Zagorski štrukli

Appearance & taste

Raw Zagorski štrukli are pillow-shaped and whitish-yellow, as is typical of wheat dough. They are 8 to 11 cm long, 4 to 6 cm wide and 2 to 5 cm high and weigh 70 to 130 g. Štrukli for cooking in soup are smaller: 5 to 7 cm long, 3 to 6 cm wide, 1.5 to 3 cm high and 50 to 100 g in weight. Fresh, they feel soft; frozen, they are hard.

To be eaten they are boiled, baked or gratinated or served in soup, as a starter, a dessert or a small dish in their own right.

Production

Fine type 550 wheat flour, oil (vegetable or sunflower oil, or alternatively butter or lard), salt and water are made into a smooth dough. This is rolled out by hand and pulled out so thinly that it is wafer-thin and translucent without tearing; according to the specification, this requires particular skill and experience. It is then spread with a mixture of fresh cow’s milk cheese, sour cream, eggs and salt, rolled up and cut into small rectangular pieces whose ends are sealed as tightly as possible so that the filling does not escape. The fresh cheese and sour cream must come from the area.

Everything from the dough through filling and shaping to packaging and, where applicable, freezing is done in the area. The štrukli are packed in suitable packaging and stored chilled; frozen products are frozen straight after packaging at the production site so that the cold chain is not interrupted.

Origin & history

The area covers Hrvatsko Zagorje: the whole counties of Krapina-Zagorje and Varaždin and adjacent border areas of Zagreb County, in particular the municipalities of Brdovec, Marija Gorica, Pušća, Dubravica, Luka, Jakovlje, Bistra and Bedenica. According to the specification, the štrukli are made to an old recipe; pulling out thin doughs is typical of Croatian cuisine and has been passed down over generations in Zagorje.

According to the specification, together with turkey with “Mlinci”, štrukli are regarded as the most important traditional food of Zagorje. Ethnological works count them among the typical dishes of the area, and the Encyclopaedia of Hrvatsko Zagorje, published in 2017, lists them. The “Štruklijada” is dedicated specifically to them and takes place every year in a different town in Zagorje. In 2012 Krapina-Zagorje County added štrukli to its list of traditional dishes, and the Croatian Ministry of Culture has protected the preparation of home-made Zagorski štrukli as intangible cultural heritage. In a survey of 1,000 people in Croatia in 2018, 91 % associated Zagorski štrukli with Hrvatsko Zagorje.