Dear LPG,

As promised (to myself) I focussed in on Serbia Statehood Day a couple of days early so that I could have a go at producing a plate of Borek and, looking through the recipe I thought that it looked quite straight forward, as long as I was not planning to try anything technical like making my own dough.  Having looked at the video, I decided that flinging it around in the air would not be a way forward for the novice that I am (►►►).

I always go with the ‘know your limitations’ approach to any cooking, so I skipped that part and went for pre-rolled filo pastry.  Ground lamb, pork and Beef was also more difficult to get than I thought so I went for minced and the liquidiser, but that turned out to be a somewhat sloppy way forward.   I started again with the minced version of the meats and, as you can see from my picture, it was not quite the same.   There seemed to be an awful lot of oil in the recipe which made me worry about the end result, but all that oil brushing did not end up making the dish as oily as I expected.

I had my reservations about drowning it all in the egg, oil and soda water mixture before putting it in the oven, and I put a bit less than they told me to as you can see, but I have to say that it was nice.  I think that my taste testers agreed although I made a point of not letting them see the picture that I was aiming to recreate.  Salute Serbia.

Now onto March and Ireland.  I think that most recipes from the emerald isle should be fairly straight forward for a person to try who practically lives next door and what else could I try but Irish Stew.

So with the taste of my version of Serbian Borek in my head and the expectation of Irish Stew to look forward to, I am ready for action (I think) …

CB, Lewisham.

CB prepares us for a taste of Ireland…

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