Urzici cu Usturoi

"Garlicky nettle spread"

You know spring has come around when the local markets and street-corner vendors start stocking those gorgeous spring leaves: nettles, wild garlic, red orache, patience dock and spinach. Here's a quick a simple toast topper for the spring that uses stinging nettles (urzici).

Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 3-4 servings (enough for 1-2 people)
Ingredients:

A bag of nettles. These should be the young tips, not the large older leaves.
An onion, finely chopped
Some spring garlic (2-3 stalks) or regular garlic if you can't find the young stuff
Olive oil
Salt
A little flour

Method:

1. Wash the nettles thoroughly in four or five changes of water. In the meantime, heat up a pan of water.
2. Plunge the nettles into the boiling water, simmer for about 5 minutes till soft and intensely green.
3. Leave the nettles to drain and when cool enough to handle, give them a squeeze to get rid of excess liquid.
4. Heat up a couple of glugs of olive oil in a pan and gently saute the finely-chopped onion for a few minutes. When soft, add the nettles and stir for a few more minutes. Turn off the heat and add the finely chopped garlic (a clove will do if you don't have the spring garlic to hand), add a pinch of salt to taste and a teaspoon of flour to help the consistency.
5. Serve on crackers or freshly toasted bread.

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.

Fasole batuta/facaluita

“Mashed beans”

I'm not sure if there is a difference between fasole batuta and fasole facaluita or whether the difference is simply a regionalism, but either way, mashed beans topped with paprika-flavoured caramelized onion is a staple of the Romanian table. It goes wonderfully with smoked meats, spicy sausages, and slices of dry-cured ham but is, in my opinion, at its best as a spread for a thick-cut piece of crusty country loaf.

Dried beans are cheap, easy to grow, easy to store and are very filling. Back in the UK the majority of beans consumed are tinned beans in tomato sauce (à la Heinz) and while these are certainly tasty and cheap, I dread to think of the amount of salt and sugar contained in one can. Bean dishes, such as these mashed beans or something like a cassoulette, are simple to do but often considered time consuming. As a general rule, the dried beans have to be soaked overnight and then boiled for several hours in order for them to regain their softness.

I forgot to put my beans in water to soak last night, so I've ‘fast-soaked’ them. This involves covering them with about three times their volume of cold water, bringing it to the boil, taking it off the heat, and leaving to cool for at least an hour. You can then discard the water and proceed as normal. I've read around on the net – some swear by the cold-soak method, other say the fast-soak method makes no difference to the taste. Anyway, we’ll see...

Time: 1-3 hours plus overnight soaking
Servings:  Makes a large bowl of mashed beans

Ingredients:
500g of dried beans (white ones are usually used but I had a mixed bag of different types from the garden and so I used those)
2-3 onions
1 teaspoon of paprika (hot or mild, whichever you prefer)
A couple of cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
100g of vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Drain off the water that you soaked the beans in and add fresh cold water. Bring to the boil and allow it to boil for a few minutes. Discard the water and replenish, bring to the boil again, leave it to boil for a few minutes again, discard again, and so on, two or three times in total. The idea is that this extracts the chemicals from the beans that cause their well-document effect.
2. After discarding the water at least twice, bring the beans to the boil again in fresh water, add a teaspoon of salt, and leave to boil until the beans are soft. The time this takes depends on how fresh the dried beans are. If they've been sitting around in the shed (or the supermarket) for a couple of years, then this could take a few hours, but If they are really fresh, maybe less than an hour. Check on them frequently, topping up the pan with hot water if it’s evaporating too quickly, and testing the beans for softness. Make sure you test several beans and it’s quite possible that they come from different batches and whilst one might soften in 60 minutes, others might take double that.
3. At some point during the cooking process, you can prepare the onions. Slice them julienne, heat a few tablespoons of the oil in a frying pan, and gently fry them until they are soft and caramelized. Don’t fry them at too high a temperature; you want them soft and sweet and rich, not bitter and crispy. Once they’re done (I leave mine sautéing for about 20-25 minutes, stirring frequently), add the paprika and a little salt to taste and put to one side.
4. When you are satisfied that the beans are thoroughly cooked, drain them and mash them up. You can do this with a fork, a potato ricer (maybe, haven’t tried it), or in the blender. How chunky or smooth you like it is up to you but at this point you can add the rest of the oil (sometimes helps to add this before mashing) and salt to taste. At this point you can also add the garlic if it’s too your taste.
5. Arrange the mashed and seasoned beans in a bowl and spread the onion mixture on top and serve.

Alivenci

“Polenta and cheese cake”

I had seen this dish on a few cookery websites and in a number of my cookbooks and was intrigued by the name, which doesn’t sound particularly Romanian. I looked up the word in the Romanian dictionary (DEX) and its origins are unknown apparently, but it seems to be considered a Moldavian dish which is commonly made on the 29^th June, St Peter’s day. It’s also the name of a type of traditional dance, but I don’t know if there is any connection there.

I saw two types of recipes for alivenci (singular: alinvanca). The more traditional cookbooks (Sanda Marin, Radu Anton Roman) made it more simple, neither very savoury nor sweet, and suggested serving it as a snack. Other culinary websites had you boiling the polenta with milk and adding sugar and lemon peel and so on, making it more of a sweet polenta cake dessert. I’ve stuck with the older recipes and haven’t included anything sweet, but you could tart it up with some sugar, vanilla essence, lemon juice/peel, and dust it with icing sugar before serving if you so wished.

Time: 90 minutes

Servings: 16 slices 

Ingredients:

1kg of fresh cow’s cheese (branza de vaci, or a mixture of branza de vaci and telemea)

6 eggs

250ml sour cream (smantana)

50g of melted butter + 25g unmelted for greasing the baking tray

1 teaspoons of salt (unless the cheese is already salty enough – especially if you’ve used telemea)

200g of cornmeal (malai – Romanian polenta mix)

150g of plain flour

100g fine breadcrumbs

Method:

1. Beat the cheese well until it is nice and creamy.

2. Separate the yolks from the whites and beat them (the yolks) into the cheese. Reserve the whites for later.

3. Pour in the sour cream, the butter, and the salt (if needed), and mix until you get a smooth paste-like texture. I ended up with some small lumps of telemea in the mix but these made nice little 'nuggets' of flavour in the end result.

4. Combine the cornmeal (polenta mix) with the flour and step by step add it to the cheese mixture . It’s important to keep mixing it continuously whilst adding the polenta/flour mix to avoid lumps and to get a good, well-combined dough. Continue to beat for a few more minutes.

5. Leave the dough to rest for ten minutes.

6. Beat the egg whites until you get hard peaks and fold these into the cheese mix.

7. Grease a large baking tray with the butter and sprinkle with the fine breadcrumbs all over.

8. Pour the mixture into the baking tray and bake in a medium oven (I guess mine was about 210C) until brown on top and firm inside (you can test it by sticking a wooden skewer into the centre and seeing if it comes out sticky). My batch took about an hour to cook.

9. When it is done, cut it into slices and serve warm with fresh sour cream.

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...

Mici sau mititei

“Skinless sausages for the barbeque”

I’ve covered everything I know about mici, or mititei as they are sometimes called, in a separate article that you can read here so I’ll skip straight to the part where I tell you how I made them at home.

This was my first ever attempt at mici, or mititei, and I took the recipe from Pastorel Teodoreanu’s book on food, called ‘De Re Culinaria’. Teodoreanu’s article dates back to the 1960s and therefore the recipe probably varies from other more modern recipes in that it contains only beef. Also, as I don’t have a garden, I had to cook them under the grill. Mici, when properly cooked, take on a slightly rippled look from the barbeque, and of course, the dark lines that all genuinely barbequed meats acquire. However, I think these turned out well for a first attempt. As they started to cook, the house was filled with a smell that truly reminded me of a summer’s day barbeque, and the mici tasted quite authentic. One of the nice things about their being pure beef was that I didn’t have to cook them through. One thing I dislike about mici is that when they are made of pork you have to be more thorough in their cooking and so many time I’ve been to barbeques and been served mici which were charcoal on the outside, and dried and cardboard-y in the middle. These, although maybe a little less familiar in texture, were a little crispy on the outside, but with a nice meaty interior, with just a hint of pinkness to it.

I made a full kilogram of mici, which came to about 20 individual mici, so I was eating them for a couple of days. Many recipes suggest making them a day or two in advance and I must say that the ones I ate today (which had been in the fridge for two days) did seem to taste better than the ones I made right off the bat. It could just be that I was hungrier today, who knows?

Time: 1 hour (plus time for ‘maturing’)

Servings: 20 individual mici

Ingredients:

1 kilogram of chuck steak (ceafa de vita)

250g of beef suet (I couldn’t find this so I ended up using slanina – pork fat)*

½ teaspoon of ground cumin

½ teaspoon of ground allspice

Salt

Ground black pepper

A large chunk of bread

Some mujdei (crushed garlic, salt, and water)

½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Pass the beef through the mincer, then do the same with the suet. Mix them together well with your hands and then pass them through the mincer one more time.

2. Dip a lemon-sized chunk of bread (without crusts) into the mujdei and mix in with the meat.

3. Add all the other ingredients, with about a teaspoon of salt (more or less – Pastorel doesn’t give the exact quantity but I found a teaspoon was ok for my taste) and mix it thoroughly to obtain a paste.

4. Wet a wooden chopping board and your hands and roll out some of the meat paste into a smake of 3cm diameter. Cut 10-12cm lengths and place them on a moist plate. Repeat till all the meat paste is used up. Store them in the fridge for a couple of hours.

5. Cook them on a hot grill, or under a hot grill, or brush them with oil and roast them on a high temperature, or even fry them (although that tends to make them a bit too greasy).

6. Keep them warm in a cover bowl until they are all cooked and then serve with fried potatoes, fresh bread, mustard, and a salad.

*I’ve subsequently read elsewhere that the beef suet is the real ‘secret ingredient’ so I’ll have to make them again one day if I manage to find it. I wish I had been able to find the beef suet (seul de vita). Do any Romanian readers know where to get this in Bucharest?

Boti (galuste cu branza de vaca)

"Cow’s cheese dumplings"

These boti (/botz/) are from Ardeal, particularly the mountainous Apuseni region. I guess they are something like a Romanian scotch egg, but without the meat, and with cheese instead, and without the egg being whole inside, and with some cornmeal (the stuff used to make polenta/mamaliga) added to it, and not fried. So actually not at all like a scotch egg despite a passing resemblance from the outside. If you can’t find cornmeal (malai in Romanian, but for sure you’ll find it if you’re reading this in Romania) you can substitute finely ground bread crumbs. It can be eaten as a snack or as a starter, and I like to serve it with some finely sliced mild red onion and a simple dip made of chopped skinless tomatoes (out of the tin is fine) combined with some paprika, salt, and pepper. They’d also go well with some smantana (sour cream) or mayonnaise or any other sauce or dip really. A little crispy bacon would be a welcome garnish too.

Time: 30-40 minutes

Servings: 15 balls (enough for 4-5 starters)

Ingredients:

500g of fresh cow’s cheese

2-3 eggs (depending on size)

1 cup of cornmeal (malai)

Oil of some kind (pork dripping is traditional, but it works with butter or even olive oil too)

Salt

Paprika (optional)

Red onion and parsley to garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Put a large pan full of salted water on the stove and bring to the boil

2. Melt a tablespoon of oil/dripping in a wide saucepan and when it is warm, pour in the cup of cornmeal. You want to cook it on low-medium until the cornmeal has taken on a brownish tone (about 5 minutes or more). At this point you can add a pinch or two of salt and some paprika if you wish.

3. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a bowl.

4. Empty the fresh cow’s cheese into another bowl and mash it up with a fork.

5. Start adding the beaten eggs to the cheese and combine until it makes a reasonably thick dough. Don’t add all the egg at once because you don’t want the dough too runny or you won’t be able to form balls.

6. Add half of the browned cornmeal and a teaspoon of salt to the cheese/egg mixture and mix in. Now you should be approaching a stiff batter, almost a dough. It should be able to retain its shape. If it is too stiff, add a little more egg. If you’ve over-egged it and it’s too runny, stiffen it up with a tablespoon or two of flour. It’s hard to get it just right as it depends on the size of the eggs and the moisture of the cheese, so it’ll almost certainly need a little adjusting.

7. When the water comes to the boil, start forming the dough into balls. Take a golf ball-sized piece of the dough and roll it between your palms and drop it into the boiling water. Repeat until you have enough balls in the water. Don’t over-crowd it: remember, the balls will swell as they cook. Do it in two batches if needs be (and unless you’re using a monster of a stock pot, needs will be!)

8. Boil the balls for about 10-12 minutes until they are floating and swollen and have hardened up a little. When they are done, remove them with a slotted spoon and let steam for a minute in a dish.

9. Finally, roll the balls in the remaining browned cornmeal and arrange on plates to serve.

Chiftele de conopida

“Cauliflower croquettes”

Meatballs of various types are an integral part of Romanian cuisine and the word chiftea (pl. chiftele) (pronounced /kif-te-a/ - /kif-te-le/) is clearly an indication of their Turkish origin, the word being a corruption of the Turkish kofte and related to the Middle Eastern kafta. In the Moldavian region of Romania they are also commonly known as parjoale (/pur-joa-le/) although these seem to be a little larger in size than the standard Romanian chiftea. Due to the preference for pork in the Romanian diet, these meatballs are most commonly composed of pork, perhaps in combination with some beef. Lamb chiftele are quite rare in Romanian cuisine.

The chiftele I have made here are actually vegetarian ones, perhaps not very traditional although mixed vegetable croquettes are not uncommon. These cauliflower croquettes have a moist, light interior and, if cooked right, a crispy coating. Cauliflower is more usually pickled in Romanian or the whole florets are battered and fried, but I've seen these appear on a few menus and had them as a guest ay people's houses.

Servings: 10 croquettes

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 small cauliflower (or 2/3 of a big one)

1 large egg

200g of fine breadcrumbs (pesmet)

½ cup of chopped parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

A splash of milk (if needed)

Oil for shallow frying

Method:

1. Cut the florets off the cauliflower and cover with water. Bring the water to the boil and boil for 15-20 minutes until the cauliflower is soft and the point of a knife slides in easily.

2. Drain the cauliflower and leave to steam dry for a few minutes.

3. Break the cauliflower up with a fork. You don’t want to smash it into a puree – you should end up with something like large breadcrumbs.

4. Break an egg into the cauliflower. Add salt and pepper to taste, three large tablespoons of breadcrumbs, and a handful of chopped parsley. Mix well.

5. Heat a centimetre of oil in a frying pan.

6. Pour the rest of the fine breadcrumbs into a dish.

7.  Take an egg-sized lump of the mixture and form it into a flattened disk. Dip it into the breadcrumbs until it is well covered and carefully place it into the hot oil. It’s probably best to cook them in two batches to save cramping the pan.

8. After a few minutes, carefully turn the croquette over to cook the other side. Cook both sides until golden brown. When cooked, remove to a plate with some kitchen paper on it to soak up any excess oil.

9. Serve with any sauce you like (a homemade tomato sauce, for instance) or simply with a dollop of good yogurt or sour cream.

Clatite Brasovene

“Brasov-style savoury pancakes”

Pancakes, or clatite, are a big part of the Romanian dining experience. Most restaurants, from the lowliest neighbourhood carciuma (a kind of bar-bistro) to the more elegant downtown restaurant will serve pancakes of some sort. Most commonly they are the sweet versions, making good use of the countries plethora of jams and preserves, but you frequently find savoury pancakes served as a starter or a main course. These savoury pancakes hail from the city of Brasov and differe from regular pancakes in that they are dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and then crisped off before serving.

They can be stuffed with whatever you like. The chicken can be omitted to make a simple vegetarian mushroom-stuffed pancake. Chicken livers can be chopped and added, as can smoke-cured meats, or even pork tenderloin. I've chosen to make them with the chicken I had left over from making supa de pui cu galuste de gris earlier, but you can use whatever you have in the fridge.

Servings: About 6-7 pancakes

Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

For the pancake batter:

300g of plain flour

500ml of milk

3 eggs

Salt to taste

For the crispy coating:

3 eggs

200g of breadcrumbs (pesmet)

For the filling:

1 medium onion

2 eggs

1 tablespoon of plan flour

1 glass of cold milk

1 bunch of dill

A few tarragon leaves

300g of cooked chicken chunks

600g of mushrooms

A pinch of dried thyme

Salt, pepper, and paprika, to taste

Oil (olive, butter, dripping, sunflower – whatever you prefer)

For serving:

Some kind of sauce, such as homemade tomato sauce, sour cream sauce, cheese sauce, or whatever you like.

Some chopped parsley or dill to sprinkle on top

Method:

For the filling:

1. Trim and rinse the mushrooms and perhaps cut them into thick slices (or leave whole, if they are small enough.)

2. Finely chop the onion.

3. Heat the oil in the pan and when it’s hot, add the mushrooms (and chicken pieces if they are uncooked) and onion and sauté for about 5-10 minutes until the mushrooms are cooked and the onion is translucent.

4. While they are cooking, dissolve the flour in the cold milk, add the eggs, and beat till well combined.

5. Finely chop the dill and the tarragon.

6. When the mushrooms and onions are soft, add the chicken (if you used cooked chicken), the milk/egg mixture, the thyme, pepper, salt, paprika, and mix well and leave to continue cooking on a medium-low heat for a few more minutes, until it starts to thicken up a little, then take off the heat.

7. Then stir in the chopped dill and tarragon.

For the pancakes:

1. Beat together the flour and eggs and the salt, and gradually add the milk until you get the right consistency.

2. Make the pancakes in the normal way, but they should be a little large than regular pancakes, and a little bit thicker.

3. Make all the pancakes you can with the batter and keep them warm to one side.

For the final composition:

1. Lay a pancake out in front of you.

2. Spread some of the filling on the pancake, spreading it quite thinly, from top to bottom, but not out to the sides too much.

3. Fold both sides in (fold about 2-3cm over on each side) and then roll the pancake up from the bottom to the top (thus trapping the sides you’ve just folded over to prevent the filling leaking out when you cook them).

4. Repeat until you’re out of pancakes or filling.

5. Heat some oil in a frying pan, needs to be about 1cm of oil (of whatever kind, but sunflower or dripping is most commonly used). Make sure the oil is hot, but not smoking. If it’s not hot enough, the pancakes will absorb loads of oil which makes them soggy, oily, and unpleasant.

5. Beat the eggs for the crispy coating together and pour them into a shallow dish.

6. Tip the breadcrumbs onto another plate.

7. Dip each pancake into the egg to coat it well, then roll them in the breadcrumbs until thoroughly coated, then pop them into the frying pan with the hot oil.

8. Fry them evenly all over and remove to a plate with some kitchen paper on it to drain off any excess oil.

9. Arrange them nicely on the serving plates and just before serving, drizzle on some sauce of your chose, but don’t pour on too much on the top or they’ll go soggy. Garnish with herbs and serve.

Enjoy!

Placinta Dobrogeana

“Cheese pie Dobrogea style”

Dobrogea is the area in the south-east of Romania comprising the Danube delta and the cities of Constanta and Tulcea. Historically, it has been somewhat prone to invasion and colonization and as a result has many varied influences in its cuisine. One period of foreign control was during the Ottoman period when many settlers from the Ottoman Empire moved to the region, introducing Turkish culinary habits to the area. As a result you find many good pies and pastries in the region, as well as other sweet and savoury delights.

Placinta Dobrogreana (pronounced /pla-chin-ta do-bro-gee-ana/) is probably one of the most famous pies or pastries in Romania – its popularity meaning that it can easily be found in good pastry shops all around the country. Whilst researching the recipe I notice that there do seem to be variations. Some make it as a pie with the cheese filling between layers of thinly rolled-out pastry. Other recipes have the filling rolled up in the pastry like a sausage and then arranged around the baking tray. Some recipes combine the cheese with sour cream, others with eggs. I’ve tried to incorporate elements and options of all these methods, but how you ultimately make it is up to you depending on your preference for ingredients and look.

This version is the savoury version of the pie, but a sweet version also exists, using sweetened cheeses and sometimes mixed with raisins. If you can’t be bothered to make your own dough (really, it’s an easy dough to make, so don’t be afraid!) you can use shop-bought phyllo pastry.

Servings: 8 slices
Time: 90 minutes

Ingredients:

For the dough:

300g flour

160ml water

1 small egg

1 tablespoon of oil (sunflower or olive)

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of vinegar (not malt)

For the filling:

500g of soft fresh cheese (see method)

Smantana (sour cream) and/or eggs (probably no more than 3 – see method)

For cooking:

100g melted butter or oil (sunflower/vegetable)

1 large egg

3 good tablespoons of yogurt or sour cream (smantana)

Method:

1. Pour the flour into a mixing bowl, make a well in the centre, and add the egg, oil, water, salt and vinegar.

2. Combine the ingredients in the well and slowly draw in the flour, mixing well with your fingers, until a dough starts to form.

3. Form the dough into a ball and turn out onto a floured work surface. Knead the dough until you achieve a soft, elastic dough which is no longer sticky.

4. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a damp tea towel and rest on the sideboard for 30 minutes. Alternatively, flour the ball a little, and drop it into a plastic freezer bag, give it a twist to eliminate the air, and rest for 30 minutes.

5. While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to about 200-210C (medium heat).

6. Now it’s time to start to make the cheese filling. You should use about 500g of cheese but you can add more if you like a thicker layer of cheese in your pie (or indeed less, if you like it less cheesy). I used a mixture of telemea de oaie (ewe’s milk cheese, something like a feta), branza proaspata de vaca (a soft fresh cow’s milk cheese) and branza de burduf (a soft but slightly mature tasting sheep’s milk cheese) but you can use any good fresh or semi-fresh cheeses (such as chevre, feta, Neuchâtel, paneer, queso fresco). Combine the cheeses well, and break up the harder ones with a fork, and then add either smantana (sour cream) or eggs, little by little, until you reach a nice sloppy consistency. I recommend adding the eggs/cream gradually – the amount you need will depend on the initial consistency of the cheese and the size of the eggs. The consistency you want is quite thick, certainly not ‘pourable’, but something like a thick cake batter or bricklaying mortar (if that helps you at all!). Taste it when you’ve done combining it and add salt if necessary.

7. You’ll need to brush the sheets of dough with a little butter or oil. If you intend to use butter, now is the time to melt it in a pan over a very low heat.

8. Once the dough is sufficiently rested, it’s time to roll it out. First of all, roll the dough into a sausage and cut into six equal parts. Form each sixth into a ball and then roll it out until it is the size and shape of the baking tray you intend to use (mine was a 25cm diameter circular tray, about 3cm deep).

9. Butter or oil the bottom of the tray well, then put in the first sheet of dough, brush it with butter/oil, then put in the second sheet, then half the cheese, spreading it out to about 1cm from the edge of the tray, then another two sheets of dough (the first, again, brushed with butter/oil). Now add the rest of the cheese, again spreading it out until it’s about 1cm shy of the edge of the tray. Finally, add the last two sheets of dough, brush each with butter/oil.

10. What I do now is to gently run the back of a knife over the top to mark the portions, dividing it into eight wedges (as I use a circular tray). I don’t actually cut through the dough, I just depress it so that the cutting point will more clearly defined at the end of the baking process.

11. Now, put the pie into the preheated oven and cook for about 20-30 minutes until the top has started to brown. At this point, make a mixture of one egg and three tablespoons of smantana (sour cream) or yogurt, according to preference. Spread this mixture over the top of the pie and return it to the oven for another 15-20 minutes, or until once again brown.

12. Once it’s nice and brown all over (but not burnt!) take it out of the oven, let it cool down for a few minutes, and then cut it into portions using the lines you scored in it earlier. Then...eat!