Placinta cu spanac si branza

"Spinach and cheese pie"

At this time of year spinach is king. The markets are full of the stuff – the large-leafed Romanian variety tied together in bundles you can barely get your arms around and all for less than a Euro. The bundle I bought was probably enough for about 6 servings of spinach once wilted down, although I used two-thirds of it for this pie. The rest I kept to go with some ‘caras’ in the evening. Compare that to the flaccid bag of baby spinach from who-knows-where you get in the supermarkets which costs about 2 Euro and wilts down to a spoonful.

A placinta is a pie, usually pastry-based and served in portions. The word comes from the Latin for a kind of flat bread pie or cake and a spinach-based pastry pie is a common thing in neighbouring cuisines in the region, such as Turkish and Greek, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the habit was picked up from them. Many of the patiserie sell spinach-based pastries and some form of white cheese is a natural companion as Romania abounds both in good spinach (in season) and excellent white cheeses (telemea).

Servings: 6-8 slices
Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 packets of phyllo pastry (foi de placinta)

Enough fresh spinach, trimmed and destalked, to fill a mixing bowl twice

2-300g of telemea (a feta-style white cheese)

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 egg

100g of melted butter

Method:

1. Make sure any hard stalks have been trimmed off the spinach and any dodgy-looking leaves discarded. Wash and rinse them to remove any grit or soil, and then plunge into boiling water for a minute or two until it has wilted down. Remove with a slotted spoon into a colander and leave to drain. You’ll probably have to do this in two batches.

2. Once the spinach has had a chance to drain, roughly chop it up and return to the mixing bowl. Add the finely-chopped onion and the crumbled white cheese and mix well. Taste the mixture at this point – depending how salty the cheese is you may or may not need to season it. You can also add dill if you like as it goes quite well with this mixture. Once you’re satisfied with the level of seasoning, break in the egg and mix that into the mixture.

3. Take a large baking tray, line it with baking paper, and start layering the pastry sheets, brushing each one with the melted butter. Lay about 5-6 sheets down as the base, then add the spinach and cheese mixture, levelling it over the whole tray, and then another 5-6 sheets of pastry, again brushing each with butter, giving the top coat a really good drenching.

4. Put the tray into an oven preheated to about 200C and bake until the top is golden brown, probably about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven, allow to cool, remove from the tray, and cut into slices.

Branza de burduf de capra cu salata verde de primavera

“Goats cheese ‘burduf’ with a spring green salad”

At last the spring has come, the sun is shining and the farmers’ markets are full of seasonal produce after a long winter of mostly root vegetables and expensive imported fruit and veg. Prices are starting to drop as local produce finds its way to the stalls and the hotter weather calls for fresher dishes and crisper textures.

Burduf cheese gets its name from its traditional method of production and is a typical shepherds cheese produced by storing the curds in a bark cylinder and then, after a period of maturation, mincing, salting, and storing in a sack made from the skin of a sheep or goat. It’s a rich, soft cheese that can be easily spread on bread or served in slices and compliments salads of a stronger nature.

I’ve served this one with a fresh green spring salad made up of leurda (wild garlic leaves), ceapa verde (spring onions – both the stems and the leaves), ridichie (radish) and untisor (lesser celandine – or sometimes known as pilewort) mixed with a little low-fat yogurt and a boiled egg.

Splina de porc cu arpagic si ciuperci

“Pig spleen with pearl onions and mushrooms”

Pig offal is tasty and cheap in Romania and often overlooked in western cuisine despite being quite low in calories and containing lots of goodies like vitamin C, selenium (a good antioxidant), iron, protein and vitamin B-12. If you've never tasted spleen, it has a similar flavour and texture to liver, perhaps a little ‘springier’ in texture.

This recipe was given to me by a neighbour who, being on a budget, regular makes offal dishes. I've used arpagic onions, small onions that are readily available in the local markets this time of year, but you can use regular onions, shallots or spring onion.

The dish works well as a lunch or a starter.

Time: 15 minutes
Servings: 2

Ingredients:
1 pig spleen

A handful of small onions (or one medium sized regular onion)

A handful of button mushrooms

A good-sized knob of butter

100ml of water

Chopped herbs (parsley, dill or spring onion leaves)

A pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Toasted bread for serving

Method:

1. Trim any white fat off the spleen and give it a good rinse, then chop it into largish chunks.

2. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and sauté the onions for about 7-8 minutes until soft and a little browned.

3. Add the mushrooms to the onions and fry for another 2-3 minutes.

4. Add the spleen to the pan along with the water and turn the flame up to high. Continue to cook for about 5-6 minutes until the spleen is no longer bloody in the middle (take a piece out and cut it in half). It can be a little pink and you don’t want to overcook it or it’ll go tough. Add a splash more water if it all evaporates but you want to time it so that it’s all gone by the time the spleen is ready so everything is left with a nice reduced glossy sticky coating.

5. Season with salt, pepper, a pinch of chilli if desired and the chopped herbs.

6. Serve hot on some toasted buttered bread.