Losinj... Croatian pastries and a BBQ in the woods

Burek, filled with spinach and soured cheese

Losinj, an island in Istria, in the North of Croatia, was our final stop before our trip back to London (for the Olympics!!!) via Pula.

There seems to be a divide in Croatian cuisine that I've experienced whilst traveling up the country.One the one hand, fresh fish are in abundance and there is a clear Italian and meditterabnean influence (with Pizzas and pasta dishes, plus the use of garlic, capers and aubergines). However, there's also a clear Eastern European influence.

You may remember my reference to 'Sarma' and 'Burek' in my post on Serbia a couple of months ago and their love of flaky pastries, filled with soured cheese. I found the same in Croatia. My favourite were these 'Burek' (same name as in Serbia too), which where filled with spinach and cheese and rolled tightly before baking. The perfect cheap snack.

In addition to gorging on Burek, I did manage to light up the BBQ once again on Losinj - a quiet island, frequented by a multitude of German and Austrian campers. We stayed on what is probably one of the largest campsites in Croatia (Camping Cikat) but somehow still managed to find ourselves a secluded spot in the woods, a short walk from the clearest sea I have ever seen.

It's amazing the variety of food you can cook on a BBQ - it's not just for grilling sausages. Given we were camping in a wood, I thought that a simple dish of mushrooms and garlic on toast (served with local red wine) would be appropriate.

Sadly, this post marks the end of our Croatian trip, and the end of our European adventure as a whole.

However, the summer does not end here. 

Last week we flew back to London in time to watch the women's pairs rowing final (well done Helen and Heather, go Team GB!).

We are now on a different continent (Asia!) and over the next few weeks I will be posting about the sights, smells and tastes of the next leg of our adventure - in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Singapore.

Please let me know if you have any recommendations!

Leiths week 2 - sea bass cerviche, parsley pasta, wild mushrooms & warm red salsa

Week 2 at Leiths started with removing the skin from a fillet of sea bass, marinating it in lemon juice, lime juice and birds eye chillis and chucking it in the fridge for a couple of hours. While the cerviche was cerviching, we made a quick salsa with tomatoes, coriander & avocado and 'degorged' some red onions. Degorging is a brilliant word for removing the moisture from something using salt. The thinly sliced onion was covered in a salty layer, left for 20 minutes and then rinsed, covered in lemon juice and sweetened with sugar to create a bright pink accompaniment to the fish.

The pasta machines came out next to make 'parsley pasta'.. basically young parsley springs sandwiched between two sheets of pasta and then re rolled though as low a setting you can, without tearing. The resulting pasta is very pretty looking, with the parsley springs showing through the pasta sheets.

This would be a great pasta to use in an open lasagna.. I used it cut into small pieces and served with some (very) garlicky wild mushrooms and a warm red salsa made from finely diced red peppers, olive oil, basil, lemon juice and a concasse of tomato (another new term learnt today, this is just a fancy name for finely diced!)

Next week, twice baked crab souffles and partridge with lentils, pancetta and thyme.