Cooking in Croatia

In Dubrovnik we rented an apartment in the old town walled-in medieval city, and decided to use the kitchen to make a home-cooked meal with fresh Croatian ingredients. In the outdoor market I found fresh produce, spices, and an assortment of typical things to the area, including honey, dried orange peel and lavender. We got a small bottle of Croatian olive oil and some parsley, and snagged a sprig of fresh basil that came as a garnish with breakfast at the cafe, pocketing it for later. (Also the butter packet. Classy, I know.)

Croatia borders Italy, of course, sharing the Adriatic Sea and all its bounty. So we got shrimp and some pasta from the market, and from the fresh produce stands selected zucchini and a red onion for vegetables, and garlic and lemon for cooking. For appetizers we got some Croatian cheese (similar to provolone), salami, olives, and of course some Croatian white wine.

Appetizers by our window looking out at the old city of Dubrovnik:

Given the ingredients we found at the market, for dinner I made shrimp scampi: dropped the pasta, sauteed the garlic in olive oil, added the shrimp, grated lemon zest, deglazed the pan with a splash of white wine, added the lemon juice and parsley, pulled the pasta from the water while still al dente, dropped in into the pan with the shrimp-lemon-garlic-wine sauce to cook through, added a splash of the starchy cooking water to thicken the sauce, poured it all back into the pot and finished with the stolen pat of butter and basil leaf sprig to garnish.

For the vegetable side dish I sliced the zucchini thin and caramelized the red onion in oil, adding more garlic, parsley, and a pinch of sugar to get the onions meltingly sweet, and browned the zucchini until soft and tender.

We realized we had no salt or pepper in the apartment - staples I rarely cook without - but with our garlic, olive oil, and fresh herbs, the food still had a ton of flavor, all fresh and light. It was a lovely home-cooked dinner: