BREAK AN EGG

It was often said in the days when Tito ruled Yugoslavia that the country was one hundred per cent Marxist – fifty per cent Karl and fifty per cent Groucho. On the one hand the independent communist state was careful not to annoy the Kremlin too much, while on the other it went out of its way to attract Western investment, often of a kind that would seemingly be out of place in a proletariat state. Take casinos for example, which at the end of the Sixties were sprouting up all over the country.

I was at home in my Belgrade villa in the then diplomatic ghetto of Dedinje one evening when I received a call from Reno, Nevada. It was from a well-known casino owner who told me he was about to expand into Yugoslavia and open up shop at a former royal palace on the coast in Montenegro. To launch the new casino he was flying in a plane load of ‘high rollers’ and he was inviting me to join his guests at the ‘grand opening’.

I am not a gambler (at least I am not a heavy gambler), but it was an offer I could not resist. What did a ‘high roller’ look like? Who would fly all the way from the United States to Yugoslavia of all places to play at a blackjack or roulette table? I was soon to find out.

Among the many guests who flew in on the chartered jet was Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Startrek and his wife, a plastic surgeon who claimed he had ‘changed the face of Hollywood’, a part-Navajo horse breeder from Arizona, an American-Chinese antique dealer with his astrologist girl-friend from Toledo, Ohio and a chain-smoking, blue-rinsed columnist from New York’s Women’s Wear Daily.

As I have always had a more than average interest in food, the one of the characters who sticks out most in my mind was a rotund Californian lawyer who travelled with a briefcase specially fitted out to carry no less than eight bottles of his favourite ketchup. The briefcase would be with him whenever he ate, nudged between his feet at the table. During the four days I spent at the new casino resort, I watched this man desecrate meal after meal with his ketchup – including one of my favourite dishes from the area, the Montenegrin omelette. If you make it, promise me you will not smother it in ketchup!

MONTENEGRIN OMELETTE

For the omelette

8 eggs
3 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon salt
white pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
3 tablespoons butter

For the sauce

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 green chilli pepper, seeds and rib removed and finely chopped
2 sticks of celery, finely chopped
500 g can of tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ cup red wine
2 tablespoons slivovitz (or brandy)

Make the sauce first by heating the butter and oil in a large frying pan, then add the garlic and all vegetables apart from the tomatoes. Cook for 5 minutes on a moderate heat, then add tomatoes and seasonings and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the wine, stir and simmer, covered, over a lower heat for 10 more minutes. Uncover, add the slivovitz (or brandy) and simmer for a further 15 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Meanwhile, beat the eggs, milk and omelette seasonings. Heat the butter in a large pan and add the egg mixture. Cook until golden brown on one side, then turn over and cook the same on the other side.

Cut the omelette into 4 to 6 pieces and serve covered with sauce.

This dish can also be eaten cold, or with cold omelette and warmed up sauce.

Serves 4/6