“Meatballs with sour cream and dill” Who doesn’t like meatballs? Well, vegetarians, I suppose. These ones are nice and juicy, especially if you can get some good lean cuts of meat and mince it up yourself. Personally I don’t like to use supermarket-bought meat, especially minced meat, which I know from people in the trade is basically just the old stuff they couldn’t sell while it still looked fresh. If you can’t be bothered to buy a meat grinder and mince it up yourself, most butchers will do it for you: that way you get the best of both worlds. I cooked them without the dried mushroom pow ..read more

"Classic Romania Christmas and Easter cake, stuffed with walnut, Turkish Delight or raisins" One of the things that most Romanians associate closely with Christmas is ‘cozonac’, a sweet eggy cake or bread which has various fillings running through it. It somewhat resembles a brioche in texture (when made well and fresh). The filling that I’ve most commonly encountered in Romania is a cocoa-walnut paste, but you frequently find it with other things, such as raisins and ‘rahat’ (Turkish Delight/Lokum) or even candied fruits. Ideally, I’d be baking it in my wood-burning oven in the countryside ..read more

"Flavours of Romania" A nine-part series covering the cuisine and culture of Romania. Presented by Charlie Ottley, who has already produced a number of documentaries about Romania's wildlife and countryside, and who recently purchased his own farmhouse in the country of Brasov near the Piatra Craiului mountains, the series travels from region to region exploring its culinary traditions. You can find more details about the series here: Internet Movie Database "Flavour of Romania" Facebook page Netflix page I'm not sure if it's available on Netflix in all regions, so you maybe have to be creati ..read more

"Meatballs in tomato sauce" This meatball recipe was given to me by the grandmother of a friend. The sauce is a simple tomato sauce made from ‘bulion’, which in the countryside the village cooks make in large quantities late in the summer to provide them with tomato pasta throughout the winter. Meatballs, or ‘chiftele’, are quite common in Romania and I suspect the word, which is pronounced ‘kif-te-le’ is related to the Turkish ‘kofte’. It can be served with a variety of things, such as mashed potato (cartofi piure), polenta (mamaliga) or homemade pasta (taitei de casa). Time: 30 mins (if ..read more

"Homemade Bread in a wood-fired oven" What could be better than homemade bread fresh from the oven? Perhaps homemade bread fresh from a wood oven! This is a simple recipe for ‘paine de casa’ that I found somewhere on the net and noted down. I forgot to save the original Romanian link so apologies to the original poster/blogger. It’s a pretty standard bread recipe though and produces a nice light inside and a crunchy crust. A lot of villagers produce larger softer loaves than these (based on what I’ve tried at people’s houses where they’ve baked their own bread) and also sometimes mix the ..read more

"Spinach and cheese pie" At this time of year spinach is king. The markets are full of the stuff – the large-leafed Romanian variety tied together in bundles you can barely get your arms around and all for less than a Euro. The bundle I bought was probably enough for about 6 servings of spinach once wilted down, although I used two-thirds of it for this pie. The rest I kept to go with some ‘caras’ in the evening. Compare that to the flaccid bag of baby spinach from who-knows-where you get in the supermarkets which costs about 2 Euro and wilts down to a spoonful. A placinta is a pie, usually ..read more

“Goats cheese ‘burduf’ with a spring green salad” At last the spring has come, the sun is shining and the farmers’ markets are full of seasonal produce after a long winter of mostly root vegetables and expensive imported fruit and veg. Prices are starting to drop as local produce finds its way to the stalls and the hotter weather calls for fresher dishes and crisper textures. Burduf cheese gets its name from its traditional method of production and is a typical shepherds cheese produced by storing the curds in a bark cylinder and then, after a period of maturation, mincing, salting, and sto ..read more