The Bergen Record
Legacy from a Croat mother
Wednesday, May 24, 2000
HEIRLOOM RECIPES
By PATRICIA MACK
Food Editor
Elizabeth Hroncich came to America in 1920 from Istria, a peninsula in
West Slovenia and Croatia that reaches into
the Adriatic Sea.
She brought with her the treasured recipe for a meat sauce that was a
specialty of the area and usually served with
very thin slices of beef and homemade flat macaroni, or capcipsa, as it
is known in Croatia.
"We always served it on holidays and at special family occasions," said
Hroncich's daughter, Jane Hroncich Miller, a
secretary.
Hroncich died in 1980. Miller continues to revere her mother's sauce
recipe, although she hadn't cooked it in a very
long time.
"When I made the dish so it could be photographed, the aromas in my
kitchen took me back to my childhood," said the
mother of three and grandmother of seven, who lives in Saddle Brook with
her husband, Walter.
"In Croatia it is a very well-known dish," she said. "The Croats, who
live up and down the coast of
the Adriatic, are well known for their superb sauces."
The sauce is called zvatset, and it is made with a bottom round and many
spices.
"At the very last of the browning, just before you add the final few
ingredients, it is important to add one more pinch of
cinnamon," Miller said.
It is an unusual meat sauce because it contains an apple cut into
pieces, grated lemon rind, and muscatel.
"I don't have a recipe for the capcipsa," Miller said. "But I
substituted flat sheets of pasta that can be purchased in
Italian specialty stores. It works well."
ZVATSET
Croatian Meat Sauce
(From Jane Hroncich Miller, Saddle Brook)
2 1/2 to 3 pound bottom round
2 pieces of garlic, cut into 6 small peices
1/2 stick margarine
1 tablespoon butter
2 large onions, cut up fine
Pinch each of allspice, ginger, chili powder, cloves, poultry seasoning,
basil, oregano, sugar, salt, and pepper plus a
pinch of cinnamon after browning
1 large apple cut into small pieces
Grated peel from 1 lemon
1/2 cup muscatel or other sweet white wine
1 large can of tomato sauce
1/2 can tomato paste
Grated Parmesan cheese
Wipe meat surface with a damp paper towel.
Slash the roast in 6 places, place garlic pieces in the slashes.
Melt the margarine and butter in a large pot. Add onions and brown.
Place meat in pot. Lower heat. Add all spices, except the last pinch of
cinnamon, together with apple, lemon peel and
wine.
Add a little water from time to time to prevent meat from sticking, as
the surface browns. When completely brown,
add the last pinch of cinnamon. Then add tomato sauce and paste.
Continue to simmer over a very low heat for at
least 2 hours.
After meat is cooked, strain pan juices through a sieve. The only thing
left in the sieve should be the peel from the
apple and lemon.
Remove meat from pan, slice thinly.
Serve with Parmesan cheese on the side.
Yield: 2 to 2 1/2 cups sauce.
Servings with thinly sliced meat: 8 to 10.
Note: The meat sauce can be served with any pasta.
Share your family's treasured recipes. Recipes for Our Heritage should
be sent to Our Heritage, Food Editor, The
Record, 150 River St., Hackensack, N.J. 07601; faxed to (201) 646-4047,
or e-mailed to mack@bergen.com. Please include a daytime telephone number.
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