OBRNENK - UBRNJENIK - OBRNJENEK

Is a traditional dish made of buckwheat flour from the Upper Savinja Valley, around Luče, a very picturesque village near the road to the famous Logarska Valley. 

Buckwheat dumplings - Obrnenk 

It is rather heavy dish which was usually made in the morning for farmers breakfast, before starting hard work. Often they took it with them, wrapped in green horse radish leaves,  when going to work at the field or forest and had it for lunch.  It is characteristic and can only be found in this part of Slovenia. 

First time I tasted obrnjenek many years ago when we went with my father in law to visit his friends  from the time he started to work as a young teacher in this region. I did not think a lot about it till we came to Japan and saw a big interest for buckwheat or soba recipes from around the world. And in Slovenia we have many. In some way this provoke my curiosity  to start to learn more and search for our traditional recipes. I made this dish for Japanese friends and they liked it. 

Ingredients:

500 g buckwheat flour 

200 ml fresh cream

150 g butter

750 ml milk

1 tea spoon salt 

Instead of 100% buckwheat flour, a mixture of buckwheat and wheat flour can be used - 250g each.

Cooking method:

Boil milk in the pot, add butter to melt, fresh cream and salt. Keep aside. Roast the flour in a dry pan to smell - for about 10 minutes. Stir all the time with wooden spoon not to burn the flour. Pour prepared milk mixture over the roasted flour and kneed with the spoon well to get a big ball. 

Obrnjenek made like dumplings, onigiri.

You can serve it as it is in a big bowl seasoned with pork cracklings. In the past all members of the family gathered around the table to eat from one big bowl. They had a milk or white coffee with it. It goes also very well with yogurt which is a good substitute for home made sour milk, as they made it on the farms during the summer. You can also make small balls, dumplings, onigiri as you can see on photo.

I have to mention again that it is heavy  dish so better serve it in small portions. It can also be served as side dish. In Slovenia we would serve it together with very  traditional Mushroom Soup. Now is the season for picking up wild mushrooms, especially porcini. Needless to say that combination is very tasty.

For more photos see this LINK!