Well, before I get to the recipe itself, I would like to introduce you, as briefly as I can, to that part southern Serbia. Maybe for the reason that Zaplanje after so many years (by marrying a handsome Zaplanje 😉) simply crawled under my skin, conquering me with its beauty, to people and nothing less food. This love is expressed in many texts on my blog, and here I will only look back a little on the production of the basic foodstuffs needed for the bakery. I hope you won't mind me 🙂

Although life at the foot of the mountain is enough harsh, heavy and rather monotonous, alleviates it somewhat beautiful nature i diversity delicious dishes which are prepared by experienced Zaplanjske housewives.

I grow cereal in that part of southern Serbia, a large part of the remaining population, mostly older people, still work today. young like everywhere, they leave the villages, hoping for a better and easier life in cities, inside and outside the country.

But that's why the quality of wheat from this region is still excellent, so everything that is kneaded with flour from that region is incomparably the sweetest (every year I bring about 100 kg of that flour to Austria, all doughs and cakes are simply better with it 😁 and believe it or not no, I spend it all 😉). The electricity mills in Zaplanje were replaced a long time ago old mills, but the quality of the flour is almost the same.

People still do it, but less and less by raising livestock, more sheep than cows, it seems to me, and you can still get it directly from the peasants, buy homemade sheep's or cow's cheese(in Zaplanje kazu - "cheese") From early spring to late autumn, cattle are taken to the graze to the mountain, the part called Rakosh. Alternately, the herd owners stay up there, milking the sheep and cows, while the others from the village come early to take the milk home, where they make cheese. In the summer months, it is difficult to keep the cheese from "soaking", i.e. to change the structure and taste, not to mention that it doesn't spoil. That's why housewives, in addition to all their duties in the household, garden and field, especially in the summer, have to give every day they argue about cheese, that is. lumps, as they say about pieces of cheese, which are stored in whey.

As the elderly population loses strength and it becomes more and more difficult for them to take care of the cows and sheep, some of them, after selling off those large livestock, they raise goats, one or two, in order to supply themselves with milk for their needs.

There is no yard or meadow around the house in Zaplanje, which is not the case they run and peck koke, liferants of delicious, so yellow-orange eggs, besides which you can forget about any baking. Delicious "on the eye" for breakfast or a snack, it's a bit difficult for my children to spread 4 or 5 at once 😁, and when I use them for a cake or some other dough, everything turns nicely yellow from those eggs. Beauty to see, but only taste 👌.

Try now, after this introduction and these beautiful pictures, to imagine the taste of banica, when a Zaplanjka makes it for you from all these ingredients, produced in your own household, baked in smederevac... hmmm…

But don't worry, anywhere in the world you can make delicious banica with the help of this recipe, try it! 🙂

Apart from the ingredients listed below, invest first of all the time needed for the dough to rise, and that on several occasions. Because that's what makes banica so soft and delicious 🙂 That's why, don't stare when you prepare it 😉

INGREDIENTS NEEDED FOR THE DOUGH:

1 cube of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar

2dl of lukewarm water

3-4 tablespoons of flour

more

1 kg of flour

1 teaspoon of salt

lukewarm water as needed

more

flour for sprinkling the work surface when stretching the crust

FOR FILLING YOU NEED:

5 eggs

400 g of sheep's or cow's cheese (feta type)

500 g of young cheese

salt as needed (depending on the saltiness of the cheese)

READ: Homemade crispy bread without kneading

PREPARATION:

Mix the yeast, sugar, water and flour together and wait for the mixture to fill the zinnia.

During this time, pour 1 kg of flour into a deeper and larger mixing bowl and mix with one teaspoon of salt.

Add the ready-made sourdough mixture to the flour and add lukewarm water as needed, to get the dough as thick as for bread. Knead the dough until a uniform and smooth mass is obtained.

Cover the dough with a kitchen towel, until the dough doubles in size (30-45 minutes). After that, stir and wait for another half hour.

In the meantime, prepare the filling - just mix all the ingredients well and combine.

If you are a perfectionist, you can divide the filling into 6 bowls, so that each crust has the same amount of filling 😉

When the dough has risen a second time, transfer it to a floured work surface. Divide it into 6 equal parts and form balls. Then arrange them next to each other on the work surface and press each one a little with the palm of your hand. Cover again with a cloth and wait for twenty minutes.

Coat a round, larger pan (the largest that can fit in your oven) with melted butter, and if you don't have any, coat with oil.

Now roll out each ball with a rolling pin, as thin as possible, in the shape of a rectangle, as much as possible. Then coat it with melted butter (or oil) and then apply the filling (contents of 1 cup or 1/6) over the entire surface.

Now fold the shorter ends of the crust towards the middle (3-4 cm), to prevent the filling from leaking. Do the same with the long ends, but several times, both ends towards the middle, so that they meet.

Then carefully roll the crust into a spiral and with great care (so that it does not break) transfer it to the middle of the pan. Arrange the other crusts in the pan as shown in the pictures.

Coat the contents of the pan with oil, cover it again with a cloth and let the volume of the dough increase and almost fill the pan (this takes about half an hour, or maybe 45 minutes).

Turn on the oven at 200°C, so that it heats up until the dough is ready for baking, i.e. until it grows big enough.

Bake for about an hour.

Instead of bread, you can serve it with boiled sauerkraut (click the recipe here), as they usually do in Zaplanje.

Pleasant!

Lena Krstic

Source: https://malaprge.wordpress.com/2019/09/17/zaplanjska-kisela-banica/

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