Rudarska greblica

Appearance & taste

After baking, Rudarska greblica is cut into rectangular pieces at most 2.5 cm high. The crust is dark to golden yellow on the outside and soft, the inside creamy; the pastry melts in the mouth. It tastes salty and smells of cow’s milk cheese. It can be eaten just a few minutes after baking.

The name comes from the “greblica”, an oven rake used to stir the embers in a miner’s bread oven: the shape of the pastry resembles this tool.

Production

The dough is made from fine wheat flour, salt, sour cream, fresh yeast and sugar and rolled out very thinly by hand. The filling is fresh cow’s milk cheese, to which one of the following ingredients may be added: ground walnuts, spinach, chard, nettles, leek, mint or grated carrots.

The edges of the dough are pressed together and rolled upwards so that the filling does not escape during baking; the lower part overlaps the upper part, and the edges are folded at the top and shaped into points by hand. Before baking the surface is pricked several times so that it does not puff up and tear; after baking it is brushed with butter or margarine. The dough, the filling and the baking belong to the area; only pastry sold frozen and ready to bake may be baked outside it.

Origin & history

The area covers the town of Rude and the villages of Cerje Samoborsko, Braslovje, Kotari, Manja Vas, Bukovje Podvrško and Prekrižje Plješivičko. It lies in a valley of the Samobor Hills known for its once copper-rich mines, which were worked from the 13th century onwards.

According to oral tradition, the miners’ wives were already baking the pastry in the first half of the 16th century. Most miners’ families were poor, and greblica made from simple ingredients such as flour, milk, eggs and fresh cheese was the miners’ packed meal, often their main meal. Today the women of Rude pass on how to make it to the next generation, above all to their daughters, and Rudarska greblica is offered to guests as a welcome.

Since 1985 the Rudarska greblica Days have been held in Rude every year on the first weekend in July, with a competition for women from old mining families and workshops for the youngest visitors. In 2007 the pastry was entered in the register of protected intangible cultural heritage of Croatia. The reopened St Barbara mine with its museum also offers it all year round.