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?

Salau pane sau snitzel de salau

"Breaded zander fillets"

Salau (sander lucioperca) is a popular fish in Romania and can be found in most fishmongers or market stalls. It has a white meaty flesh and can be used in many of the same recipes as stuica (pike). In fact, its meaty tender flesh makes it a popular fish for stewing and can almost be treated like white meat. The recipe presented here doesn’t need a lot of elaboration and the method is the same for other breaded fish or meat on this website. Sometimes the dish is even referred to as ‘snitzel de salau’ rather than ‘salau pane’, perhaps because it more closely resembles chicken or pork in texture. Either way, it makes a deliciously juicy schnitzel.

Several variations exist on the same theme, one of them involves rolling the fillet in finely grated cascaval (yellow chedder-like cheese) before dredging in the egg and fine breadcrumbs. You can also add various condiments to the breadcrumbs, such as paprika, rosemary or garlic powder.

I always recommend buying a whole fish and removing the fillets yourself. That way you can see exactly how fresh the fish is. I’m always suspicious that the fillets sold in shops are from fish that have started to look a bit too ‘old’ to be sold whole. However, if you are not confident about filleting your own fish you can still choose whole fish (look for ones with clearer eyes that don’t smell fishy) and ask the fishmonger to fillet it for you.

Time: 10 minutes (not including filleting)

Servings: 2 portions of two fillets each (or will serve 4 people if served with a more substantial side dish, like potatoes)

Ingredients:

2 fresh zander (or 4 fillets)

1 large egg, beaten

2 heaped tablespoons of flour

½ cup of fine breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper for seasoning

Oil for frying

Optional: paprika, garlic powder, rosemary

Optional: finely grated cascaval

Method:

1. Heat about a centimetre of oil in a large pan to a medium-high temperature.

2. Wash the fillets and pat them dry with kitchen towel, then dip them in the flour and shake off the excess.

3. Drag the fillet through the egg and allow excess to drip off – make sure it’s fully coated.

4. Drag it through the breadcrumbs and allow excess crumbs to fall off. Once you are satisfied that it’s evenly coated, gently lay it in the hot oil, laying it away from your body so you don’t splash hot oil on yourself.

5. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, turn, and cook the other side for about 2-3 minutes. It should be golden-brown all over. When you cut into the schnitzel, the flesh should be white, hot to the touch, but still juicy. The trick is to get the temperature right – too hot and the outside will burn before the fish is cooked, too cool and the fish will be overcooked by the time the coating crisps up.

6. Serve with salad, chips, sautéed potatoes, and some kind of sauce (tartar sauce works, but ‘mujdei’ (garlic sauce) is also a good choice).

Stiuca pane

“Pike in breadcrumbs”

Romania has a plentiful supply of freshwater fish and pike is one of my favourites. When I went to the fishmonger (I am fortunate enough to have one about 50 metres from my house) I was intending to buy some salau (/sha-lauw/ - zander in English) which is the fish most commonly served in breadcrumbs here in Romania, but alas, they had sold out. They had some frozen fillets of zander but I much prefer to buy fresh fish if I have the opportunity and so I ended up buying a pike (stiuca - /sh-tee-oo-ka/), as they had some which looked pretty fresh. See my post on trout for some advice on what to look for when buying fresh fish.

The pike is an ugly brute, full of bone, scaly, with vicious teeth, but I love the delicate white flesh. It seemed to me to be a good replacement for the zander and, although I’ve not personally seen Romanians breading pike (I haven’t even heard of them bothering to fillet it, preferring to cook it whole) I thought it would be in the spirit of ‘making the best of the freshest ingredients available to you’ so I went ahead and cooked it ‘a la salau’. I’m glad to say that the pike made a more than adequate substitute.

When buying pike, you should take into account that they are heavy-boned, thick-skinned creatures with a large head and a lot of guts. If you intend to fillet it then you should probably count on only getting about one third of its initial weight in flesh – take this into account when you buy it. I generally find that a one-kilogram pike will yield enough flesh for two people.

The pike is a boney devil with a double-rack ribcage, which is probably why people don’t often fillet it, but once you’ve done it a couple of times it’s pretty straightforward. I recommend doing a search on YouTube for pike filleting techniques as there are a few experienced North American fisherman who have posted videos showing how it’s done. At the end of the filleting process you’ll end up with two side fillets, a top fillet (which I usually cut into four ‘fingers’) and two small medallions from behind the rear fins. The side fillets are the biggest and it’s those that you can see in the photograph here. The other parts make great ‘fish fingers’ so a one-kilogram pike could well serve two adults (a side fillet each) and a kid or two (give them 2 ‘fish fingers’ and a rear medallion each).

Servings: 2 (or more)

Time: 25 minutes (including 10 minutes for filliting)

Ingredients:

1 pike of about 1kg in weight (whole) or 2 side fillets

2 eggs

200g of pesmet (fine breadcrumbs)

Plain flour

Salt and pepper

A good pinch of paprika (optional)

Cooking oil

Lemon for squeezing

Method:

1. Pour about a half a centimetre of cooking oil into a wide frying pan and put it on a medium heat.

2. Pour the breadcrumbs into a shallow dish and season with the salt, black pepper, and some paprika (if you like), the flour into another dish, and beat the eggs well in a third dish and arrange them close to the oil. Have a plate ready with some kitchen paper on it for draining the fried fish.

3. Dip the fillet into the flour and shake off any excess. Dunk it into the egg and allow the excess to drain off. Dredge it through the breadcrumbs making sure it’s well covered and gently agitate it a little so any excess falls back into the dish. Too many ‘spare’ breadcrumbs in the oil will burn, blacken subsequent fillets, and make it all taste a bit bitter.

4. Gently lay the fillet in the frying pan, which should now be hot but not spitting. Don’t put them in when it’s not hot enough as they’ll start absorbing too much oil and it’ll end up too soggy. Similarly, don’t have the heat too high or the outside will burn whilst the fish inside won’t be sufficiently cooked.

5. Fry for a couple of minutes on one side until golden brown, then carefully turn and finish off the other side.

6. Repeat with the other fillets. Depending on the size of the pan you might get them all in at once but don’t crowd them it – you should allow space for the oil to circulate and putting them all in at the same time will lower the temperature resulting in soggy fish. We want a golden crispy exterior and a cooked but tender interior. If you get it wrong, you’ll get a soggy coating and a tough overcooked fillet inside.

7. Remove the fillet to the kitchen paper to drain off any excess oil, then serve with a quarter of lemon.

Goes wonderfully with potatoes (chips, cartofi taranesti, or plain boiled), salads, or any other vegetable dish of choice, a homemade tartar sauce, or even just plain of tomato ketchup.

Pastrav la gratar

"Grilled trout"

Fish plays quite a big part in the Romanian diet in particularly areas, especially those close the Danube, the delta, and the Black Sea. Fishing is also a very popular hobby. Mostly it is simply grilled, preferably on a barbeque, or made into a kind of fish chowder or stew. Bucharest has a few large fish markets and many of the supermarkets sell fresh(-ish) fish. I’m lucky enough to have a fishmonger close to my house.

Trout (pastrav) is reasonably popular and it is one of my favourites. Mostly you find farmed trout here but occasionally you’ll be able to get wild trout. There are many trout farms around Romania, called pastavarie, and if you get the chance to stop at one of these for lunch, I recommend that you do.

Cooking trout on the grill is relatively simple, but people shy away from fish because they are unsure about buying and preparing it, so here’s my simple guide.

Buying the fish:

I generally prefer not to buy fillets of trout because you can no longer tell how fresh they are. If you are not squeamish, then it’s probably best to buy fresh fish an gut them yourself. Look for fish which have clear eyes – if the eyes have turned white, it’s not fresh. Also, don’t buy fish that smell ‘fishy’. Fresh fish don’t smell of fish. Finally, if they haven’t been gutted, take a look at the gills – they should be nice and red as they lose colour with age.

Gutting the fish:

A lot of people complain that trout sometimes taste ‘muddy’. I can’t say I’ve ever notice this but I also clean the fish thoroughly, making sure to remove the scales. There’s a lot of mud and grit under the scales and I think by removing them you are essentially removing this muddy ‘marinate’.

Lay the fish on a flat surface, pin the tail down with two fingers (or a fork, even, if it’s a bit slippery) and using a sharp knife angled away from you at about 25 degrees to the fish, scrap along the fish from tail to head. The scales should come off easily and the slime while stop them flying all over the kitchen. Scrap the knife clean from time to time and continue until the scales have been removed from both sides, including the belly and the back.

Give the trout a little rinse to remove any loose scales and then insert the point of the knife into the hole near the tail (its anus) and cut along the belly of the fish to the ‘chin’. Don’t stick the knife in too deep or you’ll end up mangling the intestines and making a nasty mess.

Gently pull out the intestines by hand. They should come away easily, especially to the rear, and yank them out from the head area, using a knife if necessary. Now you can either chop off the head and the gills in one go, or cut out the gills if you wish to leave the head on (some people prefer it that way).

Using the knife, or a good pair of meat scissor (I find this easier), cut off the fins from around the body. They often have a thick piece of gristle just under the skin so cut that out too – it’s not nice to eat.

Finally, look inside the body cavity and you’ll see a blood line running along the middle. Cut into this with the point of your knife and rinse out all the blood and membrane – it gives a nasty bitter taste to the fish. Flick out any remaining blobs of blood and wash well. That’s the hard part over!

Grilling the fish:

Rub the fish inside and out with some olive oil, season it in and out with salt and pepper, and place on the barbeque or under the grill, turning once, until the skin has started to brown. It should only be 5-6 minutes for each side. Don’t overcook it or it’ll dry out – it should be moist, succulent, and flaky.

Some people put lemon wedges inside the fish when they cook it but I find the taste of cooked lemon too bitter so I prefer to drizzle the fish with fresh lemon when I eat it.

Serve with salad, cartofi prajiti (chips) , or vegetable fritters and serve with a cold beer or a bottle of white wine.