Romanian Recipes

A traditional Romanian Winter Season menu will feature lots of pork dishes, since people raise pigs just for the holidays. Very popular are sarmale, pork roasts, jellied pork, and as deserts Romanian panetone (sweet yeasted bread) filled with walnuts, raisins, poppy seeds, chocolate. We selected for you a few well known dishes which are also easy to prepare:

“Salata de boeuf”

Cabbage rolls * Sarmale

Romanian Style Polenta * Mămăligă

Romanian Walnut Panetone * Cozonaci cu nuca

Sweet bread snail shaped * Melci

“Salata de boeuf”

4-5 potatoes, 1 carrot, 1 parsley root, 1 parsnip (optional), 1 large celery root, a handful of green peas, 2 pickles, 1/2 lb/250 g poultry breast or beef sirloin, 300g mayo,1 tablespoon mustard, salt.

You get the best beef salad by boiling the vegetables with the meat (soup). Cube the potatoes and all other vegetables. The same goes for the meat and pickles. Place all in a bowl, add the peas and salt. In a separate bowl, mix mayo and mustard. Add 3/4 of the mayo mixture to the meat and vegetables and mix well. Arrange on a serving platter.

Smooth with a knife and then cover with the rest of the mayo mixture. Garnish with a few olives, hard boiled egg white, or egg slices, pickled red peppers, parsley, etc. Try to shape flowers, other designs.  

Cabbage rolls * Sarmale

1 large soured cabbage or one large cabbage and sour kraut*, 1 3/4 lb/750 g ground meat (mixture of pork and beef is recommended), 4 large onions, 2 tablespoons rice, 3 tablespoons lard, 5-6 tomatoes or 1 tablespoon tomato sauce, salt, pepper, 1 qt/1 l sour cream

Grind the meat with a raw onion. Place in a bowl and mix with rice, pepper, salt and finely chopped onion slightly fried in two tablespoons of lard. Mix everything well. Core the cabbage with a sharp thin knife. Carefully remove the cabbage leaves, one by one, so that they do not tear. Cut larger leaves in 2 or 3 and then place a little meat in

each cabbage piece and roll in. The smaller the rolls are, the tastier they are. Place a layer of rolls in the pan (take a deep one), then cover with a layer of chopped (julienned) cabbage, then a layer of thinly sliced tomatoes. Do this layering until all the rolls are made. The last layer must be tomato slices or add tomato sauce. Add a heaping tablespoon of lard, pour the borsh and let simmer on top of the range for 30 minutes. Then place in the oven so that the liquid is reduced. Serve with sour cream.

* When soured cabbage is not available, use cabbage leaves scalded in water and sour kraut in stead of chopped (julienned) cabbage.

Romanian Style Polenta * Mămăligă

1 qt. Water, 1-2 cups corn meal, 2 tsp. salt

Boil water and salt in a pot. When water is boiling, gradually add corn meal while stirring the mixture with a whisk.

Stop adding corn meal when the mixture is considerably thick, though still liquid.

Continue to simmer for about 10-15 minutes, with caution since the mixture bubbles up and splatters hot polenta around.

Remove from the heat and serve with your favorite dish.

Romanian Walnut Panetone * Cozonaci cu nuca

Romanian Panetone dough: 2 lbs/1 kg flour, 10 oz/300 g sugar, 1 1/2 cups milk, 6 eggs, 2 oz/50 g yeast, 7 oz/200 g butter, 2 tablespoons oil, vanilla stick, salt, egg for washing the dough, grease for the pans.

Make a starter from yeast and a teaspoon of sugar. Mix until the consistency of sour cream, add 2-3 tablespoons tepid milk, a little flour and mix well; sprinkle some flour on top, cover and let sit in a warm place to rise. Boil the milk with the vanilla stick (cut in very small pieces) and leave it on the side of the range, covered, to keep warm.

Mix the yolks with the sugar and salt, then slowly pour the tepid milk, stirring continuously. Place the risen starter in a large bowl and pour, stirring continuously, the yolk-milk mixture and some flour, a little at a time. Then add 3 whipped egg whites. When you finish this step, start kneading. Knead, adding melted butter combined with oil, a little at a time, until the dough starts to easily come off your palms. Cover with a cloth and then something thicker (like a blanket). Leave in a warm place to triple in bulk. If during kneading the dough seems too hard, you may add a little milk. If, on the contrary, the dough seems too soft, you may add a little flour.

Filling: 10 oz/300 g ground walnuts, 1 cup milk, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup rum, vanilla

Grease a bread pan, place the roll inside, let rise for a while. Wash with egg and bake at medium heat. Take out of the pan as soon as it is done, place on a cloth and let cool.

Sweet bread snail shaped * Melci

Panetone dough, 2-3 tablespoons ground walnuts, mixed with a little sugar, syrup: 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup water, vanilla

Take pieces of dough the size of an egg and make finger thick ropes. Roll in the shape of a snail, set on a greased pan and let rise a little. Bake the snails, remove from the pan and quickly dunk into the hot syrup. Arrange on a plate and sprinkle with ground walnuts mixed with sugar.