bake it! traditional Slovak potato pastry - pagáče

Slovak potato pastry I'm writing about is also called 'prekladané zemiakové pagáče', or simply, 'zemiakové pagáče'.

my first attempt to make the potato 'pagace'

To make about 2 trays (~40 pieces) of this aDIYorable traditional snack baked in Slovak households, you'll need:

ingredients
450 g white flour
3 large potatoes - cooked, then grated
1 dl sunflower oil
1,5 dl milk
small cube (equiv 7 g) of yeast dissolved in lukewarm milk
1 dl water
100 g butter
1 egg
3 tbs of salt
some seeds to decorate the pagáče

This was the first time I made the Slovak traditional pastry potato "pagáče"- their fancier and more traditional version excludes potatoes but it includes pork rind (cracklings) which I wanted to avoid.

how to bake my version of potato 'pagáče'?
Make sure you bake them on a day when you are in a good mood.
You'll need about 1,5-2 hours to make 2 large trays.
Listen to some nice music. Ask your sweetheart & children to be patient...
Gather the ingredients.
Cook the potatoes.
And get started:
make the dough: mix flour, water, oil, lukewarm milk, yeast; mix until it has airy consistency (about 10 minutes).
It will stick and you will start to sweat, but don't give up! The stickiness will eventually go and the dough will look beautiful! Form a large dough ball, put it in a bowl and cover to let the dough raise in a warm environment (room temperature or more) for about 10-15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, roll the dough out on a board, flattening the dough to be about 1 cm thick. Over the dough, spread grated potatoes mixed with butter; fold once or twice and back to the bowl. Cover, let relax (and raise) for 15 minutes.

Take the dough out, roll it out on the board, refold again, and back to the bowl. Cover. Relax for 15 minutes. You and the dough.

Repeat once again, i.e. roll out, refold, cover, relax.

This was the final sprint: this time, after 15 minutes, when you roll out the dough to the desired final thickness (about 1-1,5 cm), you can start cutting the traditional round shapes! I used a small espresso mug to cut out the desired size circles; placed them on a baking paper, slighlty brushed them with beaten egg; decorated with poppy, sesame and sunflower seeds and placed the tray into a preheated oven (180 C). Baking time for my oven was 20 minutes but yours might differ: just watch them raise slightly, and become crispy gold.

serving suggestions
cut in half and fill in whatever you have at hoome... cottage cheese, or a slice of ham... use your fantasy! serve with a glass of chilled white wine and enjoy!

Dobru chut!

how to use paper scraps?

so, want your own funky notebook...
such as this one?



make your own notebook using paper scraps

Do it yourself in less than 5 minutes!
♥

material needed:
cheap & usually dull notebook
colorful paper scraps
scissors
glue
5 minutes of free time
♥
how to DIY:
Cut the paper scraps into whatever (irregular) shapes you'd like them to be. Glue pieces any way you like on the cover of your notebook. If you choose to glue the paper scraps only on one side, start from the bottom, work your way to the top of your notebook.
Work in progress:

messy? aDIYorable!

Let dry and enjoy the colors!
♥
other ideas:
you can use the paper scraps in any other creative way that crosses your mind: stick them on an empty bottle to make a one-of-a-kind vase, on a paper lantern to embelish it, on a folded colored card to make a special postcard...
aDIYorable, isn't it? :)

"lick your plate clean" tahini salad dressing

I have to admit, despite years spent in France I have consistently been hurting the glass ceiling preventing me to join the 'slightly better than an average home cook' rangs. And that for a simple reason: my inability to make (I mean, not on a one-time-get-lucky-girl, but constantly, make), good home-made salad dressing. La vinaigrette, as the French call it.

My suffering came to the end when my friend Shal lent me a cookbook with 'the secret'. The recipe for tahini salad dressing. This was after a succulent Indian dinner at her place, a few minutes after I've asked her: "OMG, did you know that Jamie Oliver died?" (I said it because the night before, I was sitting on a plane and my seat neighbor was reading an English trash newspaper article saying something about Jamie Oliver being dead.)
Shal immediately panicked, grabbed her iPad, checked that my statement was utterly incorrect, put her iPad back down; gave me one of THOSE looks; and with a big sigh went into her (amazing, large, white, clean, hitech) kitchen, opened one of the out-of-nowhere 'invisible' drawers, and handed me Jamie's book.

I'll make it short.

A few days later, I made the most delicious, finger-licking, plate-licking, dressing of my life thanks to that book.
I became vinaigrette-savvy!
My vinaigrette is consistently delicious.
Once, two, three, five times... can't go wrong under any circumstances.

jamie oliver tahini dressing (serves salad for 4)
1 tablespoon tahini
8 tablespoons of olive oil
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons sherry or red wine vinegar (I put white balsamic)

Mix all ingredients together just before serving the salad. If you want to go lighter, replace some of the oil by water.

Oh, and here is the salad recipe, in case you really want to make someone happy...

moorish crunch salad (serves 4)
4 or 5 peeled carrots
2 crunhy eating apples
handful of radishes
1 small handful of dark or white raisins
1 handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 handful of fresh mint, roughly chopped
2 spoons of sesame seeds toasted in oven

Slice your carrots into matchsticks-sized batons.
Finely slice your radishes.
Quarter your apples, remove the cores and finely slice.
Add all of these in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients, apart from the sesame seeds, and do not forget your finger-licking freshly done tahini salad dressing! :) Toss together, carefully checking the seasoning, and serve with the sesame seeeds sprinkled over the top.

Serve straight away, eat straight away, smile straight away!

Oh! And if interested, get your copy of 'jamie's kitchen' for under £2 from amazon. This is quite an old book, so second hand copies are easily available.