27 Jan 2014

Cooking Banitsa in Arbanasi



After finishing my medieval adventure at Tsarevets castle successfully I immediately received my next mission. This time I had to tackle a more culinary type of mission with the help of friends and followers.

I needed to figure out what a Banitsa is and then prepare it for my travel buddies. I'm not much of a hero in the kitchen but gave it my best.

Discover how this finger licking adventure unfolded below.

Dig in ;-)




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First thing I needed to find out were the ingredients to prepare a Banitsa, a typical Bulgarian breakfast dish.

On Facebook
You can find the answers Alexander and Elena gave me in the embedded Facebook post below ;-)



On Instagram




Once I got the ingredients (Flour, eggs, water, feta cheese and pastry) I went shopping at the local shop where I got a bit lost in translation. Check the YouTube episode above to see how that went :-)

Banitsa ingredients


I bagged the ingredients and made my way to Arbanasi which is a tiny village close to Veliko Tarnovo. Everything there was covered under a blanket of snow and it just looked incredibly pretty.

I was invited to 'Arbanashki han' where Stephan the cook was waiting for me.

Arbanashki han in the snow

table set for Banitsa preparation

There are no pictures of the cooking itself but there is video. Check the episode above. Have fun watching it, I know I had fun making it. :-)

Arbanashki han cook Stephan and I with the almost ready Banitsa

Once the Banitsa was prepared it still needed some time in the oven so I went on a guided tour around this ancient and historical place. Apparently it was a popular meeting spot for politicians back in the days.

Entering Arbanashki han

Arbanashki han meeting room

Arbanashki han bedroom

Arbanashki han library with Steve Hanish from www.back-packer.org


After our little tour through the history of this house the Banitsa was ready so we gathered around the table and digged in. I gotta say that it's quite heavy as a breakfast dish but it tasted really good. Quite happy I didn't ruin it even though I suspect they made another one in the kitchen just to be sure :-)

The Banitsa

First Shopska salad and a beer

Then a slice of nomnom Banitsa

So if you ever visit Bulgaria and end up in Arbanasi, go check out Arbanashki han and give Stephan a big high five from me and enjoy the delicious Bulgarian cuisine that he'll cook up for you ;-)


Dobar apetit (enjoy your meal ;-))



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