Croatian Food Odyssey

I used to want to marry Giles Coren, but a few incidents recently (nothing to do with editorial hissy fits – I liked them) are making me wonder if he’s not just a bit of a knob. Don’t worry; I would never normally be as unprofessional as to slag people off, but he’s much ruder about most people all the time and his mushrooming ego wouldn’t allow him to take offence anyway.

The main thing that stopped me wanting to marry Giles quite so much was his disdain for Croatian food. IT IS WONDERFUL. He must not have eaten in the right places. That said, I didn’t eat in a single place that wasn’t incredibly good and I wasn’t even trying very hard so I don’t know how he would have managed that.

It’s a fusion of Mediterranean and Eastern European cuisine that revolves around a bountiful and diverse array of fantastic local ingredients – abundant seafood, salt marsh lamb from Pag Island, suckling pig, wild boar, truffles, hot peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, potatoes, olive oil, wine and so on. Influences from the west are pizza, risotto and seriously dreamy ice-creams, and from the east comes peka; super-slow-cooked potatoes in olive oil, garlic and herbs, with octopus or meat. And shredded cabbage.

Seriously, Giles, I want to go back just to explore more of the food (although the scenery is dramatically beautiful and varied too).  Try spit-roast suckling pig at a casual roadside eatery! Or barbecued wild sea bass with homemade chips and luscious salad by the sea. Spit-roast lamb at Tamaris in Zadar (on an industrial estate/retail park by a main road, but don’t be put off) is outstanding and comes with THE most delicious peka potatoes. I am not even a potato person but I can’t imagine eating anything more enjoyable than these soft, salty, oily, addictively ambrosial spuds.

Spit-roast lamb and peka potatoes at Tamaris

Spit-roasting suckling pig, by the roasdside

Delicious plate of suckling pig, tasty potatoes and warm pickled cabbage, 

after a starter of exceptionally good octopus salad.

The people were delightful too! Impeccable English everywhere, an eagerness to help Croatian exploration, and not a tiny whisp of the old tourist-foreigner resentment you sometimes sense when abroad was detected from anyone during the 10-day break.

We were given homemade cherry jam by our hosts; offered homemade grappa by other hosts. And the cherry jam hosts came to find us late at night when our sat nav failed to nav, drove us to their favourite restaurant the next night (at 11pm) and carried on being just as kind and friendly when they discovered we were renting their apartment in order to attend a big rave in their neighbourhood (Dimensions Festival).

A recent Croatian National Tourist Board's press release claimed that Croatia is ‘The ultimate foodie destination’. Interesting angle, because even apart from Coren’s erroneous views their cuisine has barely been covered by any foreign press and often – utterly inexplicably – it is criticised. But unlike lots of tourist board manifestos, the Croatians are making an entirely accurate claim (well, maybe ‘an’ ultimate foodie destination, anyway) and I bet pretty soon it will be ‘discovered’ as the biggest new thing in foodie travel.

Driving back to Trieste Airport through Croatia and Slovenia - 
breathtaking scenery (and wild wolves).

We stayed in one of lovely Marina and Ivan's apartments near Pula and the great top floor apartment with large sea view balcony belonging to Anita and Neven in Zadar.

My First Puffball

For so many years, I've been dying to try a puffball - their solid mushroom flesh looked so satisfying, and it would be so gratifying to find one and then have mounds of the flesh to gorge on, free of gills and stalks.

Well I didn't exactly find my first, because it was growing in some friends' garden. There were loads of them, slow-mo popping out of the ground, like bubbles appearing in boiling water. I chose a medium-sized one (about 15cm across) and carefully pulled it off the ground. It had such a small area joined to the earth compared to the size of the mushroom.

That was last night. At lunchtime today, I peeled half of it (slugs had been munching the outside) and sliced it. It was lighter and softer than expected. I then obviously had to try my first puffball fried in butter with garlic and parsley. It was soooo damn good! Soft and silky - not slimy - with the distinct mushroom flavour.

The other half will go in an omelette for my supper.

My puffball experience has added to the loveliness of my autumny day - the first really cold day after a run of hot weather, so I lit the fire before going out into the sunny, crisp, dewy, morning to the village market. When I got back, the house had warmed up and I sat working by the fire until my mushroom lunch...

Tunisia-Inspired Meal

I made moutabel, humous and flatbreads for some friends, followed by ojja. I was really pleased with the result, and my guests naturellement loved it all. The moutabel made good use of my bumper crop of aubergines, too.

The ojja was made with garlic, olive oil, green peppers, cumin, aniseed (didn't have caraway), green olives, merguez sausages and garden tomatoes, with eggs broken in near the end.


Humous with olive oil, smoked paprika and basil flowers


Moutabel with pomegranate molasses, walnuts and parsley


Anyone know where I can get whole blanched almonds in the Dordogne? I want to make the cous-cous we had in Tunisia, but in this part of France almonds only seem to be available either with their skin or flaked.

Snail Feast

June spent in France was wonderful; catching up with old friends, enjoying the novelty of the amazing produce, re-acquainting myself with my kitchen and garden, and proper hot summer weather.

When I first arrived, my herbs were being munched by a plague of snails. So I decided to resolve the problem by munching them. Previously, I had been put off by unsuccessful snail-cooking attempts, and there were never that many of them to cook. This time there were dozens and dozens, and I was determined to make them delicious. I had three weeks to purge them (fed only on bread followed by days of nothing at all), before serving them up to friends as a goodbye meal at the end of my stay.

Three weeks of culinary adventures and good times went by. The day of the feast arrived hot and sunny, and I drove my blue banger to the village to get some still-warm baguettes, wine, salad, a massive bunch of parsley and butter. Then, back to my little beauties...

I boiled a huge jam pan of water, rinsed off the snails, shook them to make them retreat into their shells, and winced as I chucked the lot into the boiling water. Job done, the worst bit over. After a few minutes, the snails were draining and cooling and definitely dead. I extracted each one from its shell and removed its twirly gut end, before boiling the meats with herbs and stock veg for 3 hours. The shells were rinsed, boiled in fresh water, and left in the sun to dry.

Meanwhile, I chopped the mountains of garlic and parsley, stirred them into soft butter, and seasoned the mixture with plenty of salt.

Then came a few hours of stuffing each snail back into a shell, each squadged in with a load of the persilade (garlic and parsley butter).

Preparing snails

Next, I dressed the table, mixed the salad, opened the wine, and set out nibbles. Once my guests had arrived, and were having aperitifs, I put the snails in a hot oven for 20 minutes. Out they came, sizzling and smelling fantastic. I dished them up at the table and finally found out that my snail adventure had been a success - they were absolutely delicious, and this was confirmed by my guests, who were Dutch, English and French. The Frenchman commented that he hadn't had snails in ages, and it was funny that this time they had been cooked by an English person. The Dutchman had never eaten snails, and was delighted by them. The Englishman had tasted my previous attempts and was relieved that these were not only edible but extremely palatable and moreish. Hmmm even more salt with the butter next time, though, I think.

Tasty snails

I was thrilled that I had been able to make these slimy creatures tasty at last, and that I had put my snail glut to such extremely good use. All the effort and man hours had been worthwhile. I will definitely be making this a regular pest-control exercise/snail party.

Brighton; Kurdish Restaurant Reccommendation, Pomegranate

There are so many restaurants in Brighton, mostly with the same 'for-educated-foodies-but-not-fine-dining' aim, that it is difficult to decide which to try next, and a gamble that your chosen venue will achieve its aim. Here is one to try that you might miss, without a recommendation: Pomegranate, in Kemptown. It's in a side street (Manchester St), just near Harry Ramsden's on the sea front, and it's not only good, but interesting and exciting, too.

For starters, the very fresh garlic chilli prawns were juicy, perfectly cooked and genuinely very spicy and garlicky indeed. They were covered in chili oil and coriander in oil, richly seasoned, and served on top of a light flatbread. The flatbread soaked up the absolutely delicious oil and juices. Yesss! It was that elusive find; a chef who is not afraid of serving plenty of flavour or oil. My companion was so impressed, that he ordered a second plate of the spicy prawn dish to go with his main course.

Prawns with garlic and hot pepper

Next up was lamb kebabs for me, lamb chops for him. The kebab dish was one of the nicest things I've ever had in my mouth; plate-sized, puffy, soft flatbread, with chunks of tender griddled lamb, Pomegranate's 'special butter-yogurt sauce', HOT and fragrant chili oil in a pot, beautifully roasted Mediterranean vegetables, delicate salad (lovely, not-too-sweet honey dressing), and this buttery, salty erm.. stuff all over the bread and soaked into a little mound of rice. I would normally leave all the rice with a carby dish like this, but the butter sauce was so unbelievably delicious, that I had to keep going. I didn't want this dining experience to end, anyway. Plus, I kept having sneaky tastes of the prawns again, and then having to finish once more on the butter.

The generous portion of char-grilled chops came with a mellow lemon and oregano oil, dainty salads and rice. Both massive platefuls were big on presentation, but the portions were not over-sized - just generous and presented with a bit of refined and pretty drama.

Lamb kebabs

Everything was so goddamn tasty, running with flavour and mouthwatering juices, and perfectly balanced in every direction. All the dishes were clearly cooked to order, and everything was certainly made from scratch on the unassuming premises. I really wish I'd had room to taste the delightful-sounding stuffed figs, but hopefully another time. Even though I'm usually on a mission to keep trying new places, this is one place I have to go back to - my mouth waters at the thought.

The prawns were £6.50, the main courses about £12 - amazing value, considering the thought, skill, ingredients and effort that had gone into the food here, compared to other similarly-priced restaurants. I've just seen from Pomegranate's website (www.eatpomegranates.com), that their ingredients are organic, and the chef (Hassan) is also the joint owner, which all helps.

The waitress (is that the owner/chef's partner, Zelal?) was friendly, attentive and discreet. The timing between courses was ideal. (UPDATE: That wasn't Zelal - we met her the next time we ate here, when she was our waitress - highly professional with a sparkling sense of humour.)

I'm utterly chuffed to have found this eating option! Thank-you, Pomegranate, for a special meal.