Pork meat is the main dish in Vojvodina for everyday meals. It is served braised, roasted or stewed. For holiday festivities it is mainly prepared on the roasting spit. Other types of meat served in Vojvodina ; are chicken, goose, duck and poultry, beef, lamb and mutton.
On Sundays, the most frequent dish on the table is whole roasted chicken, chicken legs, pork chops or pork ribs roasted in its own sauce, breaded steaks ( various meat ) and meatballs.
Particular types of meat are prepared for special occasions. For Christmas it is goose stuffed with apples, chestnut, walnuts, and dried plums and roasted with garlic under its wings.
Side dishes with meat are various vegetables in form of cuspajz or djuveč: peas, grean beans, spinach, savoy cabbage, carrots, and courgettes.
Potatoes are frequently prepared in various ways: roasted in skin ( u čakšire ) , bakers’ style, fried, mashed, etc.
On workdays cooked meals including both meat and vegetables are at the table: gulaš, paprikaš, beans, stuffed peppers, sarma, sarmica, cabbage or sauerkraut, pilav, mousaka, etc.
Greece is the geographical origin of ” green ” sarmica ( Dolmades ) , which is made of grapevine leaves in several forms here in Vojvodina. Instead of the grapevine leafs, various sorts of cabbage leafs are used, or sometimes leafs of horseradish. The meat used for sarmica is minced beef and pork in equal proportion. Sarmica is served with sour milk or sour cream.
Hungarians were pioneers in inventing various forms of meet preservation. The meat pieces were boiled with available vegetables until every single drop of water evaporated. Later the dish was improved into three more
dihes:
■ Perklet – a drier variant of gulaš, the meat is more fried than cooked.
■ Paprikaš – a variant of gulaš, with added flour and large quantity of sour cream.
■ Tokanj – Erdelyi variant of differently spiced gulaš, the product of influence of both Hungarian and Romanian cuisine.
Sekelji gulaš ( Szekelygulas )
This is a traditional winter dish of the poor population.
There are several stories about its origin, here is one of them.
One evening in winter of 1846, Imre Sekeljy, a public notary in Pešt, came to a small restaurant ” Music clock ” for hisual meal, but rather late. The restaurant staff managed to collect some leftovers of the dishes for that day’ s offer: sauerkraut, several spoons of paprikaš with pork meat and covered it with sour cream. They were all worried not to disappoint or make angry the respectable guest and they offered him the dish with fear. To their surprise, he enjoyed it and asked to have it next time, too. The cook and the restaurant owner tried their quick ” specialty ” and were delighted with the taste of new combination of ingredients. Soon it was added to the restaurant menu. It turned out that the renowned Hungarian dish was invented by chance.
One of quickly prepared and widespread dishes that you can try in Vojvodina is ” bećar ” paprikaš. Experienced cook ladies from Bunjevci population prepare ” ćoravi paprikaš “ the dish without meat, mostly prepared on workdays and served with cabbage salad and apple sauce.
Numerous rivers, lakes and fishponds render the abundance of fresh water fish : carp, catfish, zander and crucian carp. Therefore, there are fish broths and fish stews as well as roasted fish at the lunch table in Vojvodina.
You may also try : paprikaš with carp or catfish, Apatin style carp, catfish with sauerkraut, Srem style sturgeon, pike in ” mundir ” , Vojvodina style roasted crucian carp, zander with butter and potatoes, catfish djuveč, catfish heads in white wine, etc.
On of the distinguished dishes is drunken carp. Why drunken? Because it is the scraped carproasted in sauce prepared beforehand of finely chopped garlic and parsley, grated carrots with addition of spices and white wine.