50+ Traditional Croatian Food Ideas To Try On Your Next Vacay (Or Make At Home)
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Loading... - Clarissa Gataki
- 03 Jun 2022
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People planning a trip to Croatia often ask us: what is traditional Croatian food? It’s a great question to ask when traveling to a new country and wanting to try the best of the local cuisine. And who doesn’t?
Many of our blog readers ask us about learning Croatian recipes, so we have those here if you’re keen to start cooking authentic Croatian food.
Food from Croatia has many influences. Mainly from the Italians, Turkish, Hungarians, plus a few others, this influence on food over the generations has shaped the types of Croatian food you’ll see and taste today.
Well-known local Croatian traditional foods you should try on your adventures include Mljet lobster, Ston oysters, Kvarner scampi, Istrian truffles, veal and pork from Slavonia, turkey from Zagorje and Istria, Pag cheese and the Lika cheese škripavac, delicious Palacinke pancakes, extra virgin olive oil, and pumpkin seed oil, and of course the wines.
We’re going to divide traditional Croatian food into a few categories below. There are sub-categories within these, but this makes it easy for you to know what Croatian dish to try on your travels and where to find them.
Will you be sunning yourself on the coast? Then you’ll be eating coastal Croatia food.
But if you’ll be heading inland, you’ll be served continental Croatian cuisine. That’s not to say you won’t get the other in each area, though. It just won’t be as easy to find. The cuisine between these two regions is distinctly different.
Here is a snapshot of traditional Croatian food from both coastal Croatia and continental Croatia. Once you’ve finished reading this you’ll never ask again “what is typical Croatian food?”…
Croatian Food: Coastal Croatia
The coast of Croatia consists of three regions: Istria, Kvarner, and Dalmatia. They all have their versions of these traditional Croatian dishes, so do try them all as you explore Croatia.
Peka
If there were a list of the most famous Croatian food, peka (also called Cripnja, depending on where you live) would unquestionably be on that list.
Peka is, however, not really a food but a method of cooking food.
The peka is a dome or bell-shaped terracotta or steel lid that you heat by burning wood below it. Once heated, you place the food you wish to cook in a round-shaped tray underneath the peka and put embers on top of the peka itself, which then cooks your food.
What do you put inside?
Well, you can cook any type of meat or fish using the peka. Recently, we prepared an octopus, which was terrific. Just remember that you always need to have potatoes, and I’d go so far as to say that the potatoes are the star of the dish. The potatoes suck up all the juices from the meat or fish and are so delicious you can’t stop eating them.
This is Croatian cooking at its best. So simple, yet so delicious. Don’t forget to wash it down with a glass of Croatian wine!
Skradinski Rizot – Skradin Risotto
Anthony Bourdain showed the world this epic risotto when he filmed “No Reservations” in coastal Croatia a few years back, making the Skradinski Rizot a famous Croatian food!
This risotto is something special. Far from your regular risotto, it takes anywhere from 7 to 12 hours to cook. Yes, that’s right; it takes half a day and requires a team of men to share the cooking duties.
There is no strict recipe, but it’s essentially a veal-based risotto, with the addition of other meats and ham and either a beef or rooster stock.
Once the Skradinski Rizot is done, the meal is finished with lots of Paski sir – cheese from Pag Island, which gives it that extra flavor.
Given the enormous effort that goes into cooking Skradin Risotto, you can appreciate that if you are going to make it, you should make tonnes of the stuff! Read More...
