Recipes

Serves 4 :

• 1 kg eels
• 18 frog pieces
• 0.5 kg onion
• tomato paste
• bay leaf, salt, pepper, oil, vinegar, 2 hot peppers

Add 3 tablespoons of blended or olive oil to a pot with a thick bottom. When heated, add 0.5 kg of finely chopped onion, 3 bay leaves and several hot Neretva peppers. Sautee well. Add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 1-2 tablespoons of sea salt, 6 dl water and 1 kg eels cut into cubes. Cook for 25-30 minutes. When the eels are cooked, add the 18 frog's pieces and 3 tablespoons of vinegar. Cook well. The stew must not be stirred with a wooden stick, instead, the pot must be gently tipped from left to right. It is served with cooked cornmeal. The old people of the Neretva Valley say "Add as many hot peppers as there are fish heads in the pot".

Serves 6:

• 0.5 kg fresh cuttlefish with black ink
• 0.5 kg various shellfish
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
• 3 small garlic cloves
• pepper
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 0.15 L olive oil
• 0.1 L white wine
• fish stock
• 0.40 kg rice

Clean the cuttlefish and squid (leave the ink sac), chop into pieces and sauté on oil until tender. Add garlic, parsley, tomato paste and pepper and stir well. Add shrimp and shellfish and sauté until shells open. Add rice and stir for 2-3 minutes. Add fish stock, twice the amount of the rice, and a little of the cuttlefish ink (to turn the mixture grey). Cook over low heat about 12 minutes, add 0.1 L of dry white wine and let boil. Remove from heat and serve immediately.