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.

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.

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 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...

Ciorba de urzici

“Sour stinging nettle soup”

I was making a dish of nettles (urzici in Romanian) cooked in the oven and I had a good few handfuls of nettles left over, so I thought I’d make a quick and easy soup for lunch based on a few Romanian nettle recipes I had read on the net. A lot of them also added rice, but I’m putting rice in the other dish so I left them out. Add about 50g of rice per portion at the beginning when you boil the nettles and garlic together if you want to use it. Notice that I only made enough for one bowl as it was only for me, so just multiply the quantities by the number of portions you want to make. It turned out quite tasty and surprisingly filling. The smell of cooking nettles somehow reminds me of the smell of those sheets of seaweed you use for making sushi.

Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 1

Ingredients:

About 150-200g of nettles (I didn’t weight them, but it was enough to loosely fill a medium mixing bowl

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons of sour cream (smantana)

3 green garlic stems (or two cloves of regular garlic and a small onion)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Wash the nettles thoroughly in 3 or 4 changes of cold water.

2. Bring some water to the boil and blanch the nettles for about one minute and drain.

3. Bring another pan of about 600ml of water to the boil. When it boils, add the drained nettles and the chopped garlic (and onion, if using). Leave to gentle boil for about 15-20 minutes until everything is soft.

4. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolk and the sour cream together.

5. When the soup has finished boiling, blend it into a cream with a hand blender and stir in the yolk/cream mixture.

6. Simmer for another minute, stirring constantly.

7. Season to taste.

8. Serve with fresh cream and crusty bread.

Drob de miel

"Lamb offal terrine for Easter"

Drob de miel is a kind of terrine made of lamb’s organs and is usually eaten only at Easter time. Along with cozonac, it is possibly the dish most commonly associated with the Romanian Easter celebrations. In many ways it is similar to the Scottish haggis, but without the addition of any cereals. I read through quite a few recipes online and in books and it seems there are many different ways to prepare drob and the ingredients can vary considerably. I’ve chosen to use lamb’s organs (heat, lungs, liver, kidneys) because I am fortunate enough to live not so far from a large meat market (Obor, for those that know Bucharest) and so it was relatively easy for me to pick up a lamb’s pluck and lights (this set of organs still connected together) as well as a lamb’s caul for the lining. Many people here don’t really like lamb, however, and it’s quite common to see it made with chicken livers, which can be found in any supermarket in Romania and are quite popular.

As the organs were all connected I started by separating them and trimming off all the connective tissue and fat. I then cut the sinew out of the kidneys and livers, trimmed the flaps and tubes off the heart and rinsed out the blood, and also flushed out the lungs. I left the heart in cold water for about 20 minutes whilst preparing the rest of the meat. Finally, once it was all thoroughly clean and well trimmed, I chopped it into small pieces (chunks of about 3-4cm square) and soaked the whole lot in vinegar and water (1 part vinegar for 3 parts water) for about 20 minutes to eradicate any grotty odours. I ended up with about 1.2kg of good offal from the original 1.8kg bag. That should be enough to make one large loaf-sized drob. You will probably be able to get pre-trimmed and cleaned organs if you go to your local butcher or supermarket, which will save you the trouble (especially if you’re a bit squeamish).

The recipes I researched before making mine all seemed to include a sautéed onion, and for the rest of the ‘green stuff’ they used spring onion, young garlic, lovage (lustean), parsley, dill, and basically ‘whatever you like and whatever you have’. I had spotted some wild garlic (leurda) whilst at the market so I thought that would make a nice addition as leurda is very much a spring leaf.

The method of cooking also varies from recipe to recipe. Some people finely chop the organs and then fry them. Some boil the organs and then mince them up. Others just chop up the organs and don’t cook them at all (until the assembled drob goes in the oven). I chose to boil them because...well, no particular reason, it just seemed the easiest way and I thought it might retain more moisture: although I’ve never made drob before, I’ve eaten it many times and often it’s been a little dry.

Timing: 2 hours

Servings: 10-15 slices

Ingredients:

About 1kg of trimmed lamb’s organs (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys)

1 lamb’s caul (optional – see notes in method)

4 eggs

2 medium onions

4-5 spring onions

1-2 green garlic stems

1 bunch of parsley

1 bunch of lovage

A handful of wild garlic leaves

A couple of slices of white bread, crusts removed

Large knob of butter or lard for greasing the pan

Salt and pepper

Method:

1. Trim and wash the organs and cut them into large chunks, about 3-4cm square. Soak them in just enough water to cover them to which you’ve added a good few glugs of vinegar (about 25% of the total volume of liquid, but you don’t need to be too accurate). After soaking them (about a quarter of an hour), drain them well and put into a pan and cover with cold water.

2. If you are using a lamb’s caul, you should soak it in cold water for about an hour, changing the water once or twice.

3. Bring the water with the organs in it to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes until the chunks of organs have turned brown. At the start of the boil it’ll make a disgusting brown scum on the top so skim this off and discard.

4. Once the organ chunks are done, pour into a colander and leave to drain and cool for 10 minutes or so.

5. While the organs are cooling, sauté the finely chopped onions (the regular ones, not the spring onions) and then start chopping up all the greenery. You can use whatever herbs you like, but I recommend uses spring onions (it’s a springtime dish after all) and whatever herbs you like (parsley, lovage, dill, wild garlic, etc.)

6. Beat the four eggs together and put to one side.

7. By now the organs should be cool enough to handle so you can chop them up. You can either chop them up by hand using a knife to get a thick-cut texture, whiz them quickly in the mixer to get more of a pate-style drob, or run them through the wide-gauge mincer to get something in the middle (which is what I did).

8. However you chop your organs, put the resulting mixture into a large bowl and add the bread (softened in milk and crumbled in), the sautéed onion, the spring onion, whatever herbs you are using, and salt and pepper. Mix these thoroughly and then mix in the beaten eggs to get a moist, but not runny, mixture.

9. Now it’s time to prepare the tin. I used a loaf tin, which is about the right size and shape. Drob is usually served in slices and so this is the best kind of tin to use. However, you can use something else instead, like a round one, if you don’t have a loaf tin. The only thing is that you might not want the drob too thin or it’ll dry out quickly when baking.

10. Grease all the sides of the tin thoroughly with the lard or butter. If you are using a lamb’s caul, lay it in the tin, with enough hanging over the sides so that you can fold it over the top once the tin is filled. If you don’t have or don’t want to use a lamb’s caul, you can just butter the sides of the tin and sprinkle it with breadcrumbs. You can even use some pastry to line the tin to make another common version of drob called ‘drob in aluat’ (aluat means pastry).

11. Now fill the tin with the organ mixture* and firm it down reasonably well. Lay the remaining caul on top (or put on the pastry lid if using pastry, or just butter it and sprinkle on more breadcrumbs) and smear on a little more butter or lard (or brush with egg, if you’ve used pastry).

12 The drob is now ready to cook and can be put into a pre-heated oven at a moderate temperature (about 190-200C) for about 30-40 minutes or until it looks well cooked.

*At this point you can, if you like, half fill the tin and then lay a row of boiled eggs along the middle, and then put the rest of the mixture on top. I’ve seen a lot of people do this and the slices of drob look very nice with a egg in the middle.

I actually made two portions of drob. One larger one in the loaf tin which I then put in the freezer. I’ll defrost it overnight on Saturday and bake it Sunday morning for Easter day itself. I’ll let you know if this works out ok and if freezing it affects the taste. I don’t see why it should.

The remaining  drob mixture I put into a small terrine dish and baked immediately so I could test it out (this is why the slices in the picture look rather small). Although I don’t like to blow my own trumpet (I don’t even consider myself a trumpet owner) it was really very good! Much better than any of the shop-bought drobs I’ve tried (of course) and even, dare I say it, a bit better than some of the home made ones I’ve had. It was very moist and succulent and had a good offal taste, without being overpowering or too bitter, as offal sometimes can be. Anyway, the three slices I plated up to photograph disappeared the instant I turned my back!

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.

Ciorba ardeleneasca de loboda

“Ardeal style Red Orach or Mountain Spinach Soup”

Every spring in Romania I see these brightly-coloured bunches of spinach-like leaves appearing in the market. I have even known the Romanian name for them for years. I have not, however, ever had the slightest idea what they are used for or how they taste. Writing a blog on Romanian food as I am, I thought it only correct that I change this and have a go at cooking them. As with many other spring leaves, it seems the most common way of cooking them, aside from using them in salads, is to make soup out of them so this is what I decided to do. Loboda, as they are called here in Romanian, are known as orach in English (not that I knew this before today). Other common names for this plant (atriplex hortensis) are mountain spinach, red orach and French spinach. Apparently it was more commonly used in southern Europe until the appearance of spinach. It is red and green in colour and (to me at least) the raw leaves taste a little of rhubarb.

I found there were two basic recipe types for red orach soup in Romania. The first, I would think, originates more in the eastern and southern regions of Moldovia and Muntenia. These use bors as a souring agent (a ciorba is generally a sour-tasting soup, whereas a supa is more like a broth) and often contain rice or sometimes noodles. The version I chose to make (mostly because I had the majority of the ingredients to hand) is the version from Ardeal, where sour milk is sometimes used instead of bors.  The Ardeal versions sometimes have a kind of egg omelette served in them to give it more consistency just as I used in the ciorba de salata verde. I’ve started the soup off with some boiled smoked pork (actually it was scarita – smoked ribs) but you could use smoky bacon or whatever you have around. If you want to make a ‘post’ (vegan) version of this soup, then just make a simple vegetable stock at the beginning instead of boiling the smoked meat by replacing the meat with some chopped onion, carrot, celeriac and parsley, and then straining them out and reserving the resultant stock.

Servings: 2-3

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

6-7 bunches of red orach (about 150g once trimmed of stems)

200g of smoked pork on the bone (or about 100g of smoky bacon)

4 spring onions

4 green garlic stems (or 2-3 cloves of regular garlic)

100ml of fresh milk

100ml of sour milk (or milk soured with lemon)

1 tablespoon of flour

Fresh parlsey

Fresh dill

Salt to taste

Method:

1. If you don’t have any sour milk (called lapte batut in Romania) then you can just sour some regular milk by squeezing some lemon into it. To make this a ‘ciorba’ it needs to have a sour component. If you are souring fresh milk, do this first to give it time to curdle a little.

2. Pour about 800ml of water into a pot and put on a high heat. If you are using smoked meat on the bone, put this in the water, bring it to the boil, and cook for about 10 minutes until the water takes on a little smokiness and the meat is tender enough to cut easily. Remove the meat when it’s done, cut it off the bone, cut it into small chunks, and put it back in the water. If you’re using bacon or smoked ham, cut it into chunks first and only boil it for about 5 minutes.

3. While the meat is boiling, pick the orach leaves off the stems and wash the mud off them. Then trim and cut the onion and garlic into small rounds and chop the dill and parsley reasonably finely.

4. Blend the tablespoon of flour with the fresh milk (not the soured one) and add the chopped onions, garlic, dill and parsley and put to one side.

5. Once the meat is cook, trimmed off the bone, and returned to the water, add the orach leaves and simmer for about 10 minutes.

6. After the 10 minutes is up, add the fresh milk containing the greenery and continue to cook on a low simmer for a minute or two.

7. Add the soured milk and mix and then season with salt to taste.

8. Serve hot.

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!

Supa de pui cu galuste de gris

"Chicken soup with semolina dumplings"

Chicken soup is a worldwide cure-all for cold days, stuffy noses, and general under-the-weather moments. If you are a regular cook, then you should try making your own broth. It’s a good economical way to use a whole chicken and the remaining meat can be stripped from the carcass and made into a salad to follow the soup or saved for another day. Making 3 litres of stock is no more difficult than make 1 litre, so it’s worth making up a big batch and refrigerating or freezing the rest to save time at a later date, if you don't need to use it all fo the soup.

If you don’t fancy making such a huge quantity of stock, you can cut down on the ingredients listed below and make a smaller batch using a couple of chicken legs, about 150g of celeriac, 50g of parsley root, 1 carrot, 1 teaspoon of salt, and about 2 litres of water. The stock won’t be quite as rich as it would be if you used the entire carcass, but it’ll do very well. These quantities will result in enough soup for 2 as a lunch-sized portion, or maybe 3 bowls for a smaller starter-sized portion. You might want to cut down on the dumpling mix too if making it for two.

If you can’t find parsley root where you are (it’s not so common in western Europe and North America) then you can substitute it with a parsnip or even some celery. If you’ve never seen a parsley root, it looks just like a parsnip and is called radicina patronjel in Romanian.

Of course, if you are really lazy or short of time, you can use a shop bought broth or stock, or even just make up the required amount of liquid with hot water and a stock cube, but where’s the fun (and cooking) in that?

Servings: 4-6 portions (depending on size)
Time: 30 minutes (plus 3 hours for homemade broth)

Ingredients:

For the chicken broth (makes about 2-3 litres after reducing):
1 whole chicken
300g of celeriac
100g of parsley root
2 carrots
Salt

For the dumplings (makes about 16 dumplings):
2 eggs
7-8 tablespoons of semolina flour
1 teaspoon of oil
A couple of pinches of salt

For garnish:
Salt and pepper
Parsley for garnish

Method:

To make the chicken broth:
1. Wash the chicken inside and out and put it, whole, into a deep stock pot and cover with water, probably about 4-5 litres. Put the pot on a low heat.
2. Peel and roughly chop up the celeriac, parsley root, and carrots and add to the broth along with two teaspoons of salt. Leave in on a low heat until the broth starts to simmer. The theory is that if you bring it rapidly to the boil, you won’t end up with a nice clear broth.
3. Skim the top of the broth with a slotted spoon to remove the froth and scum that rises. Do this regularly until it produces no more froth (maybe an hour) and then wipe any scum off the inside edge of the pot with a damp piece of kitchen roll.
4. Once it has finished producing scum, pop the lid on to stop it reducing too much and leave for about another two hours.
5. When the time is up, strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

For the chicken dumpling soup we only need the broth, but obviously it would be wasteful not to make use of the lovely tender chicken meat. The whole chicken can be stripped of its meat, which can then be added to a salad, or reserved to be put into a stew or a soup. I used mine to make some clatite Brasovene (Brasov-style savoury pancakes).

If you make this broth using a whole chicken, you should end up with about 2-3 litres of liquid. For the dumpling soup you might only want half of that (depending how many you're cooking for) so any leftover broth can be reserved for a couple of days in the fridge to be used as stock for other recipes, or frozen in a plastic tub and stored in the freezer for a couple of months.

The vegetables used in the stock can also be eaten, put into a soup (perhaps with the remaining stock and chicken pieces to make a basic chicken soup), or even mashed up as a side dish for something else.

To make the dumpling soup:
1. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the oil and the salt.
2. One tablespoon at a time, sprinkle the semolina flour into the beaten egg mixture, stirring constantly, until you reach the desired consistency. After adding each tablespoon, drag a fork through the mixture: it’s good to go when the fork marks remain visible. Too soft, and the dumplings will fall apart when added to the soup, too thick, and they’ll end up like cannonballs. It should be thicker than pancake batter, but not quite as thick as a dough.
3. Put the broth on a low heat – don’t allow it to boil or it’ll break the dumplings up when you add them.
4. Once the broth is up to temperature (hot, but not boiling), you can start to making dumplings. Put a teaspoon into the hot broth for a few seconds to moisten it and make it hot, then take a spoonful of the dumpling mixture and lower it into the broth (don’t drop it from height) and allow it to slide off. Repeat this until you have used up all the dumpling mixture.
5. Put the lid on the pot and leave on a low heat for another 5-10 minutes until the dumplings are cooked through and have expanded (they'll double in size).
6. Taste and adjust the seasoning, give it a twist of pepper, and garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

Supa de cartofi cu carnati

"Potato soup with sausages"

This recipe was sent to me by a friend from Arad, a city in the west of Romania very close to the Hungarian border. This winter potato soup makes good use of the peppers and paprika that are so fundamental to the Hungarian cuisine which influences Romanian food in the Transylvanian regions. If you can't find Hungarian paprika where you live (try to find out if there is an Eastern European store in the neighbourhood) you can use regularly paprika. Personally, I really like the slightly smokey Hungarian paprika. The sausages turn this soup into a hearty lunch or even a welcome dinner after being out in the cold but of course, the sausages could be left out or served separately to cater for vegetarian guests.

Servings: 3-4 bowls

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large or two medium onions, chopped medium-fine

1 tablespoon of salted minced red pepper (or 1 teaspoon of mild Hungarian paprika powder, or 1 tablespoon of Hungarian paprika paste)

1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns

1 to 1½ bay leaves, torn into smaller pieces

2-3 potatoes (depending on size), peeled and cut into small cubes

1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into rounds (or half-rounds if too thick)

Sunflower oil

1 tablespoon of flour

Salt

Water

1 or 2 sausages (depending on size) - either fresh ones or smoked ones like polonez, cransky, cabanos, whichever you prefer

Sour cream (optional)

Red onions (optional, side dish)

Method:

1. Pour the sunflower oil into a large pan, enough oil to just coat the base of the pan. Add the chopped onions (there should be enough to amply cover the base of the pan). Fry the onions gently until they become translucent.

2. Once the onions have softened (around 5 minutes) add the paprika, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Let them stew with the onions for a couple of minutes. It should already be starting to smell wonderful. Keep stirring so as not to burn or brown the onions otherwise they will taste bitter.

3. After a few minutes,  take off the heat, add the flour and stir it into the onion mixture to form a thick paste with the juices.

4. Return to the heat and bit by bit, add the water (the water can be warmed up first) and stir it into the paste until the paste has fully dissolved. Add approximately a litre to a litre and a half of water, according to how thick you like your soup.

5. Bring this stock to the boil and add the potato cubes and carrot and boil until they are soft, but still holding their shape. Keep the soup simmering, almost to a rolling boil. If it gets too thick, you can add a little more water.

6. About five minutes before the potatoes and carrots are cooked, add the sausage, thinly sliced.

7. Check the seasoning and add salt if necessary, then serve.

Serving:

This gorgeous winter-warmer of a soup can be served with a big dollop of sour cream (smantana) and some crusty bread. It is also commonly served with a red onion salad, which complements the soup perfectly. To make the salad, simply finely slice a medium red onion, salt well, mixing together with your fingers so that the onion releases some of its juices, then dress with a tablespoon or two of good olive oil or sunflower oil.