Struklji

My country has quite a few delicious dishes that are considered a typical food. One of them is called struklji (pronounced shtroo-klyee) and even if they can be a pain to prepare, they are still one of my favorite dishes from my country.

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This is how struklji look like. Just looking at this picture makes my mouth water. This is a variation of struklji with cheese.

One of the downsides of living far away from home is missing the food from your home country. Because you know what people say - your mother makes the best food. And no matter how many times I tried to make struklji in the United states of America that would taste as good as the ones my mother and grandma make, but I can never get that perfect taste. Well, I guess I need to practice more. My friends here love them, so I make them quite often. And this is how you make them:

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 500 grams of all purpose flour
• Two large eggs
• One tablespoon of canola oil
• A cup of salted water

For the filling:

• 300 grams of grinded walnuts
• 1/2 deciliters of milk
• One deciliter of heavy whipping cream
• One cup of breadcrumbs
• 100 grams of sugar
• Two large eggs
• Cinnamon
• Lemon peel
• Raisins (if desired)

For the toppings:

• Butter
• Breadcrumbs
• Sugar
• Cinnamon

Preparation

The preparation of struklji consists of three parts - preparing the dough, preparing the filling, and preparing the toppings.

First of all, the dough. Put the all purpose flour, eggs and canola oil in a medium - sized bowl. Mix together and add salted water. Not all of it, add a few tablespoons first - the dough has to stay together. Make sure the dough is smooth, without any bumps in it. You will get the best results if you knead it with your hands, not with the mixer, and this is also the original method of preparation.

When you are done, make a loaf and brush the top with canola oil. Put the dough in a heated bowl (just heat it up in the microwave for a few seconds), cover and let it rest for thirty minutes. In the meantime, you can start making the filling for struklji.

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This is how the struklji dough should look like after the thirty minute 'rest'.

Secondly, the filling, also known as the most delicious part of struklji. And you can eat it by itself. First, bring the milk to a boiling point. Then, put grinded walnuts in a medium - sized bowl and pour boiling milk over it. Mix well and let the mixture cool down.

Separate egg yolk and whites. Mix sugar and egg yolks in one bowl, and in the other bowl, mix the egg whites. Make sure you mix them well enough to become fluffy. Then, mix together the egg yolks and egg whites, and add a mixture of walnuts and milk. Add a teaspoon of cinnamon, the lemon peel and, if desired, raisins.

Flour the counter and roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Cut the dough into equal parts, each part should be about the size of your palm. When you are done with cutting, take one slice, place it on your palm and take some filling with your hand and place it on the dough. This is a trial and error thing - you will sometimes take too much filling and sometimes too little. Press the ends of the dough slice together with your fingers to seal the delicious filling inside. And at this point, I would like to give you an advice - make sure you press both ends of the dough together well, otherwise the filling will fall out during cooking.

Bring water to a boiling and cook the struklji for about five minutes over low heat. Do not stir. When done, you can simply pick them out with a spoon - do not drain them because they will fall apart. Let them cool down.

And now the toppings. There are two commonly used toppings for struklji, and some people love to have both of them at the same time. I personally only like the first one, because I think that both of them combined do not mix very well.

The first topping is simply a mix of sugar and cinnamon. Take a few teaspoons of sugar and mix with a teaspoon or two of cinnamon. The exact amount of course depends on your preference and how many struklji are you planning to top with that.

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This is how struklji are served with the topping of sugar and cinnamon.

The second topping are breadcrumbs, briefly fried in melted butter. And this topping smells delicious. For that topping, you can simply use the remaining breadcrumbs from before. Put butter in a frying pan first, then add the breadcrumbs and fry until they become golden brown.

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This is how struklji are supposed to be served - this is a variation with melted butter and breadcrumbs.

Storage

Struklji are incredibly easy to store - all you have to do is freeze them, and they will be good for quite a few months. When you are ready to eat them, just boil some water beforehand, and you do not even need to defrost them - just put them in the boiling water and cook for five minutes.

Variations

The exact preparation of struklji varies from region to region, but the result is more or less the same for all of them - it is delicious. There is a variation of regular struklji where the filling is cheese, and they are more commonly served as a side dish, other than dessert. Personally, I prefer the dessert version much more.

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