Sunday, November 30, 2014

Recipe for Clacita

Clacita (pronounced Klachita), also known as blintzes is a Berry family tradition from my Mom’s Yugoslavian side. Clacita is the Romanian word, Palatschinke is Serbo-Croatian. She has been cooking these for us all of our lives. She grew up in former Yugoslavia and cooked Clacita for workers in the field, by the hundreds, when she was just a little girl. She would cook them over a wood burning stove and ended up burning her arms many times. Thanks Mom for all your sacrifice. She is a true cook, which means she has no clue what proportions are needed, she does things by feel. I experimented until I believe I got the recipe down. Here it is:


2 cups of white flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
-mix dry ingredients with a whisk
2 eggs
-break egg yolks into dry ingredients
2 1/2 cups of water
-pour water into other ingredients and mix thoroughly 

**as you are assembling your dry ingredients get a crepe style pan and turn it on medium high (2/3 full flame), let it heat up for the 3 minutes it takes you to get your stuff mixed together
**brush on some sort of vegetable oil in between each Clacita. This is an important step. If you use butter or spray it will mess up the flavor. 
**use 1/3 cup of batter for each Clacita, placing the full amount in an upper third of the pan and roll the pan around after its placed to get a nice full round shape. 
**I place each Clacita on a plate and cover it each time with a cloth/small towel to help them all be warm when served.
**it is a great fun for the kids to be given little corners as they are made. Preferred verbage is “bring your lips over her.” :)
**These can be served with whatever you want: eggs, jam, sour cream, nutella...consider it a poor man’s crepe, because that’s kind of what it is. I know I know, nutella isn't too poor sounding but it tastes good. 
**They are traditionally rolled and eaten whole.