“The New York Times”: Albanian specialties from the Bronx pizza oven

Pets that resemble, not the full moon, but the sun's rays, continue to lie down and add to the round container, while on the short pauses, molten cheese is placed. This job takes hours.

The upper part thereof seem like a parchment taken from the fire, and the ends thereof look bright, and the most faint of heart.

In Albania, this lovely dish known as sleep or sleep has traditionally matured outside, where it is put up to top with the hot hot sauce on the burning hearth.

In tradition, which was opened in February at the Norwood section in the Bronx, sleep is cooked in the big wood oven in the corner of the bar, a concession for modernization.

For years this narrow shop on the north end of the D train was a Nazi pizza.

However, few traces of the past remain. The oven is brand-new and imported from Italy, while its walls are covered with white and black photos from 19th-century Albania -- the most interesting of them shows a man with a mustache and a white eyelid on his head, while for generation, he has squeezed a friend with tegels and on his shoulder holding a rifle.

Ramiz Kukaj, an Albanian from Kosovo's Peja, had the first idea for Tradita nine years ago. His 12-year-old son in America had asked his father if he could take his company to an Albanian restaurant in order to tell them about his family's heritage.

Although the Bronx lives a large part of Albanian immigrants (and has been converted into housing for Kosovo refugees after ethnic cleansing from Serbia), Mr. Kukaj saw that: “could not find such a place. ”

On home trips to Kosovo, he began to collect antiques that he would then use for the dining room in tradition: a piercing tool to shed butter, a twisted sturgeon itself, broken vessels hanging on ceiling beams, writes The New York TimesTransmission RTK.

He asked noble Shala, a native of Pristina, as a cook; Demir Hamza, who had run a restaurant in Pristina for more than three decades, as manager; and from his son, Kastriot, now 21, to engage depending on the needs of the restaurant (he had proved to have talent for pizza cooking).

But the tradita has not yet turned into the type of restaurant you can sit in, the way old Kukaj wants -- that still takes time to realise, because next month he expects to open another bigger restaurant at Arthur Avenue in the south.

There's only a few tables in the current bar, all for two people, and by the time I visited it, all the other customers came to buy pizzas and took them with them.

I felt sorry for them, who did not have the opportunity to try Sharr's meatballs, a specialty of ground meat folded inside a doughnut and surrounded with fragile cheese from the highlands of Albania. It rubs on the grill until its juice withers and cheese melts. The level is quite obvious, almost “times”, but then your feeling of “too much” changes and turns into exactly what you were looking for!

The Albanian menu section is short and clearly dominates meat, including a smaller version of fatballs known as “qebapa” and the famous sausage, a bit of heat.

But there is bread to suck the salt - soft, delicious pies baked in the oven, and liquefy, a plate of corn flour filled with spinach and masquerade, a type of dairy that resembles the breast.

Mantia, meanwhile, can be eaten in two bites -- after the soft dough of the pit opens the way to ground meat, which still evaporates after the roast. The pie is also made of flour ready is a meal in itself, before which each captilulates. The most luxurious can also be made of goat cheese and maze.

They are served on wooden boards, easily cut and ready for consumption.

It's also worth a taste of thin pizza in the middle with a little thick circle.

However, the meat is above everything else: The pizza of the traditue is filled with beef, smoked at home for two weeks and soyves planted among dark olives.

At the top of the menu list are the words: “what's on top of the “and this will be the name of the new restaurant that will be opened at Arthur Avenue who will be fully dedicated to Albanian food. )

Mr. Kukay says he's never been able to find an adequate translation of this English word. But he has an explanation for that.

If we invite someone, but there's not much food left, then we serve with what's left. ”

It is a phrase born of poverty, he explains, and a testament to maintaining a spirit of generosity in times of distress.

“Even if we don't have anything, we'll have love and salt”, he says.