
For centuries, small, traditional Bosnian storefront restaurants known as Aščinicas have been making and serving family-style meals for sharing. These “small dishes with a spoon” showcase the diversity and depth of rustic Bosnian comfort foods. Tonight Ksenija “The Boz” Hotic will share with you a true taste of old Sarajevo.
The evening will be accompanied by a thoughtfully curated vintage music playlist, as well as a short poetry reading by Derviš Hotić, Ksenija’s father, who has been writing poetry and short stories alongside Bosnian river banks since the 1970’s. The Dep & the Hotic family look forward to spending a special evening sharing this traditional meal and breaking bread together.
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Begova Čorba
“Bey’s Soup”, a rich homemade chicken broth with okra, served with a dollop of sour cream.
Dolmas & Sarmas
Dolmas — stuffed vegetables — features seasonal vegetables such as onions and peppers stuffed with a variety of meats like ground beef, and smoked lamb, along with rice and spices. Ksenija’s justly-famous sarmas (cabbage rolls) are made with fermented cabbage leaves, filled with smoked tempeh, sweet potato, mushrooms, rice, sauerkraut, and spices, simmered in a fire-roasted tomato broth.
These are served alongside stewed okra, a herbed yogurt & cucumber salad, and fresh, wood-fired somun bread — pillowy and deliciously chewy, with a thin, fire-kissed crust — for all the dipping, dunking, and wrapping.
Hurmašica
These golden and buttery, syrup-soaked sweets are a Bosnian favourite. A cross between a biscuit and a little cake, they can come in various shapes, sizes and flavours. These ones are both stuffed and garnished with walnuts, and saturated with a sweet, lemon-scented simple syrup.
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$60 +HST
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Ksenija Hotic grew up foraging and fishing in the mountains and rivers of Bosnia, and in cooking in her grandmothers’ kitchen. At 11, the Hotic family fled their home due to the civil war (1992), and moved many times until settling in Toronto (1995). Her love of food has lead her through Berlin and European delis, up through the Toronto Underground Market and pop-ups, working at a restaurant in Parkdale for a few years, to recently photographing & styling The Great Shellfish Cookbook for Penguin Random House Canada.
Ksenija has hosted over 30 events at the Depanneur as well as other food pop-up dinners around town. She holds two honours bachelor degrees from York University, and spent over a decade working in the mental health field at CAMH and the UofT. She currently works as a freelance photographer and food stylist in Toronto and is working on writing & photographing her own cookbook about Bosnian food and her journey to Canada. ksenijahotic.com | IG @khzen | FB Ksenija Hotic Photography
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Every weekend The Depanneur invites a guest chef to host a fun, informal dinner party.
Learn more about Supper Clubs at The Depanneur