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.

Mujdei

“Garlic sauce”

A common garnish for Romanian grilled meats, mici (skinless sausages), barbecued chicken, and other such things. No really need for a recipe here, it’s simply garlic (let’s say 4 cloves) crushed into a bowl (or a mortar) and mixed with a little salt, then beaten well with a drizzle of oil (sunflower usually – olive oil generally isn’t recommended) until you get a chunky paste. You then pour in a little water (about 100ml) and perhaps a little lemon juice (not too much), mix, pour into a serving bowl, and serve. Occasionally I’ve seen people use smantana (sour cream) instead of water to get a thicker, richer sauce. The most important thing, however, is to make sure that either everyone eats it, or nobody eats it!

Not sure if it’s true (nobody seems to know for sure) but the name is said to come from the French “mousse d’ail”.

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.

Conopida Saseasca

"Saxon-style cauliflower cheese"

The Tarnava Mare area of Transylvania is well known for its Saxon villages, some of which have gained fame through the work of Prince Charles, who frequently visits the area and helps promote agro tourism in the region. The Saxons came to Transylvania in the 12^th and 13^th centuries and built many of the houses and fortifications that can still be seen in the area. Nowadays few people of Saxon origin still live in the area; many left for the USA in the early 20^th century, were deported by the Communists in the 1940s and 1950s, or left Romania for Germany in the 1990s. Examples of their rich culture still remain however, in artistry, architecture, and in the culinary tradition. This is a fairly typical cauliflower cheese recipe but good quality smoked pork is essential and is what gives it the real Transylvanian flavour.

Time: 60 minutes

Servings: 4 portions, maybe 6 as a side dish

Ingredients:

500g of cauliflower (about one small one)

A splash of oil

2 onions

3-4 cloves of garlic

150g of smoky pork (smoky bacon will work)

100g of grated ‘cascaval’ cheese (Chedder or Emmental as a replacement)

200ml of ‘smantana’ (sour cream)

2 eggs

Salt, pepper, and paprika for seasoning

Method:

1. Put a pan of water on the stove, add salt, start to bring to the boil. Preheat the oven to about 200C (low-medium).

2. Break the cauliflower into florettes and trim off the hard stems. Put into the boiling water, boil for 8-10 minutes, leave to drain.

3. Finely chop the onion and slice the garlic and sauté for 5 minutes in the oil on a medium-high heat until softened.

4. Chop up the bacon and add to the onion and garlic mixture and cook for another 5 minutes.

5. Add this to the now drained cauliflower and mix together.

6. In a separate bowl, mix the sour cream, eggs, and grated cheese.

7. Add the cream mixture to the cauliflower mixture and put it all in an ovenproof dish and bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes. Can be finished under the grill if you want a crispy top. Season to taste and serve.

Cartofi noi cu marar

“New potatoes with dill”

I love new potatoes and I have cooked them numerous times in the last month since they first appeared on the market stalls in Obor. Sadly, I forgot to take any pictures so this time I was determined to do so before they grow too big. Already I saw that many of them were starting to resemble their fully-grown brothers but I managed to find a kilogram of smallish ones so perhaps this should be called ‘newish potatoes with dill’. Personally, I love the tiny little ones that you can pop into your mouth in one go. One dish I’ve cooked a couple of times this spring is a version of cartofi taranesti (peasant potatoes) but using typical spring ingredients (new potatoes, spring onions, spring garlic, fresh dill). I haven’t included it as I don’t know if it’s a typical Romanian dish, but it certainly showcases some nice Romanian market ingredients and is worth cooking.

This recipe comes from Radu Anton Roman’s tome. If you can’t get soured milk where you are, you can make it yourself (search online) or you could just use some plain yogurt or some sour cream, or even regular cream if you don’t mind it a bit sweeter in flavour.

Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 2 portions

Ingredients:

500g of new potatoes

A spring of dill (about 2 tablespoons when chopped)

A large knob of butter

50ml of ‘lapte batut’ (soured milk)

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Rinse any mud off the new potatoes, put them in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Boil them until a skewer or knifepoint penetrates them easily but don’t over-boil them so that they fall apart. Normally about 15 minutes works. When you judge them to be done, drain them and leave them to steam dry for a minute or two.

2. While they are boiling, finely chop the dill and beat the soured milk with a few good pinches of salt.

3. Heat the butter in a large pan and brown off the potatoes for about 5-6 minutes until golden.

4. Take off the heat, sprinkle on the dill, and pour on the soured milk. Serve hot.

Mancarica de fasole grasa galbena

“Yellow Romano bean stew”

I saw these yellow beans in the market at Obor and couldn’t resist buying them as they looked so fresh and it was the first time I had seen them this year. I had no idea what I was going to cook with them but I thought I’d cross that bridge when I got home. To be honest, I didn’t even know what these beans were as I’d only ever seen the green ones before. They were labelled ‘fasole grasa’ (fat beans) in the market and when I got home, with the aid of my trusty search engine, I found out that they are called Romano beans. I asked a friend for some suggestions and came up with two recipes (actually recommended by her mum). This one is a ‘mancarica’, which is the diminutive of ‘mancare’, which basically just means ‘a dish of...’. It’s actually something like a stew and could be eaten on its own (good one for vegetarians maybe), or you could add some chunks of meat to it, but mostly it’s served as a side dish to accompany meat. I used just over half of the kilogram of beans I had bought for this dish and the rest I used to make the other bean dish; a salad of yellow Romano beans with garlic.

Time: 80 minutes

Servings: 2-3 as a side dish

Ingredients:

600g of yellow Romano beans

2 medium onions, finely chopped

Olive oil

150ml of water

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

Salt and pepper

Some chopped parsley

Method:

1. Wash the beans and trim off the tops and tails. Break each one into 5cm pieces (if they are young and fresh, they should break easily but older ones later in the season might need a knife).

2. In a large saucepan or deep frying pan heat a couple of good glugs of olive oil and sauté the onion on a low heat until soft and starting to go golden (about 10 minutes).

3. Add the beans and about 150ml of water and mix well with the onions. Keeping them on a low-ish heat, cook for about 60 minutes until the beans are cooked, but retain a little crunch, and the water has evaporated or been absorbed. If the water starts to dry out, and a splash more.

4. When you’re satisfied with the texture of the beans, add the tomato paste, season to taste, and serve hot sprinkled with the parsley. Some people even add a pinch or two of paprika.

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.

Urzici cu orez la cuptor

“Nettles with rice in the oven”

So, in a previous post I cooked a dish of patience dock leaves with rice (stevie cu orez) so it only seemed fitting that I cook a similarly popular countryside dish from their archnemisis, the stinging nettle. If you’ve never eaten stinging nettles before then don’t worry as cooked nettles won’t sting. Nettles, or urzici as they are called in Romanian, start to appear in the markets around the beginning of April. In fact, there is a day dedicated to nettles called ‘nunta urzicilor’ (the wedding of the nettles) which is usually the last Sunday before Easter Sunday and is also celebrated as the Day of Flowers, when people called Florin or Florentina are wished well. After this day nettles are no longer considered good eating as their taste decreases once they have flowered, although I've obviously ignored this - we had a late winter so we are perhaps a few weeks behind schedule. However, whenever you pick your nettles, make sure you go for the young fresh tips of the plant. If you have them growing in your garden, you can continue to trim them, harvesting the new tips as they appear, for some time. If you forage them, make sure you wash them well and avoid those nettles from the roadside (probably too stinky with pollution to be edible).

In this recipe, which I found in Radu Anton Roman’s book, I’m just going to cook a simple oven dish of nettles made with rice and eggs, similar to the dish I made with the stevie (patience dock). Again, it can be a meal in its own right, or a side dish. You could serve it, as with other leaf-based dishes, with a poached or fried egg (runny yolk, of course) and even with a little bacon. As a side dish, it would probably go best with pork or beef.

Time: 90 minutes

Servings: 6 (as a main) to 8 (as a side)

Ingredients:

About 1kg (a very full carrier bag) of stinging nettles

4 eggs

50g of butter

1 glass (about 200ml) of milk

4 tablespoons of plain flour

Rice

Around 200g of telemea (white cheese, feta)

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Pick over the nettles and remove any old leaves, rotten leaves, badly chewed leaves, wilted leaves, excessively long stalks, stalks with roots still attached – anything that doesn’t look good – and give the nettles a very good wash in cold water to remove any soil or sand.

2. Bring a large stock pot half full of water to the boil (or if you don’t have such a pot, bring two or three regular pots of water to the boil or do it in batches). Plunge the nettles into the boiling water, leave them to return to the boil, stir from time to time, and cook until well wilted and soft, probably about 5-10 minutes. Check they are done by looking for a thicker stem and tasting it – it should be soft and edible, not at all chewy, but perhaps with a little crunch. When they are done, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and dump into a colander over a bowl to collect the liquid. Leave for a while to drain well and steam dry. Some poeple reserve the drained liquid and drink it in the mornings on an empty stomach for health reasons - it's supposed to be a good purifier.

3. While they are boiling, wash a cup of rice and cook it in boiling water until soft.

4. While the rice is boiling, beat the eggs together in a bowl and mix in the butter (melted), the pepper, the milk, and the flour. Beat together until it’s well combined and frothy. Put to one side.

5. Once the nettles have drained and cooled a bit, chop them up roughly with a heavy knife or a mezzaluna. Probably best to do this in batches.

6. Mix the chopped nettles with the egg mixture and the cooked rice and season with salt to taste.

7. Grease a ceramic baking dish with butter or lard and tip in the nettle mixture.

8. Grate or crumble the white cheese on top.

9. Put it on the oven, preheated to a lowish heat (about 180-200C say), and leave it there for about 30 to 40 minutes, just about long enough for the egg mixture to thicken and the cheese to turn brown.

The resulting dish can be served in squares. I had it on its own with a simple salad of leurda and ceapa verde (wild garlic and spring onion) mixed together with some mayo.

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!

Mancare dulce de morcovi – din 1841

“A sweet carrot dish – from 1841”

Whilst translating an article on the history of Romanian food for this blog, I came across the mention of one of the first books on Romanian cooking: 200 Retete Cercate de Bucate, Prajituri si Alte Gospodaresti (200 Tried and Test Recipes for Dish, Pastries, and Other Household Things). I’ve always been interested in food history and how it reflects the changing fortunes and attitudes of a culture, and so I immediately resolved to start trying some of the recipes. The book itself was written in 1841 by Mihai Kogalniceanu (a politician from Iasi who would later on become one of Romania’s first prime ministers) and Constantin Negruzzi (another politician and writer). So far, so good; but from here on it became a little trickier.

I managed to find a facsimile of the second edition of their cookbook on the internet, but it was printed using the Cyrillic alphabet, although it was actually in Romanian. Fortunately, it has been a popular book and there have been many editions since it first appeared a century and a half ago, so I didn’t have much problem finding the recipes written in the modern Romanian alphabet. One of the first recipes to catch my eye was the sweet carrot dish. I do enjoy carrots and I’ve always thought they benefit from a little sweetness or glazing when cooking (rather than the boiled-to-death carrots that used to be such common fare in the UK in the past – anyone remember school dinners?). One of my favourite ways of cooking then is to boil them down, covered in a pan, with a good knob of butter and a little sugar or honey. I thought this recipe looked something along those line, so I decided to give it a go. Here’s the recipe as it appears in ‘200 Retete’:

Sa iai una litra si jumatate de morcovi taiati lungareti si subtiri. Sa li se deie mai intai un clocot si sa se scurga bine de apa,apoi sa se puie intr-o alta tingire curata, cu o litra de zahar sfarmat si sa se toarne deasupra apa clocotita pana ie va acoperi peste tot. Dupa ce va scade apa pe jumatate, sa se puie coaja de alamaie cat se va socoti de trebuinta si, dupa ce va mai scade, incat sa ramaie ca patru linguri de apa numai, sa se stoarca zama de la doua alamai. Asa, fiind gata, sa se aseze pe farfurii si sa se deie fierbinte la masa.

As any Romanians reading this will notice, the language used is a little archaic. I read Romanian pretty well but I still had to reach for the dictionary (or rather my bookmark for DEX) a number of times in order to translate it, and I’m still not convinced I’ve got it completely right. Feel free to jump in and offer up any corrections. Here’s what I came up with:

Take 480g of carrots, chopped long and thin. First of all boil them and drain, then put them in a clean pot, with 320g of granulated sugar and then cover them with boiling water. After the water has reduced by half, add some lemon zest, as much as is needed, and, after it has reduced some more, such that there remains only four tablespoons of water, squeeze in the juice of two lemons. So, being ready, put them onto plates and serve them hot on the table.

One noticeable point is the measurements. The original calls for a ‘litra si jumatate’ of carrots. According to the DEX, a ‘litra’ is an old measurement which is about 320g in modern reckoning. So the first thing that surprised me was the quantity of sugar. 320g seemed rather a lot. That’s a lot more than just a glaze. Had I mistaken the purpose of this recipe? It’s starting to read more like some kind of carrot jam now!

A few other things also needed clarifying, namely the quantity of lemon zest. How exactly do you decide what is ‘as much as is needed’ when you don’t know what the dish is or what it should eventually taste like? In the end I plumped for the zest of the two lemons that I would go on to squeeze for the juice, as that seemed more practical.

So, in the end, I came up with the follow modern recipe, being as faithful as possible to the original:

Servings: 3-4

Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

480g of carrots

320g of sugar

The zest of two lemons

The juice of two lemons

Boiling water

Method:

1. Peel, top and tail the carrots and cut them into long thin pieces. I'm not sure exactly how long and thin the recipe wants them, whether they should be julienned like matchsticks or be a little chunkier. I went with a little chunkier, about 5mm square and 4-5cm long.

2. Put them in a pan, cover with water, and bring them to the boil before draining them well. Get some more boiling water going in the kettle/pot ready for step 3.

3. Put them back into a clean pan (or the same pan as it shouldn't particularly be dirty), add the sugar, and then pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Stir a little until the sugar dissolves.

4. Keep it on the boil until the water has reduced by half (be careful not to let the carrots on the bottom burn, give it a stir from time to time) at which point you add the lemon zest - 'as much as you need'.

5. Continue to reduce the liquid until there are about four tablespoons of it left. At this point, take it off the heat, add the lemon juice*, stir, and serve hot. The total reduction process took me about 30 minutes.

*I found that the juice of two lemons totally swamped the carrots and left a lot of juice in the bottom of the pan. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to serve this dish, but I lifted out the carrots with a slotted spoon onto a serving plate, and then spooned on 4-5 tablespoons of the juice that had been left in the pan.

So, you’re probably asking if you’ve bothered to read this far, what did it actually taste like? Well, to be honest, I still don’t know exactly what to make of it. Actually, I don’t have a particularly sweet tooth, and I didn’t find it too sweet, despite the quantity of sugar. I think that’s why such a large amount of lemon juice is needed – to balance out the sweetness. The carrots were lightly caramelised, sticky, with a touch of acidity from the juice, and the zest coming through in places with a more lemony note.

I have to be honest, after trying the dish I still don’t quite know what to make of it. I liked it, I can say that, but I’m not sure whether to let it cool down and spread it on my toast in the morning or serve it with some lamb. It was suggested that this was a kind of 'fake' marmalade for when Seville oranges aren't available, which presumably they weren't in Romania, but if that's the case, why would it suggest serving it hot and on plates, more like a vegetable accompaniment? If anyone out there knows how this dish was originally served, please let me know!

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!

Pilaf de ciuperci

“Mushroom rice”

Rice dishes were introduced to Romania during the period of the Ottoman occupation and are still fairly popular today in home cooking. Most Romanian stores will have several varieties of rice for sale: long grain, short grain, wild rice, and even boil-in-the-bag rice. This rice dish is cooked in the oven, which, if you are not in a hurry, tends to be quite a fool-proof way of preparing it, reducing not only the risk of the bottom of the pan burning as it so often does when cooked on the hob, but also the temptation to over-stir the rice, bashing the starch out of it, and causing it to become excessively sticky. Like many Romanian dishes, I find the quantity of oil to be perhaps a little too generous, so I will generally reduce the quantity by half; 3 tablespoons will usually do for the quantities below. The recipe is also good for periods of ‘post’ when religious Romanians fast, omitted animal products from their diet in the lead up to celebrations such as Easter, essentially a vegan diet.

Servings: 3-4

Time: 60 minutes

Ingredients:

2/3 cup of rice

1 medium onion

300g of mushrooms

100ml of oil (olive or vegetable) or 3 tablespoons (lower-fat version!)

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups (500ml) of water

A handful of chopped parsley

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to about 210C.

2. Chop up the onion reasonably finely.

3. Heat the oil in a large ovenproof pan with a lid.

4. Add the onions to the oil and cook on a medium heat until they are soft and turning golden in colour.

5. Chop the mushrooms up, as coarsely or as finely as you like – I do them in rough chunks about 1cm square.

6. Wash the rice and add it to the onions and, stirring, allow it to cook gently for a minute or two.

7. Add the mushrooms to the onion and rice and, stirring from time to time, fry for about 5 minutes until the mushrooms decrease in size.

8. Add the two cups of water, mix well, put on the lid, and place in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes. Check from time to time to make sure it hasn’t dried out – if it has, add a little more water.

9. Cook until the rice is soft and edible and the water has been absorbed. If it has cooked but there is still a little too much moisture, just leave the lid off the five minutes or so.

10. Check the seasoning, mix in some of the parsley, empty into a serving bowl, and sprinkle the remaining parsley on top.

11. Serve hot or cold.

Sarmele de post in foi de vita

"Vine leaves stuffed with rice"

When you ask most Romanians which food best represents their cuisine, the majority will probably mention sarmale in the top three. These stuffed leaves probably introduced to the region by the Ottoman Turks who governed parts of Romania for many years. They are obviously closely related to Turkish dolma and Greek dolmades. I'm not sure of the origin of the name but perhaps it came from the Turkish sarmala, meaning 'to wrap' or 'to roll up'.

The most commonly encountered type of sarmale are the pork stuffed cabbage leaves but during periods when young vine leaves (foi de vita) are plentiful these are often made instead. They can also be stuffed with meat but during post, a time when people refrain from eating animal products, they are made more simply with rice and vegetables. It's not uncommon to find sarmale de post made with mushrooms, indeed with any bountiful or seasonal vegetable. They work well as a starter, served warm with smantana (sour cream), or in larger quantities as a main course. The ultimate demonstration of sarmale-making skills is for them to turn out small and tightly wrapped.

The vine leaves can either be fresh, in which case they require blanching first to make them softer and easier to roll, or preserved in brine and then soaked to remove excess saltiness.

Time: About 3 hours

Servings: About 40 sarmale

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil

1 large finely chopped onion

1 large carrot, grated

1 stick of celery, finely chopped*

1 bay leaf

2 heaped tablespoons of tomato puree

1 cup (~250g) of short grain rice

3 cups of boiling water for the rice + more for cooking the sarmale (can use stock if you like)

Chopped herbs to taste (parsley and dill)

About 40-50 vine leaves preserved in brine, left to soak in cold water for an hour or so before needed

*alternatively, you can grate some celeriac root

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a deep pan and add the chopped onion. Cook on a gentle heat until is has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the grated onion and celery and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes, stirring well to combine.

3. Add the cup of rice, stir into the vegetable mixture to coat the grains with oil.

4. Add one tablespoon of tomato puree and mix it into the rice and veg until it’s all well coated.

5. Allow to cook gently like that for a minute or two and then add the hot water, push the bay leaf into the mix, stir once or twice, and leave for 15-20 minutes until the rice has absorbed all the liquid and is just about soft (but don’t overcook it). From time to time check the pan to make sure it’s not drying out and sticking to the bottom, give it a gentle stir with a wooden spoon, and add some more liquid in necessary.

6. Once the rice is cooked, add the copped fresh herbs, and leave it to one side to cool.

7. Once the rice mixture is cool enough to handle, take one of the vine leaves, cut off the hard stalk at the base, lay it in front of you on a worktop, put a tablespoonful of rice mixture near the base of the leaf, fold over the lower ‘flaps’ from the bottom up, then fold in the sides over the mixture, and finally roll it up towards the point of the leaf. Repeat this process with until you are either out of leaves or out of rice. If there are any broken or torn leaves, keep them to one side. In the unlikely even of there being no torn or damaged leaves at all, keep 3 or 4 to one side – we’ll need them in the next step.

8. Take a large, deep pot and lay the reserved vine leaves on the bottom. This will help to prevent the sarmele burning. Then layer the sarmale in the pot, quite tightly and evenly packed. Finally, mix some more boiling water with the other tablespoon of tomato puree (and if you like, some more herbs - thyme is quite nice I find) and pour over the top of the sarmale until the water is about 1cm above them.

9. Cover the pot and put it on the stove on a very low heat and leave to cook for about an hour. Check in from time to time and if it’s looking really dry (i.e. the water has all boiled away) then add a drop more. After the hour is up, take off the lid and continue to cook for another 10-15 minutes to reduce any remaining liquid into a sauce.

10. Serve hot with smantana.