KOMIŠKA POGAČA

Recipe Provided by Martinis Family

Dough:

¼ cup warm water (≤110 degrees)

pinch sugar

1 pkg dry yeast (approx 2 tsp, but less is OK)

1¼ cup room temp water

1 tsp salt

4+ cups flour

Filling:

1 yellow onion thinly sliced and very lightly fried in olive oil

several Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced or diced, salted, and drained on paper towels

fresh garlic and parsley—added to onions at end of frying

anchovies, chopped

1. Put water in mixing bowl, add sugar, stir to mix, then sprinkle with yeast.

2. Let sit several minutes until yeast is creamy and starts to ferment.

3. Add additional water, salt, then gradually stir in flour to make a medium stiff dough.

4. Knead by hand or with heavy duty mixer until gluten is well developed and dough is

stretchy. Let dough rise until double in bulk.

5. Punch dough down to deflate and let rest for 15 minutes, then divide in half, with one

piece slightly larger.

7. Roll out larger piece on lightly floured surface to fit a 9x13 inch pan with dough

coming about ½ inch up the sides of the pan.

8. Brush with olive oil, cover with onion mixture, then tomatoes. Top with anchovies.

9. Roll out second piece of dough to cover pan. Crimp edges of crusts together. Let rise

15+ minutes, until puffy.

10. Bake at 350-375 degrees for 30+ minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly

before serving.

Notes:

1. You can use a favorite focaccia, pizza, or roll dough, though I think it best with a lean dough. If you don’t want to make the bread dough you can even use the frozen bread dough that you can buy at the grocery store.

2. You don’t have to use all of the dough. The pogaca I had as a child was very doughy, with thick crusts. Personally, I prefer it with thinner crusts.

3. Cooking time varies depending on how much filling you put in, juicyness or tomatoes, etc. Top should be brown and sound hollow when tapped; 200+ degrees on an instaread thermometer.

4. Amounts of the filling ingredients are up to individual tastes. If you don’t like garlic or parsley, leave it out. If you really like onions, add more. If you only have access to tasteless grocery store tomatoes, used canned. I usually buy the 2 oz cans of anchovies for this recipe. One can seems a good compromise, but I have cousins that think even ½ can is too much, and, to be honest, I would prefer to use two cans.

5. In the presentation I will talk a bit about tricks for making your own dough and alternative ways to do the filling

Growing up, pogača was a favorite of mine. My parents never made it but my grandfather, Matt Martinis (from Komiža on the island of Vis), did. When trying to explain it to non-Croatians we called it “Yugoslavian pizza” (this was in the days before the breakup of Yugoslavia). I’ve made it various time over the years, but have had to use anchovies as I had no access to the slana riba (salt fish) of my childhood.

As with so many foods from childhood, how we remember the food is how it was made in our homes, and we consider that the “correct” way to make it. Doing cooking demos at CroatiaFest over the years I have found that recipes for the same Croatian foods vary significantly depending on from what part of Croatia a family originated.

I have given two recipes. The first is the one I use now in which I try to replicate the taste I remember from my childhood. The second recipe is translated from a Croatian web site.

Komiska Pogaca -

a traditional dish in Komiza on the island of Vis

For dough:

1 kg of flour

a bit of salt

15g of dry yeast

100ml of oil

500ml of lukewarm water

For filling:

600g-700g red onion

400g of tomato paste or 5-6 fresh tomatoes

some garlic and parsley