I visited Belgrade in the summer of 2000. It was just after the war, and the city had not yet reopened. It was a magical visit, while the scars of war were visible everywhere (it was obvious that the USA had deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy), the people seemed to have decided not to dwell on it. Because there were few foreigners there, the people treated us like old friends. I have never felt more welcome.
One dish I particularly remember was a ubiquitous salad. I recently googled it, and it's called shopska, and is common across Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
It's very simple, chopped tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, onion and white cheese, tossed in a vinaigrette. I am sure the version we ate used a curd cheese, like cottage cheese. All the recipes suggest feta, or sirene, which is a less salty feta.
I went a different way 😁
Labneh is a middle eastern cheese/dip that if you have yogurt in your fridge, it's trivial to make. You just need to add some salt, then spoon the yogurt into a lined sieve, and let the whey drain off. It's basically ultra thick Greek yogurt, with salt and optionally lemon juice. I had made some, so decided use it in the salad. It was not firm enough to slice, so I blobbed it into the salad a teaspoon at a time, coated in olive oil to help it keep its integrity. The sharp, ultra creamy blobs were nothing like cottage cheese or feta.
The result was amazing. So delicious! I thought I was going to be eating leftovers for days, but instead I powered through all the salad (large cucumber, large red pepper, 4 large tomatoes and a shallot + dressing and cheese) and then scoffed the last of the labneh with a spoon. I was in heaven ♥
Pictures clockwise:
Left over sour whey (around 350ml) that I hope to find a culinary use for.
Labneh in sieve
Salad
My attempt to slice the cheese 😂
Lytham for veggie off!
