be okay to use.

​So if you are looking to try a new bread recipe, make this one happen soon.

​Recipe adapted from orgasmicchef.com/ 

Makes 2 loaves

500g (3 1/3 cups) bread flour, you could use plain flour
1 teaspoon (7g/1 packet) dried yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
375ml (1½ cups) warm water
Olive oil to grease the bowl for rising
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon nigella seeds, optional
½ teaspoon sea salt flakes
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon olive oil


​Combine flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, then add water. A wooden spoon works best to mix ingredients, then use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.
​
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 15 minutes or until smooth and elastic, add more flour only if the dough is too sticky.
​
​Brush a bowl with oil to lightly grease. Place dough in the bowl and lightly coat with oil. Cover with a piece of cling film and set in a warm place away from drafts for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size.

Place a baking tray on the middle shelf of the oven. Preheat oven to 230°C.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut in half. Flatten slightly with hands. Place each half on separate pieces baking paper and with floured hands, stretch each piece into a rectangle no wider than the width of your pan.

Cover with a damp cloth and set in the same warm, draft-free place for about 15 minutes.

Using the end of a wooden spoon (or your fingers) dipped in flour, poke a few holes in the bread that can collect some of the olive oil/egg yolk combination.

Whisk egg yolk and oil in a bowl. Brush the top of each pide with egg and olive oil mixture.

Combine sesame and nigella seeds, if using. and sprinkle over the top of each bread then sprinkle the sea salt flakes.

Remove tray from oven and slide 1 pide with the baking paper onto the tray. Cook for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

When you take the first bread off the baking tray, slide the 2nd one on and into the oven.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/turkish-pide-bread.html 
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​Lutenica is a spicy capsicum and tomato relish. 

This is a quick and easy recipe I got from my mum, who got it from her friend, who got it from a friend whilst visiting Croatia. I love recipes like this, recipes passed from person to person. 

So this is lutenica Vrsi style to me, as that is where my mum came from and that is where we got the recipe from. I'm sure it didn't originate there, but I don't care.

This has a lovely flavour, I really do love it. You can add more spice if you like, so you can make a spicy and a mild version. This is great with cevapi, or barbecued meat in general. It's great with bread as a dip or spread. I sometimes even add it to a stew to add extra flavour.

Now one of my kids really dislikes capsicums, but he loves this. He adds it on his toasted sandwiches and eats it straight from the jar on bread. 

I halved the original recipe as it is so easy to make, I didn't feel I needed to make a crazy large amount, so the quantities are how I made it. So if like would like to double the recipe or triple it if capsicums are on sale, do so. The quantity below will make about 6 cups of lutenica.

​This is something that I will be making again and again, I hope you do to.

​Makes about 6 cups

1.5kg red capsicums, seeds and white membrane removed, cut into thin strips
250ml tomato passata
100ml white vinegar
75g caster sugar
1 tablespoon salt
100ml vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 bunch parsley, leaves only, chopped, to taste
1-2 small red chillies, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
​Olive oil, for sealing
Add all the ingredients, except the olive oil, into a large saucepan.

Place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring ocassionally.

Once boiling, reduce heat, simmer for one hour, stirring ocassionally. After an hour, blitz with a stick blender, don't turn it into a mush, leave it chunky. Then if you think it is not thick enough, keep cooking for another 30 minutes, until thickened to your liking. If thick enough, stop cooking.

Once cooked, place in hot sterilised jars, I like to top it with a thin layer of olive oil, seal immediately. 

I store it in the fridge as I like to eat it cold.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/lutenica.html 
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​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​Croatia playing in the World Cup Final was a huge thing for every Croatian worldwide. After my daughter's party we got to sit back in the early morning and watch Croatia play in their first ever world cup final. Now although Croatia did not win the final, they made us all proud, they won the hearts of so many with there never give up attitude throughout the whole tournament. Watching how Croatia celebrated after the final was amazing. It was a great moment in time for all Croatians.

​Now to celebrate this moment I had to come up with a great cake. One that was pretty on the outside, for my daughter's birthday, but one that celebrated the Croatian football team on the inside. I think I nailed it. I did a red velvet cake and a white velvet cake but made it in a checkerboard style. The icing was a white chocolate ganache. I decorated it with red and white roses for the beauty that is my daughter and to represent the colours of Croatian football. The inside, the red and white checkerboard cake was to represent the Croatian 'kockice'.

​It's nearly two years since this moment, I still watch the highlights of the games and celebrations afterwards,  it brings a smile to my face, every time.

Now I wasn't born in Croatia (my parents and husband were), but when I go there and I visit my parents childhood homes, I feel I am home, it is where I am from, it is my heritage. For those of us not born there, being Croatian is a feeling, it is felt when you get told stories from your parents about their childhood, it's in the traditional food we cook, it is in our language, it is in our music. My kids feel exactly the same way. Being Croatian is something I am proud of.

Now I made this with my red velvet cake recipe, just modified, for instance I took out the cocoa from both cakes and also didn't add red food colouring to the white one. But this would also work well with white chocolate mud cakes. 

Recently I watched a documentary about Croatia and the World Cup and it reminded me that I never posted the cake recipe, so here it is, the cake I made to celebrate two great moments in my life.

Red Velvet Cake: 
you need to make two of these

225g unsalted butter, softened
275g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
300g self raising flour, sifted
3/4 cup (180ml) buttermilk
1/4 cup (60ml) red food colouring

White Velvet Cake:
you need to make two of these

225g unsalted butter, softened
275g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
300g self raising flour, sifted
3/4 cup (180ml) buttermilk

White Chocolate Ganache:
2 cups (500ml) thick cream
​1.2kg white chocolate, chopped coarsely


Make the red velvet cakes: Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper. Make sure the baking paper extends 5cm higher than the tin.

Using a large bowl of an electric mixer, place the butter, sugar and vanilla, beat on medium speed for 8-10 minutes, scraping down the sides every few minutes, until the mixture is pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides after each addition.

Add the flour, buttermilk and food colouring, beat on low speed until just combined. Spoon the batter into your prepared cake tin, spread it out gently and smooth the top with a spoon or palette knife.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes-1 hour and 30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the white velvet cakes: Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper. Make sure the baking paper extends 5cm higher than the tin.

Using a large bowl of an electric mixer, place the butter, sugar and vanilla, beat on medium speed for 8-10 minutes, scraping down the sides every few minutes, until the mixture is pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides after each addition.

Add the flour and buttermilk, beat on low speed until just combined. Spoon the batter into your prepared cake tin, spread it out gently and smooth the top with a spoon or palette knife.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes-1 hour and 30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cold, the cakes can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated.

​Now to checkerboard your cakes.
 
First make a template for your cake. I made this by placing a piece of paper on my cooled cake, cut the paper to the size of the cake. Then I measured in from the edge to make the rings, see the picture below as a guide. I used a compass to make the circles, then cut out the doughnut shaped rings as pictured below. For the cake to have even squares, try and make the width of the rounds even in size, I did not do that properly with the chocolate version below, but I got it right with my croatian version. I only added the chocolate photos so you can see how it is done.

Level the tops on your 4 cakes, you need the cakes to be the same thickness. Place your template on one of your cakes as picture below, secure it with 4 toothpicks. Carefully cut the cake into 3 rings. You only cut around the outer edge of the paper template and around the inner edge of your template. Repeat with your remaining three cakes.

Once all is cut you will have 4 x large rings, 4 middle rings and  4 x centre circles.

​These images are from a cake I had previously made using chocolate and white chocolate mud cakes, I also made for my daughter's birthday 5 years earlier.
​

Make your white chocolate ganache: Place cream and white chocolate in a heatproof bowl, place bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate is melted and you have a lovely smooth mixture. Place ganache in the refrigerator and give it a mix every 10 minutes, until the ganache is of a spreadable consistency, this takes between 30 minutes to an hour. Once the ganache has set to a spreadable consistency, it no longer goes into the refrigerator, keep it in a cool place at room temperature.

Once all your cakes have been cut, and your ganache is of a spreadable consistency, where it is not runny, you need to assemble the cakes.

Coat the sides of a white cake centre circle with some of the ganache. You need enough ganache that will ensure when the cake is sliced it does not fall apart. Place the white cake centre circle inside a red cake middle ring. Now coat the edge of the red middle ring with the ganache and place it inside a white cake large ring.

For the opposite cake, you just place the red cake centre, ganached into a white cake middle ring, ganached into a red cake large ring.

Use the pictures below as a guide.

​Now sandwich the cakes together with more of the white chocolate ganache, remember to use enough ganache so that the cake does not fall apart when sliced, but not too much where it interfers with the checkerboard look. Remember to alternate the cakes by colour as pictured.

These are the best photos of the inside of the cake I have from the day of the party. Unfortunately I lived the moment instead of capturing the perfect photo. But it did turn out fabulous and my daughter loved it.
​
Here are links to a few songs I love about Croatia and football
​
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtWMFtfPoDs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfy-BFNaol0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBdTKm4vgw

Here are highlights from the world cup 2018
www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6F4fVNaXfk

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/croatian-checkerboard-cake.html 
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​​​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​Mother's Day is coming and these flowers would be a great gift, especially if you love puff pastry and nutella.

My daughter renamed these love me, love me not flowers as she eats them by picking off the petals like a real flower, quoting, he loves me, he loves me not. I think it's cute.

There is no real recipe here, I just watched the video, had a sheet of puff pastry, some nutella and an egg and started making these. You can make as many or as little as you like.

​The hazelnuts I add, as I love them, but if you don't have them, or don't like them, don't add them, you could just add a little icing sugar in the middle instead.

You can watch the video of these being made by Cooking with Manuela here. I find watching someone cooks makes it easier.

These are cute and simple to make, perfect with coffee any time of the day.

​Recipe adapted from cookingwithmanuela.blogspot.com/

1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
1 egg
1 tablespoon  of water
3 tablespoons of chocolate spread, like nutella
2 tablespoons of chopped hazelnuts


Remove the puff pastry from the freezer, and leave at room temperature for about 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 205C/185C fan forced.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg with one tablespoon of water. Set aside.

Cut one sheet of puff pastry into 9 squares, each with a side of about 7.5 cm.

Place one square of puff pastry on a piece of baking paper (just a little bigger than the pastry).

Add one teaspoon of chocolate spread in the middle of the pastry.

Brush the edges with egg wash.

Bring the edges together, then the sides and make the pastry into a ball.

Flip the ball upside down and flatten slightly with your fingers.

Cut 8 petals out the pastry, turning each by 45 degrees - all in the same direction - so that the chocolate filling is showing.

Brush with more egg wash, and add a little bit of chopped hazelnuts in the middle of the flower. Push the hazelnuts down in the middle part of the pastry with your finger.

​Bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, until golden on top. 

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/chocolate-hazelnut-flowers.html 
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​​​​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​As a lover of coffee, this has to be one of my favourite cocktails.

This is strong, this is tasty, this is so easy to make and so so easy to drink.

​Recipe adapted from www.foodnetwork.com/

Makes 2

90ml vodka
60ml coffee liqueur, like Kahlua
60ml brewed espresso, chilled 
30ml white creme de cacao
6 coffee beans or grated chocolate, to serve
​
Chill 2 martini glasses.

Combine the vodka, coffee liqueur, espresso and creme de cacao in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until chilled and frothy. Strain into the chilled glasses and garnish with 3 coffee beans per drink or finely grated chocolate.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/espresso-martini.html 
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​​​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

​What to do with the left over oats from baking ANZAC day biscuits, that is the dilemma I have every year. I don't eat porridge, I generally don't bake with it, well I do add it to my crumble toppings. But I need something more. Well now I have a brand new favourite sweet treat, that takes only a few minutes to make. You don't bake anything, you just melt and mix it.

These are delicious. They are chewy and chocolatey.

After my daughter finished the last of the slice yesterday, she came up to me and told me we have a huge problem in the house, I asked what was wrong, and she replied we have no more of the chocolate slice in the refrigerator. This was not good, imagine life without this, you will understand once you've tried it. But as the great mum that I am, I whipped up a batch the very next day. Crisis over, there was calm in the house again.

This is so easy to make, only has a few ingredients and tastes so good. You need to try this, especially now that you have oats in the house.

​Recipe adapted from kristinakuzmic.com/

Makes about 20 slices

170g unsalted butter
½ cup + 1 tablespoon brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups quick cooking oats
1 tablespoon milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
⅓ cup creamy peanut butter
​
Grease an 20cm square baking pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, over low heat, melt the butter. Add sugar and mix until the sugar is well incorporated. Add vanilla, oats, and milk. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.

Press half of the mixture in the prepared pan.

In a small saucepan or in the microwave, melt together the chocolate chips and peanut butter, stirring frequently until smooth. Pour the chocolate mixture on top of the oat layer and spread with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the rest of the oat mixture on top, lightly pressing into the chocolate.
​
Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours. Cut into bars or small slices.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/chocolate-oatmeal-slice.html 
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​Our Eating Around the World Adventure has taken us to Greenland. Now I know very little about food from Greenland, I have done some research, though finding recipes can be challenging, but I have found a few traditional recipes that I want to try, and this is one of them.

This is a recipe where at first I wasn't sure it was from Greenland, it had more of a French vibe for me with the roasted vegetables and pan fried fish with a butter sauce.  The original author states it came from the official tourism site of Greenland (I could not find it there), but I trust it is from Greenland, why would they say it was, if it wasn't, and either way the flavour combination was something I wanted to try.

This was delicious, I truly loved this, my family loved this.

The fish was perfectly cooked, now in Greenland they would use halibut, but as I could not find that, I went with ling fillets. Ling fillets are very forgiving in that you can rarely overcook them, they don't go dry like other fish. They are mild in flavour so perfect for people that don't want fish to taste too fishy. By adding flour, which wasn't in the original recipe, you get a crisp coating to the fish when fried. It is hard to tell you how long to fry it for, as it depends on the thickness of the fillet, but with ling I use the fork test, get two forks, try and seperate the thickest part of the fish, it should give way or flake easily, if it is holding on for dear life and won't flake, keep cooking it.

The vegetables are amazing, just make sure you cook them through, tough eggplant is unpleasant, it needs to be soft. Now seasoning is the most important thing here, season a little before baking, them taste before serving and season again, if needed. Once it came out of the oven I added extra virgin olive oil, to taste, I thought it needed it.

And the sauce, on it's own, although tasty, it is a little acidic from the lemon and wine, I did add a pinch of sugar, not to make a sweet sauce, but to balance it out a little. Once you add the sauce on the fish and it drizzles onto the vegetables, it all balances out and it is delicious. With my family, I suggested to try a little sauce, just in case they didn't like it, but after one bite, they all went back and added more.

So to recap, the changes I made to the original recipe: I added extra virgin olive oil to the vegetables, the Croatian in me needed to add it, it made it taste better. I also dusted the fish with flour before frying, as it gives the fish a lovely coating. I did not add the salami to the vegetables, I didn't think it needed it, but I did add some red onion, and I substituted silverbeet instead of spinach. I doubled the sauce recipe, which was a good idea as I cooked more fish than stated, as there is more than 4 people I need to feed. The vegetables feed around 6 people, there was plenty to go with the extra fish. And I also added the tomatoes to the vegetables in the oven for 5 minutes to heat up, rather then just add them in cold. So with my changes it may not be purely Greenlandic, but the changes are minor and the outcome was a delicious dinner.

So after I made this my family said they would love this to be cooked at least once a month, now that won't happen as I keep trying new things, but it will definitely be something I will be cooking for years to come.

​Recipe adapted from ourfamilyfoodadventures.com/

Serves 4
​
1 small zucchini, sliced
1 red capsicum, roughly chopped
1 yellow capsicum, roughly chopped
1 small eggplant, chopped
1 cup baby spinach or silverbeet, chop up the silverbeet if using
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup salami, chopped, I did not add this 
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
4 white fish fillets, I used ling fillets
1/3 cup plain flour
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil

​For the sauce:
1 1/2 tablespoon butter
1 shallot, diced
Juice from 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons white wine
​pinch of caster sugar, if needed
1/4 cup thickened cream
Salt and pepper to taste


​Preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan forced.

Place the zucchini, red and yellow capsicum, eggplant and silverbeet or spinach in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the olive oil. Toss to give it a good mix.

Line a large baking tray with baking paper, and place the vegetables in one layer on the tray.

 Roast the vegetables in the oven for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.  

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce by adding the butter to a heated frying pan. Next toss in the shallot, seasoning with salt, and cook over medium heat until translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Next add the juice from 1/2 a lemon and the white wine. Simmer for five minutes. Finally, toss in the cream and heat for a final few minutes before seasoning with salt and pepper.

Add the tomatoes to the roasted vegetables, 5 minutes before they are done cooking, just to heat up. After the vegetables have roasted, add the salami, if using, drizzle on extra virgin olive oil, to taste, and set aside, keeping warm. 

Finally, season the fish with salt and pepper, dust with the flour, just to coat. Next heat a frying pan over high heat, melt enough butter and oil to lightly coat the frying pan, and add the fish presentation side down, cooking for about one to two minutes, depends on the thickness of your fillet, or until golden brown. Flip the fish and cook on the other side for another one to two minutes. Cook until the fish flakes easily and both sides the flour browns nicely and becomes crisp on the edges.

To serve spoon out roasted vegetables onto your plate, top with the fish then drizzle the sauce over the top. Garnish with fresh lemon slices. I also served a green salad on the side.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/pan-fried-white-fish-with-roasted-vegetables.html 
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​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella

Sometimes I find this part of recipe blogging the hardest, sometimes I don't have much to say. But with this recipe, because it is a family recipe, the words come out easily.

This recipe comes from my grandmother, Baba Ika. She would make them for my cousins when they visited her on holidays in Croatia. My grandparents lived in a village called Vrsi in Zadar. Now I never got to experience a holiday with my grandparents, but I go there now with my family, and I feel like I am home. I stay in my grandparents house, I walk the streets my mother walked as a child, visit the places she visited, and the feeling I get while there, is special. You walk to the local shops and the old men and women from the village sit around talking, you say good morning, and they now who you are, because they knew your grandparents and your mother. You're part of a family there. You go down to the cemetary to place flowers or a candle on your grandparents grave and you see names of your family relatives. There is no place like it for me. It is home, even though I wasn't born there or live there. ​

​​Back to the recipe, there is something special about making something your grandmother used to make. Now I never got to try my grandmothers, but one of my aunties who was taught how to make them by my grandmother, kindly shared the recipe with me, on how to make them. Now as per normal no one measures anything in Croatia when cooking, it is all done by feel, so my aunts recipe was "from 1kg flour, add enough water and milk, about 500ml, 2 packets of dried yeast and a little oil,  you need the consistency of a soft bread dough, then let it rest, then shape and fry".

With this recipe and my own no knead bread recipe as a guide, the next morning I attempted to make peci paje. Now as I was trying it for the first time, I figured i'd start with 500g flour, then I scattered over the dried yeast. I added 1/2 cup warm milk and 1/2 cup warm water and about a tablespoon of canola oil. Gave it a mix with a spoon, it was too dry, so I added a teaspoon of salt, then looked at my own bread recipe, saw the liquid quantity of that recipe, then added and extra 100mls of warm water. Gave it a stir, it felt right. I started to knead it for a few minutes in the bowl, it was sticky, but not too wet. I let it rest, covered, for an hour, then fried a few testers, they were perfect. I shaped some as squares, some sausage shaped. I could roll the dough, it was sticky, but you could work with it. Then as my kids were sleeping I let it rest for a further hour and fried them all. They puffed up beautifully. My grandmother served them sprinkled with sugar, so I did to, they were delicious. One of my kids liked them without sugar, to eat it like bread. It has a bread/doughnut vibe to it. 

So here I share a family recipe to you that I got passed down to me, by sharing this recipe, I am making sure this recipe continues to be cooked for generations to come.

​Makes about 16 peci paje

500g plain flour
175ml warm water
175ml warm milk
1 x 7g packet dried yeast
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 teaspoon salt
​Caster Sugar, for sprinkling
​

In a bowl mix the flour, water, milk, oil and yeast together with a wooden spoon until combined.

Add salt and mix again. Now knead for a few minutes, until the dough ingredients are well combined.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it prove for 1-2 hours.

When it's ready , I pinch off about a golf ball size piece of dough, then you can either roll them on your bench into a sausage shape, or just use your hands to shape them into circles or squares, they just need to no more than 1/2-1cm thick before frying.

Heat your oil over a medium heat, you will need about 1cm of oil in a frying and fry until golden brown on one side, then flip over and fry until golden brown. Place on a paper towel to remove excess oil, sprinkle with caster sugar while hot as it sticks better. If your oil is too hot, it will burn on the outside before the centre is cooked, so keep the temperature on medium.

To save the recipe to your favourites go www.whatscookingella.com/peci-paje.html 
Pin it: www.pinterest.com.au/pin/399413060705972445/

​If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram or Twitter with #whatscookingella