Kulenova Seka

Kulenova seka (literally "kulen's sister") is the smaller, thinner version of Slavonski kulen, the famous paprika-flavoured pork sausage of eastern Croatia. It is made the same way as the larger kulen — coarse-ground pork shoulder and back fat, hot Slavonian red paprika, garlic, salt and a little sugar, mixed and stuffed into casings — but the meat is pressed into narrow pork small-intestine casings rather than the wider casings used for the main kulen, which means the links dry and smoke more quickly and the finished sausage has a finer, more concentrated texture.

Because the thin casings need less smoking and air-drying than a full-size kulen, kulenova seka matures in a few months rather than the year that the larger sausage needs, and is the more everyday version of the Slavonian cured-meat trio. It is sliced thinly and served cold as a starter, with fresh bread, a few slices of švarglja, a couple of pickled peppers, and a glass of Frankovka or a chilled Graševina. The sausage is part of the same autumn-hogslaughter (svinjokolja) tradition of Slavonia and is one of the protected meats on the Croatian List of Traditional Agricultural and Food Products.