Proja

Over the past 4 months I have fluctuated between enthusiastically gorging on delicious continental pastries and then desperately sating my craving for something natural and nutritional by cooking up one-pot &  8 vegetable bonanzas. In Romania, Serbia, Bosnia & Albania I enjoyed an abundance of cheese & meat filled flaky pastry, my favourite being the bourrek, best executed in Bosnia.. not to mention the sweet treat of baklava Turkey had to offer.

So I learnt about Proja on my travels, when we stayed with a lovely Serbian family in the South of the country who looked after us very well. Zora, the mother is surely the best baker in the whole of Serbia, everyday there would be that wonderful smell of tenderly baked bread, the anticipation of tucking into the yield of her modest oven – rickety as hell, buttons wedged down with a spoon between the door and still she manages to create something magical every time! We swapped recipes with her daughter helpfully translating, I gave her the recipe for a vegan banana bread and she, the recipe for Proja.

Proja is a traditional Serbian corn cake. It is usually savoury, this the first time I have ever considered the concept of a savoury cake – and what a wonderful idea it is. It has got the cogs turning in my mind to create a whole new selection of recipes… first off – the original. I am back in the UK now, and pleased to be reunited with my spice cabinet! I had a go at Zoras’ Proja recipe only to have to adapt it to what was available in my village shop..

I used:

3 cups polenta, 1 cup plain flour, tsp baking powder mixed with 4 whisked eggs, 1.5 cups water, 1.5 cups rapeseed oil, 400g of flavours of my choosing and salt to taste.  Once well whisked together I baked them in individual muffin cases for about 20 mins on a high heat.

In Serbia you can buy cornflour, no not the corn flour we use to thicken sauces & gravies in England, flour made from corn – essentially polenta ground even finer into a powder. This makes the Proja come out all fluffy, mine tasted nice but had a denser, less cake like texture. The other thing i’ve only ever seen in the Balkans is ‘greaves’ which Wikipedia unappetisingly describes as ‘the unmeltable residue left after animal fat has been rendered’. The greaves I tried actually had quite a nice flavour, much like crackling but with the texture of carpet fluff. Destined for baking, think of it as a performer: not a great soloist, but in a choir, it’s off-notes are masked and it adds to an overall delightful performance! I used bacon and cheddar  cheese in my version of Proja, mimicing the Eastern European flavours of the smoked meats & salty sirenje cheese in an unavoidably British way. To add some sort of ‘exotic’ element, I added a pinch of floral mountain thyme I picked myself in Crete.

Iced with some cream cheese & the cherry on top: a crispy bit of grilled bacon, and they are ready to serve. Worth experimenting with if you want something unusual for a picnic lunch.