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.

Salata de Vinete

“Aubergine/Eggplant  Salad”

I suppose we might define this dish as more of a spread or a puree than a salad, but in Romanian cuisine a ‘salata’ can be more or less anything from a traditional loose-leaf side dish to a heavier combination of veg and meat served with grilled meat. This aubergine salad is one of my favourites and it is utterly morish. I think it must count as one of the absolute requirements for any Romanian meal; served as a starter along with crust bread and various other ‘salate’ or on the table for a late summer barbeque. It can easily be made well in advance and make plenty, because it’s also extremely delicious just on its own for a lunchtime snack, and all the better with some crispy grilled ‘lipia’ bread (a kind of round thin bread, something like a flatbread or pitta). What’s more, it’s simple to make. So what are you waiting for? Oh yeah, for the eggplants to come into season...

Time: 90 minutes

Servings: Hard to say: for 6 people as a starter or side dish maybe

Ingredients:

3-4 medium-sized aubergines/eggplants

1 large onion (normal or you can use red onion if you like)

Some oil (traditionally it uses ‘untdelemn’ which is, I think some kind of vegetable oil, but olive oil works well too)

A teaspoon of apple vinegar*

Salt

Parsley, tomato, or green pepper for garnish

*you can use lemon juice instead if you prefer

Method:

1. The aubergines are best cooked over a flame, so if you’re doing a barbeque you can cook them on that. Alternatively, if you have a gas oven, you can cook them on the hob over a gas ring, or under a flame grill (less messy). If you have no access to a naked flame, then you’ll have to cook them in the oven, but you miss the smokiness unfortunately.

2. Turn them regularly over/under the flame until they start to ‘collapse’. At the beginning they are hard and resistant and sound solid when you tap them. As they cook, they made maintain their shape but start to sound hollow as the inside cooks down. At some point they’ll probably collapse, juice will start to run out, or they may even pop. Once they are like that all round, they are done. Take them off the fire.

3. Now you need to peel them. I usually find that if I pop them into a plastic container with the lid on for five minutes, the skins comes of a little easier (same trick can be used with roasted peppers). However you do it, chop off the tail, peel off the skin, and put the cooked flesh to one side and repeat with each of the aubergines.

4. Check you’ve removed any little bits of skin, put the aubergines on a chopping board and with a large heavy knife, chop them up until you get a puree. Then elevate one side of the chopping board and allow the juice to drain off (into the sink) for 30 minutes or more. If you’re in a hurry, you can dump the flesh into a sieve and squeeze the juice out.

5. Very finely chop the onion.

6. Put the drained aubergine into a bowl and start to slowly drizzle in the oil. Beat it in well with a fork until you get a nice smooth puree, probably between about 3-5 tablespoons, depending how well you drained the flesh.

7. Add the onion, vinegar, and a teaspoon of salt and mix it well. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Garnish with parsley leaves, slices of tomato or slices of green pepper.

8. It’s now ready to eat or can be put into a bowl and kept in the fridge for a few days.

Salata de fasole grasa galbena cu usturoi

“Garlicky yellow Romano bean salad”

I made this dish with the remaining Romano beans after making a ‘mancarica de fasole grasa galbena’ (a stew of yellow Romano beans). It’s pretty simple (unless you make your own mayonnaise) and works well as a cold salad dish for a sunny day barbeque or alongside some grilled chicken for a main course. It’s nice just served up with some crusty toasted bread too and makes a simple starter than can be prepared well in advance. Keeps in the fridge well too (for a few days, at least).

Time: 20 minutes

Servings: 3-4 (as a dip, spread, starter dish)

Ingredients:

400g of yellow Romano beans

A splash of olive oil or a knob of butter

3-4 cloves of garlic

50g of mayonnaise

Salt and pepper to taste

Parsley or dill

Method:

1. Trim the tops and tails off the beans and break or chop them into 5cm pieces.

2. Put them in a saucepan and cover with water, add a splash of olive oil or a knob of butter, bring to the boil, and boil until soft (about 15-20 minutes). When cooked, leave them to cool down and drain.

3. Break up the beans a little – don’t mash them into a puree, just break them down, with a fork or a couple of spins of a hand blender, into smaller pieces.

4. Add the garlic and the mayonnaise and mix well.

5. Season with salt and pepper to taste, add in some chopped parsley or dill, and serve cold.

Salata de primavara cu leurda

“Spring salad with wild garlic”

Wild garlic, leurda in Romania, has been my discovery of the season. These spring leaves (those seen next to the plate in the photo on the left) are spear shaped and have a crisp, slightly garlicky flavour and make a great alternative to spinach or lettuce in a green salad. They are available from early spring and are currently starting to flower, which more or less signals the end of their culinary usefulness; the strength of flavour declining slightly after flowering. I have never seen them in the supermarkets, which is part of the reason why I haven’t tried them (knowingly) until now. They grow wild in many parts of Europe, including the UK, or you can buy them from fancy farmer’s markets for about £10 for a half-kilo (I bought a half-kilo today for the equivalent of £1 from a street vendor), but if you can grow them or forage them, all the better. Try to get the younger leaves if possible, but they are still pretty tasty soon after flowering.

This isn’t a particularly traditional Romanian salad because I made it up myself, but I think that it is a good representation of commonly-found local items at this time of the year.

Time: 15 minutes

Servings: 2 small side salads or one large lunch salad

Ingredients:

1 large bunch of wild garlic leaves (leurda), about 150g say

4 spring onions

2 large radishes

1 slice (probably about 50g) of white cow’s cheese (telemea de vaca)

3 tablespoon of mayonnaise

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Trim the stalks off the wild garlic and rinse well. Roll together in a bunch and cut widthways into 1-1.5cm strips.

2. Slice the radishes into small ‘matchsticks’

3. Top and tail the spring onions and cut them into 3-4cm lengths, then cut these lengthways, and then again, to get long thin strips.

4. Cut the cheese into cubes.

5. Throw everything into a bowl, toss with the mayonnaise, check the seasoning, and serve.

Salata bulgareasca

“Bulgarian salad”

After the excesses of Easter and, to be fair, my usual weekly cooking excesses which aren’t limited exclusively to annual festivals, I’ve decide that I’ll try to eat a few more salads and vegetable dishes (during the week, at least). So, salad it is tonight and one which you’ll find on almost every menu at any Romanian restaurant, namely ‘salata bulgareasca’. I’m not quite sure why it’s known as a Bulgarian salad. I did read somewhere that it’s because of the colours; the while of the cheese, the green of the cucumber, and the red of the tomato representing the colours of the Bulgarian flag. More likely it was simply associated at one point in the past with Bulgaria, which borders Romania to the south east.

Salads in Romania tend to be split into three types. There are those heavier salads which are generally served as starters or at buffet meals, such as salata de boeuf or salata de vinete (aubergine salad). Then there are the simple salads which are usually served alongside main course, such as salata de varza alba (white cabbage salad) or salata de rosii (tomato salad), and typically only contain one ingredient. And finally there are those salads that are generally served as a meal in their own right, such as this one, or salata greceasca (Greek salad), which seems to be becoming more common here too.

The earliest recipes I’ve found for salata bulgareasca comes from Sanda Marin’s cookery book from the 1930s and it is pretty much the same as today’s recipe except she includes potatoes, which I’ve never seen done in any restaurant here, and there is no ham. Although the ingredients vary from place to place, it seems that the white cheese (telemea), ham, and boiled eggs are pretty much expected today. The rest of the ingredients may vary a little, some containing olives, some without tomato, some with no lettuce, and so on. If you can't get real Romanian telemea, you can substitute it with feta.

Time: 20 minutes

Servings: 2 small (as a side) or 1 large (as a lunch/dinner)

Ingredients:

2-3 cucumbers (the small crunchy pickling ones are best, but regular will work too), cut into rounds

2 tomatoes, cut into thin wedges with the hard core removed

4-5 lettuce leaves, washed and shaken

1 egg, boiled, shell removed and quartered

1-2 slices of ham, cut into 2-3cm long strips about 1cm wide (leave out for veggie version)

1-2 slices of white cheese (telemea) cut into cubes

1 red onion, peeled, halved, then thinly sliced and separated

Black olives (optional)

1 tablespoon of vinegar

3 tablespoons of oil (olive or vegetable oil)

Salt to taste

Method:

1 Arrange the lettuce around the outside of the bowl.

2. In another bowl, toss the onion, cucumber and tomato with the oil, vinegar, and salt.

3. Add this to the bowl with the lettuce in it.

4. Sprinkle the ham and cheese on the top.

5. Arrange the egg pieces nicely on top

6. And that’s about it...

Stevie cu ceapa

"Patience dock with onions"

There are still patience dock leaves available at the market, although I think it’s getting to the end of their season. Soon they’ll be getting a bit thick and tough for eating. This is the first year that I’ve tried eating them, mostly because in previous years I haven’t bought them because I didn’t really know what they were, which is one of the good things about keeping this blog – it’s encouraged me to try new local ingredients. ‘Stevie’ is becoming one of my favourite spring leaves, along with the ‘leurda’ wild garlic leaves. This time I made it with a little onion and a spoonful of sour cream, and too be honest, this was the tastiest yet simplest version I’ve had. If you can grow a few patience docks in the corner of the garden I recommend you do. I’m sure they’re packed with goodness too!

Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 3-4

Ingredients:

3-4 bunches of patience dock leaves (about 20-30 leaves)

A little oil (olive or vegetable)

An onion

Salt and pepper

Lemon wedges for squeezing

1-2 tablespoons of sour cream (smantana)

Method:

1. Trim the stalks off the stevie leaves and discard any heavily wilted, holey, or chewed leaves.

2. Bring a pot of salty cold water to the boil and blanch the leaves for about 3 minutes.

3. Drain the leaves and chop them up.

4. Meanwhile, finely chop and onion and sauté it until soft in a pan with a few glugs of oil (about 5 minutes).

5. Once the onion has softened, add the chopped dock leaves and cook, stirring from time to time, for about 5-7 minutes.

6. To add a little richness you can add a tablespoon or two of smantana (sour cream) or heavy cream. It also goes well the small cubes of white cheese, boiled eggs, poached eggs, or even a chopped up omelette. A squeeze of lemon helps at a little acidity to the dish and works really well.

Mancare de stevie cu orez

“Patience dock leaves and rice”

I have very vivid memories of dock leaves from when I was a child, normally memories of spitting on them and holding them on a freshly-inflamed area of skin brought about by running through the stinging nettles at the bottom of the garden. I never once recall talk of eating dock leaves but apparently they are edible and a forager’s favourite. The most commonly-found type of dock plant is the broad dock and I suppose it was this that grew at the bottom of my garden. This is edible, but apparently not favoured. The patience dock (rumex patientia) makes the best eating and it is this that can be found in the market around Romania in the spring, under the name of stevie – no, not the diminutive of Steven: it’s pronounced shtev-ee-eh.

Stevie, the patience dock, has numerous uses in Romanian cuisine. Most commonly, it is cooked as a kind of salad, a meal in its own right or as a side dish. It can be cooked in a similar way to spinach, as in the recipe found here, but can also be made a little more substantial with the addition of rice as in the recipe on this page. Furthermore, the larger leaves can be used to make a kind of sarmale, a little packet of rice and sometimes meat rolled up in the stevie leaf and boiled slowly in a ceramic pot. Sometimes the young leaves are chopped and used in salads. The plant itself is purported to present many health benefits and are packed with minerals and vitamins.

Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 4-6 portions

Ingredients:

5-6 bunches of patience dock (about 500g after trimming)

1 large onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 cup of rice

1 tablespoon of tomato puree/paste

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 knob of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Trim the thick stalks off the patience dock leaves and give them a wash. Pre-heat the oven to about 220 degree C (490F).

2. Blanch the leaves in boiling water for 30 seconds, remove, change the water, repeat, plunge into cold water and leave to drain. This process of blanching helps to soften the leaves and removes some of the more bitter flavours.

3. Roughly chop the patience dock leaves once they have drained.

4. In a ovenproof pan, heat the olive oil and sauté the finely-chopped onion for a few minutes until it is soft and translucent.

5. Add the chopped patience dock leaves to the onion and stir well for a minute or two.

6. Add the finely-chopped garlic cloves (you can use more, or even omit them entirely, according to taste) to the onion and dock and stir in.

7. Add the cup of rice (you can use any rice really, it’s up to you) and mix in well.

8. Add the tomato puree and mix in.

9. Pour in 3 cups of water, cover with a lid or some foil, and put the whole pan into the pre-heated oven.

10. Check back from time to time to check on the progress of the rice. Once the rice has absorbed all the liquid and is edible, the dish is done. Make sure it doesn’t run out of liquid - if the water has been absorbed and the rice is still a little crunchy, then just pour in a little more liquid.

11. Once it is done, remove it from the oven and stir in a nice knob of butter for a little extra richness. This dish can be eaten with eggs and bread as a dish in its own right, or used as a side dish. Can be eaten hot or cold.

Spanac ardelenesc

"Ardeal-style spinach"

With the start of spring the fruit and vegetable markets are starting to sell the early crops of leaves. Amongst the red orach (loboda) and nettles (urzici) you’ll find huge bunches of Romanian spinach or spanac romanesc. You can, of course, buy sanatized bags of spinach from the supermarket, or worse still, frozen tablets of spinach in the frozen food section, but surely you can’t beat the real deal, even if you end up spending a bit of time trimming, washing, and boiling it ready for use. For this dish I bought one bunch (and by a bunch I don’t mean a typical bunch – in the local veg market a bunch of spinach means about 3kg) and then spent the best part of half an hour ripping off the good leaves, rinsing them well, and plunging them in batches into boiling water. I must say I actually forgot to weight the resulting leaves (pre-boiling) but I’m guessing it came to about 1kg, which is the amount you should probably buy if you are getting the ready-trimmed stuff in bag from the local supermarket (probably about three bags will do the trick).

Time: 20 minutes (plus an extra 30 minutes for trimming and washing the leaves if using fresh ones)

Serving: About 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

3kg of fresh spinach (or 1kg of trimmed spinach leaves)

Oil

1 tablespoon of flour

A cup of milk

1-2 cloves of garlic to taste

Salt

Method:

1. Trim and wash the spinach and plunge the leaves into boiled water for about 5 minutes until they have shrunk.

2. Drain the spinach leaves in a colander for about 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, gently heat some oil in a pan, just about enough to cover the base of the pan.

4. Mix the tablespoon of flour into the oil until you get a well-mixed paste and heat this, stirring constantly, for about 2 minutes.

5. Empty the spinach into the pan and mix well, still over the low heat. Allow to cook for a minute or two.

6. Gradually add the milk, bit by bit, stirring in between addition, whilst maintaining the low heat under it. The milk should be absorbed – when it starts to look wet, stop adding the milk.

7. Crush the garlic cloves and mix them into the spinach, along with some salt (to taste).

8. Cook for a few more minutes, stirring frequently, and then either serve hot or keep as a cold salad or spread.

This dish would go well with some salmon or other fish. Classically, Romanians will have it with fried eggs and/or chips or other potatoes as a lunchtime dish. Although not particularly Romanian, some blue cheese is a fantastic addition and makes it into a gorgeously thick and creamy spread for sandwiches or toast.

Salata cu ridiche neagra si morcovi

“Black radish and carrot salad”

A simple, quick to make, fresh tasting salad that can be served as a side dish, a lunch in its own right, or even as a kind of toast topping. I’ve never eaten black radishes before and I don’t recall ever seeing them in the shops in the UK when I lived there (although a lot of new types of vegetable have apparently appeared in the markets in the last decade or so). They look a lot like beetroots - dark black skin, tap root, and stem - but inside they are white, just like there more commonly-found small red compatriots. The taste of the black radish is similar to the red radish, but perhaps a little spicier and horseradish-like. But don’t fear, because after blending with the carrot the taste is mellowed considerably and the salad has an almost spicy-sweet flavour.

Servings: 2

Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 black radish

1 carrot

Salt to taste

Oil

Method:

1. Peel the black radish and grate it using the larger holes.

2. Peel the carrot and grate it using the finer holes.

3. Mix them together in a bowl with a few pinches of salt (to taste) and a glug or two of oil.

4. Serve!

Salata de sfecla rosie cu hrean

“Beetroot salad with horseradish”

Winter is a good time for root vegetable-based salads as they are still plentiful and cheap, unlike more seasonal vegetables. I’ve really grown to love beetroots since moving to Romania and I admit I hardly ever ate them back in the UK when I was growing up. I always saw it some something ‘yucky’, I don’t know why. Now I love its texture and sweetness, whether it’s grated raw and crunchy into a green-leaf salad, pickled in vinegar, boiled and grated as in the recipe below, or even just simply roasted in its skin in the oven alongside some parsnips and potatoes, to go with a winter roast. If you’ve fallen out of love with beetroot, then now is the time to rediscover it. I’ve noticed in recent years it seems to be making something of a comeback in culinary circuits. Romanians, however, have never lost faith in this sweet little root.

Servings: 3-4

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

3-4 small beetroots ('sfecle rosie')

1 small horseradish ('hrean') root (or horseradish from a jar)

Salt

Splash of vinegar (optional – don’t use if using horseradish from a jar as it normally already contains vinegar)

Mustard seeds (optional)

Cumin seeds (optional)

Method:

1. Rinse any mud off the beetroots and put them in a saucepan (metal is best; it might stain enamel) and cover them with water.

2. Bring the water to the boil and leave to boil for 30-40 minutes.

3. Drain the now very purple boiled water from the pan and refill with cold water and allow the beetroots to cool enough to be handled.

4. Clean off the skin (you should now be able to rub it off with your fingers, but use the flat of a knife to scrap it off if you like) and trim off any roots or stem stubs.

5. Cut up the beetroots – you can grate it, julienne it, cube it, slice it...whatever you prefer.

6. In a separate bowl finely grate the horseradish. Be a bit careful here if you’ve never grated horseradish before as it’s tremendously powerful – I recommend you don’t hold your head over the bowl whilst grating it!

7. Teaspoon by teaspoon, add the horseradish to the beetroot and taste until you reach a combination you like. Don’t just throw it all in at once because if it’s too strong it’s hard to correct. Horseradish from the jar normally isn’t as powerful as fresh horseradish so you might need a few extra teaspoons. If you have any horseradish left over, put it in a small jar with some salt and vinegar and keep it for a dressing next time you prepare some beef or lamb.

8. Check the seasoning and add some salt and a splash of vinegar if you feel it needs it.

9. You can, at this point, add some mustard seeds (about a heaped teaspoon) or a sprinkle of cumin if you like these flavours. Mustard seeds aren’t so strong but be a little careful with the cumin as it can overpower.

10. Serve!