Croatian cooking: the Christmas edition

Everything my family cooked during the holidays — including my mum's insane tiramisu recipe.

After two weeks of Croatian winter sun, long seaside walks, creamy macchiatos, chats with my grandparents, seeing my favourite seamstress, having tiramisu for breakfast, codfish for every meal, and wine with every lunch, I am back in Amsterdam, and my fridge is, of course, very empty.

I’m in that cozy end-of-year journaling, candle-burning mood and I’m looking at my Christmas tree and I genuinely feel really grateful for this year. I’ll write more on this later, but last year, my boyfriend and I bought this flat and underwent a renovation that drained our patience, and wallets tbh. Renovations are, in all honesty, a massive luxury but last December, when everything I owned was covered in a thin layer of dust, and when I was losing my mind, I thought, next year, this will all be cozy, and warm, and there will be a tree with all decorations I’ve been collecting for years. And look at it now.

Ignore the TV on the floor…. This is my first ‘big girl’ tree and it has decorations my mum made, some which I got from my grandparents, and a bunch of vintage glass fishes, mushrooms and ribbons. Some of my wish-listed vintage decorations on Vinted right now are: satin baubles, silver drops, straw angels, and old-school apples.

I’ve always been quite obsessed with traditions, memories, and preserving things / rituals through generations.

My grandparents and my mum are kinda my culinary muses. Notably, their handwritten recipes are framed on my kitchen walls, and my bachelor thesis was a cookbook of family recipes with each chapter dedicated to one family member (well only to the ones who are good cooks). They all have their signature dishes; my nono’s octopus salad, or cuttlefish stew, my aunt Mare’s zucchini fritters or brioche buns, or my mum’s chicken soup. For better and for worse, they are all very into making the same dishes over and over until they reach absolute perfection. And they reached it.

Handwritten recipes framed in our kitchen, and some very special occasion drinks!

I thought of showing you what my family cooked over the Christmas break. It’s all quite traditional, seasonal, local, farmers-market inspired, lunch-focused, and olive-oil drenched. It’s real family-style cooking and tbh it’s nothing too fancy. Let’s dive in!

Cuttlefish risotto for Christmas eve. My mum and grandpa do the well-known trick of freezing cuttlefish—or octopus—before cooking it to make sure its meat is soft and never rubbery.

I think tiramisu is the superior dessert, and my mum’s recipe, which she got from her coworker 10 years ago, is unparalleled. This is also the recipe I use for every dinner party so there you go, the secret is out.

Ingredients:

• 500g of mascarpone (the best one you can find, don’t cheap out)

• 400g of savoiardi biscotti (big ones, Italian, get it at the local Italian deli)

• 5 eggs (you want the egg yolk to be orange)

• 5 tbs of powdered sugar + 1 vanilla sugar packet (Dr. Oetker - every supermarket sells it)

• 40ml of coffee + 2 tbs of rum (or Marsala)

• cacao or Nesquik for dusting

Separate the egg yolks from egg whites. Have two bowls. In bowl 1, add egg yolks, in bowl 2, egg-whites. In bowl 1, mix (with a hand mixer) egg yolks with 3 tbs of sugar until fully integrated and foamy. Add mascarpone, and lightly mix until fully integrated. In bowl 2, beat the egg-yolks (hand mixer) until they look like stiff snow. Add 2 tbs of sugar to it and integrate. Add the mixture of bowl 2 to bowl 1. NOT of bowl 1 to bowl 2. And fold with a spatula. Do not mix too hard (God forbid with the actual mixer), ‘cause you will remove all the air from it. Do it slowly with a spatula. Add the vanilla sugar packet to the coffee + rum mixture and wait until it’s cold or room temp. Get a big serving dish. Dip the savoiardi biscotti shortly (literally 1-2 sec each side) in the coffee and add them to the bottom of the serving dish. Then comes the row of mascarpone, row of biscotti, repeat, repeat. At the end, on top of the final cream layer, dust with cacao powder. Cover with foil, and chill in the fridge minimum overnight.

And if you prefer Croatian, here it is in its original form.

Chicken soup with gris dumplings is the first thing I eat after landing on Croatian soil. Every single time.

I love a brothy soup, and my family, like many Croatian families, starts every meal with a collagen-heavy brothy soup. The broth is customisable (recipe here on my Insta) but the gris dumplings require some experience and every Croatian mum uses a bit of this, bit of that and there is essentially no proper recipe for it. But, I made this recipe (after trialing it relentlessly for months).

For gris dumplings:

• 8 flat tbs of gris (60g)

• 4 flat tbs of sunflower oil (35g)

• 1 flat tbs of olive oil (7g)

• 1 pinch of fine salt

• 1M-L egg

Make the dumplings by mixing all the ingredients together. Leave it to hydrate for 2’. You’re aiming for a thicker, but still liquidy mixture. Once the broth is boiling, put the heat on lowest. It must not bubble. Scoop out less than 1/2 tbs of the mix, with a spoon, and drop it in the broth with your finger or a spoon (I use my finger), quickly so dumplings cook evenly. Leave for 10’. Heat on lowest. Lid on. Take one out and slice in half. The middle should be cooked through.

Chicken and green-pea soup with a lot of fresh parsley, Croatian olive oil and garlic. Very saucy and perfect with lots of bread.

Fried chicken (pohano!!!) is very popular in Croatia and it’s a crowd-pleaser for obvious reasons. And cabbage and flat pasta is very local - usually drizzled with olive oil and very light.

Cabbage and potato soup with sausages and smoked paprika. Another wonderful wintery dish.

Roasted turkey for Christmas lunch. We eat it with mlinci which is an egg-based flatbread cooked in salted water. It’s popular in Croatia and in neighbouring countries and it’s comforting, savoury and special cause we eat it only for Christmas.

Minestrone by my grandma. Another nourishing soupy stew that is the embodiment of cucina povera. It has carrots, onions, leeks, potato, beans, lots of olive oil and is often topped with parmesan. Another favourite alternative of mine is bean and pasta soup (pasta e fagioli)

That’s it pals. A bit different, but I hope you liked it. And if you did, tell a friend about Cafe Léyo, and / or add a little comment below. Thank you so much for supporting me. I feel really creatively fulfilled by it, and I am so happy I actually started Substack, and not just talked about starting it.

Very very spoiled and wearing three Christmas presents in this picture; Lié Studio earrings from my boyfriend, Zara wool bandana from my sister-in-law and vintage leather gloves from my sister. ♡

I’m going to Lisbon tomorrow for a week of holiday, and a week of remote work. So expect a little winter Lisbon guide on Substack soon. Big kiss! And have a wonderful, cozy, and warm week. And thank you. L.