Traditional recipe for Montenegrin tsitsvara: ingredients, cooking procedure

In the traditional cuisine of Montenegro, the components are meat, vegetables and cheese. The dish should be tasty and satisfying. To prepare a popular breakfast, you need to know the recipe for tsitsvara. It is served in restaurants and cafes of the country’s resorts.

Components for a dish

Tsitsvara is a cheese porridge cooked with milk and other ingredients. The advantage of this national dish from Montenegro is satiety and calorie content. The tsitsvara recipe is universal; it can be found in all Balkan countries. The differences are minor, only in serving. Ingredients can be bought at the supermarket, no special products are needed for cooking.

Traditional Montenegrin soup is prepared from the following ingredients:

• Cheese. Take hard and semi-hard varieties, 150-200 gr. for one serving. It should be mature, the smell and taste will be sharper. Several varieties can be used.
• Milk. Fresh, not pasteurized, it will be boiled during cooking.
• Corn flour. It is needed to increase the viscosity to make a thick soup.
• Kaymak. Heavy cream for a sour taste.
• Salt to taste.

The classic recipe for tsitsvara uses a cast-iron pot to make it. But this is no longer practiced in Montenegro. At home, any pan will do. The soup is made on low heat, so you need a smooth adjustment of the heating temperature.

Montenegrin tsitsvara recipe

The kitchen must be well ventilated. When preparing tsitsvar according to the classic recipe, there will be a persistent smell of cheese. After cooling, it will decrease, only a pleasant aroma will remain. The pot holds up to 3 liters of water. For mixing take a wooden spoon. The cheese is cut into thin slices, if several varieties are used, they are mixed before being thrown into the container.

The classic recipe that is used in Montenegro:

• Pour milk and water into a saucepan, bring the mixture to a boil.
• Lower the heat and gradually add the cheese mixture.
• You need to mix with the same intensity, clockwise.
• After dissolving the cheese mass, corn flour is added. It is needed for the density of the tsitsvara.
• The resulting homogeneous mass is left to cool at room temperature.

Salt is optional, the cheese can be quite salty. Sprinkle the soup with pepper, you can use other spices.

Serving

The Montenegrin recipe for tsitsvar and serving it on the table is simple. Porridge is laid out on deep plates, in restaurants and cafes in Montenegro, Budva and Bar they use wooden dishes. Water is served, porridge can be salty. Tourists often pour sour milk over the dish.

Serving options:

• sprinkle the dish with herbs;
• add cracklings or pieces of fried meat;
• eat with honey or sweet syrup.

For the latter, you need to use a minimum of salt. The traditional Montenegrin recipe for tsitsvar does not change.