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?

Mititei sau mici

“Romanian skinless sausages”

Mici. Photo
from http://www.drumliber.com/

Mititei, or mici as they are often known, are the keystone of Romanian outdoor cuisine. All over the country from the first weekend of warm weather, Romanians are piling their car boots full of garden furniture, barbeques, beer and packets of mici. No drive across the countryside can be considered complete without stopping at one of the many roadside restaurants equipped with an outdoor barbeque expressly for the purpose of grilling mititei for passing drivers. Beer gardens in every neighbourhood of every city pump the smell of barbequing meat into the streets luring passersby to a table, a cold beer, and a plate of freshly-cooked mici with bread and mustard. It is truly a Romanian custom and for many, a passion.

If you’ve wandered onto this blog, you might be Romanian, in which case there is nothing I need tell you about mititei, or perhaps you have been on holiday to Romania and have tried mici there and are looking to recreate them back home in your garden to capture and bring to life some of your memories of that holiday. You might even simply be curious about Romanian food, in which case I hope you’ll give mici a try one day when you next fire up the barbie.

So what exactly is a mititei/mici? Actually, I’ve used the plural form here – I’m not sure a singular form for them exists – and no Romanian would order just one of them, rendering the singular form all but redundant. Anyway, a mici is basically a sausage made, most commonly, of beef, but frequently these days combined with pork or lamb. It resembles many of the Turkish ‘kofte’ in shape and texture, and the fact that it frequently spiced with cumin, allspice, paprika, and black pepper lends it even more of a Middle-Eastern twist. They are usually about 10-12cm long, cylindrical in shape, with a diameter of 2-3cm. You sometimes see larger ones, but most of them, when cooked, are something like a short skinless sausage. Mici can be cooked under the grill, in a hot oven, or even fried, but the pure and true method of cooking is la gratar: on the barbeque.

Restaurantul La Iordache

The origin of the mici is shrouded in mystery. The most common story dates back to about 1900 and tells the tale of a small restaurant in the Lipscani area of Bucharest where the chef, known as a gratargiu (from gratar – grill, and the suffix –giu from Turkish), one day ran out of sausage casings. Rather than disappointing the line of people waiting for their barbequed sausages, he decided to take a risk and rolled the minced meat up into the now well-known mici shape and cooked them anyway. Clearly they were a success and are now a staple of Romanian cuisine. The restaurant in question is said to be Restaurantul La Iordache, although other restaurants also claim the honour, and the building still exists today in Bucharest’s historic centre, although in increasingly dilapidated condition. How wonderful it would be if someone were to buy it and convert it once again into a classic Romanian restaurant.

One of the more well-known recipes for mici dates from 1920 and exists in the form of a letter from the famous Caru’ Cu Bere restaurant, also located in Bucharest’s old town. The restaurant still exists today and does a great trade amongst the locals and is especially popular as a place for Romanians to take foreign visitors, thanks in no small part to its fabulous interior that was renovated some years ago. Personally I don’t particularly like the food there that much and its prices aren’t fantastic either, due to its popularity no doubt, but it’s worth a visit if only to marvel at the decor. The letter in question details how they make their mititei, again using beef.

There is more speculation regarding the origins of the mici, with particular reference to it being of Serbian origin. This is possibly more likely than the convenient sound tale of Iordache’s Restaurant. The Serbians have a very similar item which, in their language, is called a ‘small kebab’ (cevapcici), and was, in all likelihood, adopted by them from the Turks during the period of Ottoman occupation. To be honest, I tend to believe that this is the more likely route for mici entering the Romanian culinary opera, although the previous tale is certainly more romantic and compelling.

However the mici first arrived on the plates of Romanians, they have, over the last century, certainly made it their own. Although original recipes indicate beef as the meat of choice, it has also frequently been mixed with lamb, and in more recent years, with pork. Romanians don’t eat a lot of beef as a rule and aren’t especially keen on lamb, so it only seems natural for the recipe to have developed to contain pork. Older recipes, especially the one from 1920’s Caru’ Cu Bere, tend to be more strongly spiced too, which is now no longer the case, once again reflecting the tastes of the modern Romanian.

Nowadays, a lot of picnickers buy their mici from the supermarket. To be honest, I don’t know of anyone ever to have made their own, although it’s clear from a quick browse around the internet that people still frequently do. There are neighbourhood butcher shops that produce their own mici, and some of the have gained a good reputation for their products. By far and away the most famous place to buy mici (cooked) is La Cocosatu’, a restaurant that opened in 1996 which has steadily gained a great reputation for mititei, attracting people from all walks of life. It’s now a successful restaurant with a full a la carte menu.

When on the road, one of the more popular places to stop en route to buy some mici is Dealul Negru (the Black Hill) on the Pitesti-Ramnicu Valcea highway, known for its giant mici (somewhat of a contradiction in terms considering ‘mici’ itself means ‘small one’!)

Over the summer I hope to try several different mici recipes to see which one I like the best and to, perhaps, test them out on my Romanian friends to see how they compare to the modern recipes. When practical I’ll barbeque them, but as I live in a flat, that’s not always going to be possible! Here are a few of the recipes I have found for mici:

1920 – Caru’ Cu Bere letter (beef)

1936 – Carte De Bucate – Sanda Marin (beef)

1962 – De Re Culinara – Pastorel Teodoreanu (beef)

1983 – Carte De Bucate – Silvia Jurcovan (beef)

1998 – Bucate, Vinuri si Obiceiuri Romanesti – Radu Anton Roman (beef and pork)

I'll add new ones as I find them and they’ll become links as I try them out.

Pofta mare!

Telemea de vaca

"Home-made cows milk white cheese"

I have always loved cheese but never really considered making it at home. I first tried it a few months ago using some milk from the supermarket and some lemon juice, to make a basic fresh curd cheese. Recently I found that Obor market has a machine that dispenses fresh raw milk from a dairy farm in Pantelimon. The milk costs 3 lei for a litre (that’s about 60p or US$0.90) and they also supply the bottles if you don’t want to take your own. I decided to have a go at making some telemea, a Romanian fresh white cheese which is quite similar to Greek feta cheese. It really isn’t too difficult to make your own and I recommend you give it a go. Considering the final yields and the cost of the raw milk, it actually doesn’t work out any cheaper than buying telemea from the market, but you do at least get the satisfaction of having done it yourself.

If you can get hold of raw milk, it will give you the best results. I personally don't have a problem with raw milk, but many people have health concerns about it. I know in the US that it's illegal to sell cheese made with unpasteurized milk. In Australia, I'm told, you can sell raw milk for human consumption, but this problem is circumnavigated by people selling it as a bath milk. If you have concerns about using raw milk, you can pasteurize it first by keeping it at 66C (150F) for half an hour. Alternatively, you can buy pasteurized milk from the supermarket and use that. I wouldn't recommend making cheese with UHT milk - you'll get very poor yields.

So here’s the process:

1. Take a large stock pot and pour in your raw milk. Slowly heat the milk up to just over 37C (100F). Turn the heat off.

2. Add some rennet (it comes in powdered, liquid or even tablet form – if you are in Romania, you want to ask for ‘cheag’ /key-ag/ and you will probably find it in some markets or in the ‘plafar’ (a kind of chemist selling herbal and natural remedies, teas, and so on). Just mix up the rennet according to the instructions and add it to the hot milk, stirring well to ensure an even distribution. I always find I have to use more than the stated amount to get the cheese to curdle.



You can see that the cheese comes cleanly away
from the sides, indicating that it has curdled.



3. Put a lid on the pot and leave in a warm place. In winter, you can try wrapping it up in blankets to keep the warmth in. Check back on it after an hour to see if it has set. It’s important not to disturb it too much during this period so don’t stir it or slosh it around too much. You know when it’s done because a knife will create a ‘clean break’ when you slide it into the curd. In the picture you can see that it has an almost yogurt-like consistency. It normally takes about an hour to set, but it could be more, anything up to 5 or 6 hours. If it shows no sign of coagulation after a couple of hours, then you might have a dud batch of rennet or need to put in more, as rennet does degrade with age.

Curd cut into squares

4. Using a long knife, cut the curd into squares and very gently stir them. This increases the surface area and allow more coagulation. After stirring, leave it for half an hour or so.

5.Prepare a colander but putting it over a large pot or bowl (you can reserve the whey for making ricotta or for storing the cheese in) and then lining it with a large cheesecloth (called ‘tifon’ in Romanian – you should be able to get them at old-fashioned markets or even in some supermarkets). Then carefully pour the curds and whey on top of the cheesecloth. Lift the corners of the cheesecloth and tie them together.



The curds draining over a pot



6. Hang the cheese in the cheesecloth over a bowl (I use a wooden spoon to hang them off as in the picture) and let it drain for 2 or 3 hours until it stops dripping. You can give it a bit of a squeeze at the beginning to help it on it’s way.

7. Unwrap the cheese, which should be solid enough to handle carefully by now, and then rewrap them in new cheesecloth (or wash the old ones). This is to clean the cheese out of the holes in the cheesecloth to allow easier draining.

Drained cheese rewrapped and ready
for pressing.

8. Now it’s time to press them. I have two methods, as can be seen in the photographs. The first just involves it being places between two chopping boards with a water-filled pan on top. Notice how there is a spoon under the lower board to create an angle so the liquid drains off the board. The second technique involves using a large yogurt pot in which I have punched holes (you must punch them from the inside). I have another identical pot which is filled with water and goes on top to act as the press, and a bowl of water on top of that for extra weight. Press the cheese for 3-4 hours, turning them over halfway through.




Chopping boards and pans of water



Yogurt pot pressing method



The pressed cheeses ready for brining

9. Unwrap the cheese blocks and put them in a container with a lid. At this stage we can say that we have made ‘cas’. To make telemea, it needs to be matured in brine for a few days. Using a measuring jug fill the cheese-filled container with water, making a note of how much water was needed to cover the cheese. Pour the water back into the measure jug and add about 10-15% sea salt (so if you used a litre of water, and about 100-150g of sea salt. Dissolve the salt and pour the brine back into the container with the cheese. Store the cheese for a couple of days in this brine to ‘mature’ it.

The cheese in the brine

Now the telemea is ready to eat! You can eat it straight away, if you wish, but telemea is usually brined for a few days first. In terms of yield, the best you can probably expect to get is about 250g of telemea for each litre of milk used. Depending on how much you press them, how good the rennet is, and the quality of the milk, you may end up with less. In my attempt above I got about 700g of telemea from 4 litres of milk. With the leftover whey, you can make some ricotta. Just bring the whey almost to the boil, about 95C, cover, and leave until it returned to room tempurature. Then carefully pour it into a cheesecloth-lined colander over a pot and leave it for a couple of hours until the liquid has drained out. The remain soft cream-like ricotta can be used just like shop-bought ricotta.

Other Romanian Pork Products

"Everything But The Squeak"

In the previous post we looked at the main cuts of pork that are most commonly used in Romania cuisine, but as any Romanian will tell you, some of the best products are those that are made from the offal or other less frquently encountered parts of the animal. A lot of these are not for the faint-hearted and some are, dare I say, an acquired taste.

One of the most popular times of the year for many of these is the Christmas holiday period when many Romanian families who keep pigs in their smallholdings will slaughter them and put together many different treats from its various parts. Some are to be eaten soon after slaughter, others are frozen, smoked, or salt-cured for later consumption.

Siorici /sho-rich/ – Pork skin. It is sometimes added as an ingredient to sausages, sometimes fried till crispy, but more often just softened and eaten as is.

Slanina /sla-knee-na/ – The thick layer of fat between the meat and the skin. Slanina is preserved by salting and smoking, sometimes with paprika. It is eaten in slices, obligatorily accompanied by a couple of fingers of home-made palinca (plum brandy). It’s often added to sausages and slices are sometimes put between pieces of leaner meat on skewers for grilling.

Jumari /ju-mar-i/– Pork scratchings. The fat of the animal (slanina) is cooked until the fat renders out. The remaining crispy pieces are salted and eat as a treat, often sprinkled with paprika.

Untura /oon-two-ra/ – Pork dripping. This is the fat that results from the rendering of the slanina when making jumari. It is used instead of vegetable oil or olive oil in the countryside when making stews or fried dishes.

Urechi de porc /or-rec-ee de porc/ - The ears. Some people will eat these as a delicacy but others use them in piftie (see below).

Picior de porc /pitch-or de pork/ - The trotter. This is most commonly use for piftie. The trotters are boiled for several hours and this helps to create the gelatine.

Piftie de porc /pif-tee-a de pork/ - Pieces of pork and some vegetables and herbs in aspic, usually made by boiled up the trotters, along with, sometimes, parts of the head and ears. The meat can be just from the trotters or other pieces from other cuts can be added.

Sunca /shun-ka/ and Jambon /jam-bon/ - The salt-cured, smoked (usually) and air-dried meat from the ham (pulpa)of the pig.

Costita de porc /cos-teets-a de pork/ - These are the cured, smoked, and matured ribs of the pig, usually with a thin layer of fat on them.

Kaizer /kay-zer/ – Another cut of salt-cured meat from the belly of the pig, usually this a thin layer of fat on it.

The following are the organs that are most commonly used in other pork dishes, or just cooked on their own (especially the liver and kidneys). They are principle ingredients of some of the various sausages made after slaughtering a pig.

Rinichi /rin-nik/– The kidneys.

Inima /in-ee-ma/- The heart.

Plamani /pla-mun-i/– The lungs.

Ficat /fi-cat/ - The liver.

The next few are all types of sausage consisting of different cuts or offal.

Toba /toba/ – Offal sausage, something like a pig haggis. The tongue (limba), liver, kidneys, ears, heart, and sometimes some lean pork, are boiled, chopped, stuffed into the bladder or the stomach and sometimes smoked.

Lebar /lay-bear/ – This sausage, probably of Saxon origin, is made by boiled up the liver, spleen, and lungs with some aromatic herbs, garlic and wine. It is then stuffed into the large intestines.

Carnati de casa /car-natz de ca-sa/ – These are the regular pork sausages we are more used to in the UK. There are different kinds and different zones will flavour them with different ingredients, garlic and paprika being the most common. They can be of differing length, the shorter ones being frequently referred to as carnaciori /car-na-chor-ri/. Others are gathers up into a spiral shape.

Caltabosi /cal-ta-bosh/ – This sausage is another one made from the offal of the animal. Pieces of ear, head, heart, kidney, lungs, spleen, skin, fat, and meat are boiled up with some herbs, the liver added, and then rice. It’s all then minced up and stuffed into intestines.

Sangerete /soon-jer-re-te/ – Black pudding. The blood of the pig is salted to aid curing and stuffed into the intestines.

I hope this gives you some idea of the variety of pork products that are available in Romania. I've always felt that knowing what something is will more likely tempt you to try it, otherwise a different country's cuisine can seem alien and daunting. I can't claim to have tried all of these myself, many of them are not available in regular supermarkets (or if they are, they are commercial mass-produced versions which probably disappoint). The ones I have tried, mostly thanks to friends with relatives in the countryside who still slaughter and produce them in the traditional way, proved to be very tasty (except, perhaps sorici, which I wasn't too keen on).

Carnea de porc

"Popular cuts of pork"



 The pig in Romania is certainly an animal from which you can use everything except the squeak, and the Christmas period is the pig’s crowning moment (if you can call being slaughtered for food such). The supermarkets mostly only sell the more popular cuts of pork but there are many smaller stores popping up around Bucharest where more traditional and lesser known pork-based products can be found. Even some of the larger supermarkets have jumped on the ‘traditional local produce’ bandwagon and have started supplying similar products.


As a foreigner in Romania I’ve always thought it would be useful to have a guide to some of the cuts of pork and the products made from them (and to know what goes in them). I’ve never found one so I thought I might as well post my own guide. I’m not a butcher by trade nor an expert, so if you spot any omissions or errors please feel free to comment so I can correct the guide.

Firstly, let’s begin with the regular cuts of meat:

Piept de porc /pee-ept de pork/– this is the belly. It usually consisted of the ribs, the flesh, a layer of fat, and the skin. Some of the supermarkets with sell it ‘fara grasime’ which means ‘without fat’. There’s still plenty of fat in it, so don’t worry, but they’ve removed the thickest fatty strata and the skin. Belly is great in many dishes – it grilled well on skewers, roasts perfectly, and can be minced up to make sausages or meatballs.

Ceafa de porc /cha-fa de pork/– this is a cut from the back of the neck. It generally comes in thick steak-like slabs. It grills very well, having fat marbled through it, and it can also be cut up into chunks for stews.

Cotlet de porc /cot-let de pork/– The cutlet usually comes from the upper part of the rib area. Cutlets are usually bone free and quite low in fat (comparatively speaking, of course). They are good on the barbeque, but can be a little dry, so I recommend a good marinate. They can also be hammered thin and turned into schnitzel. Look for the antricot /an-tree-cot/ (from the middle of the back) and the vrabioara /vra-bee-wah-ra/ (near the rear).

Muschi de porc /mush-key de pork/– This is the muscle from the rear part of the spine, the tenderloin. It’s very versatile and can be chopped and fried or grilled. I generally like to keep it whole and roast it, perhaps with a coating of herbs and spices.

Pulpa de porc /pull-pa de pork/– this is the ham or the thigh. It can be used for various cured meat products but is commonly considered the best cut for a friptura (thick-cut steak). Cooked on the bone at a low temperature in the oven, the pulpa is an excellent joint for roasting too.

Fleica de porc /flay-ka de pork/– another cut from the belly of the pig, towards the rear legs. The supermarkets commonly sell it in strips and due to its fatty content it’s quite good for chopping and frying or mincing into meatballs or sausages. It’s often found smoked (afumata).

Rasol de porc /ra-sol de pork/ – the rasol is the hock, part of the legs, and can be called rasol din fata (front hock) or rasol din spate (rear hock). Supermarket cuts tend to be sold in laterally-cut slices with a circle of bone in the middle.

Spata de porc /spa-ta de pork/– This is the cut of meat from the top of the front legs of the pig, the pork shoulder, and is quite versatile. It can but cut into chunks for a stew; minced up for sausages or meatballs; de-boned, rolled and stuffed; or marinated and roasted whole.

Coaste de porc /quas-te de pork/– These are the ribs and are very often smoked in Romania (coaste afumate). A favourite cut for roasting, grilling, and barbequing.

Ciolan /cho-lan de pork/– actually a leg bone rather than a cut of meat but some restaurant will advertise a ‘ciolan de porc’, which usually means a large leg joint, something like a hock, probably slow roasted and maybe smoked.

(Next post – other pork delicacies)

Romanian Cheeses

This post is more for foreigners living in Romania and I hope to be able to explain a little about Romanian cheeses. Sometimes when we live abroad we want to make a specific recipe from back home and, of course, we sometimes have to look at replacing ingredients with suitable alternatives. There are, of course, a lot of foreign cheeses available on the market but often you can get excellent results with local cheeses, with the added advantage that a good local cheese will probably cost no more than an average imported one.

Telemea
This is probably the most common cheese found in Romania, alongside cascaval. Telemea is generally quite a fresh cheese, moderately soft and crumbly, white in colour, and can be made from the milk of different animals, typically sheep (telemea de oaie) and cows (telemea de vaca), but also goats milk (telemea de capra). It is stored in brine and is an excellent replacement for feta in salads and other recipes. Learn to make your own telemea at home here.

Cascaval
A smooth yellow hard cheese usually made from sheeps or cows milk. Varies in maturity and quality from the plasticky commercial brands to harder vintage varieties. Often comes in a smoked form (afumat). Melts melt, grates easily, and is a fine substitute for chedder.

Cas
A very fresh curd cheese using made in the evening and left overnight to curdle and lightly salted. It has a smooth almost 'squeaky' texture. It's often eaten for breakfast with eggs, shredded into salad, or used in pies (it can be sweetened).

Branza proaspata (de vaca)
A fresh cheese which is usually made of cows milk. It is soft, spreadable, and a little sour. It is used in pies or mixed with herbs (parsley, dill) and spread on toast or as a sandwich filling.

Branza de burduf
A traditional Romanian shepherds' cheese produced from sheeps milk. It is matured in some areas in a sheep's stomach but more commonly it is wrapped in tree bark and left to mature. Burduf is often used in mamaliga (polenta) dishes and it has a aromatic, dry but fatty texture that holds its form. I recently found a very tasty goats cheese burduf in the local market, see here.

Urda
A soft, moist, fresh cheese made from whey. It is low in fat and an ideal substitute for ricotta.

Nasal
A geographically-unique cheese, it is mold-ripened in a cave in a location of the same name. I haven't had the chance to taste it yet but when I do I'll get back here and edit this.