ROMANIAN TRADITIONAL RECIPES

translated & adapted from

Silvia Jurcovan, Carte de bucate, Bucureşti : Editura Tehnică, 1983

Belly soup (ciorbã de burtã)

0.5 kg of belly, cleaned, then weighed, 0.5 kg of soup vegetables (carrots, parsley and
onion), 6-7 cloves of garlic, one lemon, one yolk, 100 milliliters of cream or yogurt,
lovage, salt, pepper

For the soup, use the stomach of a cow or of a grown calf. Cleanse it of all grease from
the outer side and rub it well with salt and sliced onion, in order to take out its specific
smell.

Wash the stomach repeatedly in lukewarm water, then immerse it in cold water along
with a full teaspoon of bicarbonate that will neutralize the hydrochloric acid found galore
in the muscles of the belly. Leave it immersed until the second day, when it must be
rinsed again.

The stomach (improperly termed “belly”), once cleansed, is put to boiling in 3 liters of
cold water and a teaspoon of salt. It must boil for 3 up to 4 hours, being made up of
strong muscles. After 2 hours, add the vegetables and onion cut in four, then keep it
boiling under cover, until the belly is smoothened enough.

In a pressurized chamber pot, it will boil in about 2 hours. The belly is put in the pot,
along with the vegetables in about 2 liters of water, with a teaspoon of salt. Boil it at a
low fire, like a meat soup, calculating the boiling time only from the moment the first
steam has come out the valve. When the belly is boiled, put the pot in cold water, in order
for the steam to condensate, then take out the lid and pour the contents in a different pot.

The belly, boiled in either way, is taken out of the soup, cut in slices of 0.5 cm, and the
latter are cut in pieces of 3-4 cm in length. The pieces are put in the strained soup,
adding, optionally, more water (pending on how thick we want the soup).

Bring it to boiling point again and keep it boiling for a while, then take it off the fire, add
salt, lemon juice (which gives the specific sour taste of the soup), vinegar or, optionally,
broth. It is mandatory for all ingredients to boil together for some 5 minutes, in order to
destroy the ferments (for, otherwise, it risks to keep on fermenting).

Serve hot, seasoned with minced garlic, lovage and add several cubicles of butter or two
teaspoons of olive oil, to give it a better look.
Belly soup can also be made with the vegetables left inside. In this event, put the well-
washed belly in 2 liters of cold water, along with half a teaspoon of salt. The vegetables
and onion (about 250 grams), grinded through a large-holed grinder, are steeled with 2 or
3 spoons of olive oil, for 2 minutes.

After boiling the belly for about 2 hours, add the vegetables, in order for them to boil
together, until they are all softened. Should you boil the belly in a pressurized pot, put the
steeled vegetables along with the belly from the very beginning. Afterwards, take the
belly out, cut it as described above and finish the process in a similar manner, according
to your taste.

Peasants’ polenta (mămăligă ţărănească)

1 liter of water, 200 grams of corn flour, one topped teaspoon of salt (10 grams)

Start boiling the water, along with the salt, in a 2-liter cauldron or pig-iron pot. When the
water is at the boiling point, sieve a handful of corn flour, mimicking a rain, then drop the
entire quantity of corn flour, without mixing.

Keep it boiling until it bubbles 2 or 3 times, then insert the mixing stick in the middle of
the flour; push it down to the bottom of the cauldron, so that the steam penetrates it
better. Then, take out the mixing stick and let the polenta boiling at low fire for some 30
minutes.

Afterwards, empty about half of the water in another bowl and mix the polenta alertly
with the mixing stick, until it has no more lumps in it, adding back the rest of the water,
in two installments. Keep mixing in the meantime, to prevent the apparition of lumps.

When ready, the polenta will be more elastic; amass it with a spoon from the edges of the
cauldron and press it level; keep it onward on the fire, until it puffs once – signaling it has
come off the bottom of the cauldron.

Topple it on a platter and serve it hot, as adornment to any food you may like (sarmale,
chicken with cream, fried fish, roasted sausage &c).
Force-meat rolls with rice in cabbage leaves (sarmale din varzã cu orez)

About 1.5 kg of sour or sweet cabbage, 250 grams of rice, 200 milliliters of olive oil or
200 grams of fat, smoked bacon, 150 grams of onion, 250 milliliters of tomato juice,
thyme, daphne leaves, pepper

*steeling (a cãli) roughly means pouring hot oil on something or immersing it in hot oil

Steel the onion grinded in small pieces and the well-washed and dried rice in the entire
quantity of olive oil for 2 or 3 minutes, at a low fire. Keep mixing in the meantime, to
prevent it from getting burnt, only to get the rice stiffened slightly (in order for it not to
form gruel when boiling).

Should you prepare it with smoked bacon (which gives it a spicier taste), cut it in the
smallest possible pieces and steel them at low fire (in order to prevent the burnout of the
fat), pressing them constantly with the back of the spoon, in order for the fat to flow
away, until they become golden.

Add the grinded onion and rice, mix for a minute and quench it (irrespective whether you
used oil or bacon) with 150 milliliters of tomato juice and 150 milliliters of water. Leave
it boiling at low fire, until all the liquid has evaporated away and the rice is partly boiled.

Afterwards, mix about one third of the rice with minced cabbage (either sour or sweet)
and add a tip of a teaspoon of pepper or juniper, dill and green, minced thyme (or grinded
dry thyme).

If using sweet cabbage, add a teaspoon of salt. No salt is necessary if using sour cabbage.
Sour cabbage has to be washed prior to use in lukewarm water, but only if it is either too
sour or too salty.

Fill in the cabbage leaves with this composition. Cut the remaining cabbage like noodles,
laying part of it on the bottom of the pot and the remainder over the sarmale. Add a leaf
of daphne, 10 grains of pepper, a branch of thyme, 100 milliliters of tomato juice or a
spoon of ketchup (to add more color), 4-5 spoons of olive oil and water, to engulf the
sarmale. If the cabbage is sweet, add water in equal proportions with the tomato juice or
with broth, to engulf the sarmale.

Leave it boiling at low fire, fully covered by the lid, until the cabbage is well softened.
Sour cabbage boils in about half an hour, and sweet cabbage in about an hour. In a
pressurized pot, it boils in half the time, counting since the first steam comes out of the
valve.

Serve as they are or topped with cream, either as an entrée or as the main course.