Pofta Buna Cookbook

Here's a little Christmas present for readers, especially in the USA. The Pofta Buna Cookbook is an authentic source of Romanian recipes written in English and published in the USA, which means all the measurements are in pounds and ounces!

The book was originally published in Ohio over fifty years ago by the young Romanian congregation of St. Mary's Orthodox church in Cleveland and contains many typical Romanian recipes, particularly from the Transylvanian region. Since then, its popularity has seen it go through fourteen reprints and a fifteenth is currently in progress.

If you're looking for an English-language book on Romanian cuisine, then please contact Marie Sandru at the following address to find out more:

Marie Sandru
St. Mary's Society
3097 West 230th Street,
North Olmsted,
Ohio,
44070

Common Romanian Fish - A Glossary

I've been a bit lazy when it comes to posting recipes lately, mostly because I've covered most of my sarmale (cabbage leaves stuffed with pork - one glaring omission from my blog I must confess), home-made sausages, slow-roasted belly of pork and other waist-expanding goodies, like most people, I've pledged to eat a little more healthily including plenty of fish.
favourites already. Now 2014 is here and after a festive season of stuffing my face with

Stolen from http://www.bogdanpitaru.ro

Fish is very popular in many areas of Romania, but particularly in the Danube Delta where fishing and cooking fish is a way of life. Bucharest has some excellent fish markets where you can get plenty of local freshwater varieties as well as fish from the Black Sea or those brought in from further afield. Back when I posted about grilled trout I included a short guide to choosing fresh fish so I thought it appropriate to publish a glossary or translation of Romanian fish (or if not indigenous to Romania, at least eaten here) so that if you are unfamiliar with the appearance of fresh fish, you can at least know what you're buying.

Freshwater Fish:

Salau (/sha-low/) - Zander - whitish flesh, often breaded and fried
Stiuca (/shtew-ka/) - Pike - quite boney but tasty when breaded
Pastrav (/pas-trav/) - Trout - commonly farmed in the mountainous areas
Pastrav somonat (/pas-trav so-mo-nat/) - Rainbow trout - great grilled
Crap (/crap/) - Carp - large fish, often sold as steak fillets
Biban (/bee-ban) - Perch - smallish fish, excellent skinned and fried
Caras (/ca-ras/) - Prussian carp - small-medium boney fish, sometimes used in soups
Somn (/somn/) - Wels catfish  - big and thick-skinned, fries and bakes well
Novac (/no-vak/) - Bighead carp - Haven't tried this one yet
Scrumbie (/skoom-bee-ye/) - Pontic Shad - a bit boney and quite fatty

Saltwater fish:

Calcan (/kal-kan/) - Turbot - A lovely tasty but pricey flat fish
Dorada (/do-rah-da/) - Gilt-head bream - Very tasty grilled on the BBQ
Macrou (/ma-crow/) - Mackerel - Oily sea fish good for grilling
Somon (/so-mon/) - Salmon - extremely versitile
Sardine (/sar-dee-ne/) - Sardines - gutted, dredged and fried - unbeatable!
Ton (/ton/) - Tuna - mostly found canned but occasionally I've seen fresh ones
Hamsie (/ham-see-ye/) - Anchovy - small fish good for frying

Seafood:

Creveti (/kre-vetz/) - Prawns/shrimps - You know what to do with these
Midii (/me-dee/) - Mussels - used in stews or sautéed with garlic and polenta
Raci (/rach/) - Crayfish - boiled or grilled, simlar to prawns
Homar (/ho-marr/) - Lobster - mostly found in restaurant or upmarket supermarkets
Caracatita (/kara-ka-titza/) - Octopus - you often see the small ones in markets
Sepie (/se-pee-e/) - Squid - mostly simply grilled

Those are the main types I regularly see in the fish markets and shops. There are other fish very you see from time to time but I haven't listed them all. The others are often fairly easy to work out (I'm sure you can guess which fish 'hering' is) or occasionally the imported ones bring their foreign name along with them, like levrek (the Turkish word for sea bass) even though it has a Romanian name (biban de mare).

Are there any very traditionally-used fish I've missed? What are your favourite traditional fish recipes?

Sarbatoarea Pastelui in Romania

"A Romanian Easter"

Easter (paste /pash-te/ in Romanian) is a very important festival in the Orthodox calendar and possibly even more widely celebrated than Christmas here in Romania. Certainly I noticed that more of a fuss was made over Easter than Christmas in my first years here, although I think that things are changing slightly as time passes and Romania adopts more and more Western European/North American habits. Although not Orthodox myself, I have always thought that the start of spring is a splendid time to celebrate the start of the growing season, rebirth, vitality, and a good excuse for people to get together and enjoy a long meal together.

In Romania, Easter is all about lamb (miel) and most of the dishes are predominately lamb-based. The rest of the year lamb is harder to find in Romania and most of my Romanian friends don’t seem to particular like the taste of it. Many do, however, tolerate it for this one day, although it’s not uncommon for it to be replaced by other ingredients, such a chicken liver in the drob (a kind of lamb organ terrine) or pork for the main course.

I suspect that there may be those of you out there reading this blog who have Romanian friends or family members and, despite not knowing the language or the customs, wish to treat them to a traditional Romanian Easter meal. In this post I’ll outline some of the main components of an Easter feast and over time they’ll turn into links as I do my best to prepare them and test them out on my Romanian friends.

Everyone seems to have their own idea of what comprises a Romanian Easter menu, but some of the items that seem to pop up most frequently are as listed below. There are other dishes that people use, but I’ve tried to only list the ones that are particularly associated with Easter in Romania and a less commonly eaten at other times of the year. If you are preparing a menu for a Romanian Easter, then you can use some of these and add other typical dishes, especially for the starters. As many Romanians aren’t especially keen on lamb, you might want to check first and substitute the lamb with pork or chicken. Also, don’t forget, if you’re planning a surprise Easter meal, that the Orthodox Easter is often on a different day to the Catholic and Protestant Easter.

Starters and aperitifs

Drob de miel – A terrine of lambs organs (or sometimes chicken livers)

Drob in aluat – As above but baked in a pastry shell

Ciorba de miel – Lamb soup

Ouale vopsite – Coloured eggs, for banging together

Sarmale in frunze de varza – Stuffed cabbage leaves

Main Courses

Stufat de miel – Lamb stew

Miel la tava – Roast or braised lamb

Desserts

Pasca – A sweet dairy cake

Cozonac – A loaf-like cake usually stuffed with walnuts, almonds, or candied fruit