National Moldavian dishes. Moldavian cuisine: recipes with photos

When I first started thinking about traveling to Moldova and told my family about it, they immediately began talking with admiration about Moldavian cuisine. For some reason I thought that it was similar to Ukrainian or Russian, but it turned out that Moldovan cuisine is distinguished by its uniqueness. As it turned out, the national cuisine of Moldova was formed under the influence of Turkish, Greek and Western European cuisines. Of course, the influence of Ukrainian and Russian cuisines also did not pass by.

I always learn more about a country through its cuisine, as in the famous saying “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” Moldavian cuisine was no exception. Looking ahead, I’ll say that in the national cuisine of Moldova my top 3 dishes are hominy, pancakes with cherries and placinda with feta cheese. Nevertheless, we tried most of the Moldovan dishes and I can confidently say that I liked everything! You know, Moldova for me has become one of those countries where I would return specifically on a gastronomic tour.

In this article I will talk about the dishes that we tried over 3 days in Moldova, and also share delicious cafes and restaurants. We have breakfast included in the hotel, so we only thought about food twice a day) By the way, when traveling I prefer hotels with breakfast, I don’t have to think in the morning about where to go and where exactly what I like for breakfast will be. Moreover, I'm not a fan of overeating for breakfast.

I'll start, perhaps, with the placinda. In general, all the names of Moldovan dishes sound very unusual and sometimes funny Placinda- delicious flatbreads of various shapes with feta cheese, cottage cheese, cabbage, potatoes, meat or fruit (cherries or apples). At our hotel for breakfast we had placindas with almost all flavors, but for me the most delicious was the one with feta cheese.

An analogue of placinda, but only from puff pastry - twirls. They are shaped like tubes, and the fillings are almost the same as Moldavian flatbreads. True, unusual ones can be found with sauerkraut or fried onions.

In Vietnam I love Pho soup with beef, in Thailand - Tom Kha with coconut milk with seafood, and in Moldova - Zama. Light chicken soup with homemade noodles and herbs. At home, I sometimes cook something similar with the addition of frozen vegetables, now removing them from the soup, I get Moldavian zama soup. The second most popular soup is Chorba. I didn’t have time to try it, but its composition is more unusual. It is prepared using giblet broth with the addition of kvass or brine, which gives the dish a sour taste. Vegetables include peppers, beans, cabbage or rice (instead of potatoes), and giblets can be replaced with beef.

It is interesting that the name “Chorba” comes from the Turkish “Shurpa”, which is how soups were called in the Ottoman Empire.

Among the Hutsuls Banush or Banosh, and among Moldovans - Hominy. This is finely ground corn grits. I like best the form in which it was served in the cafe, like medallions.

Previously, mamaliga replaced bread for Moldovans, but this was caused more by necessity than by tradition, and now this dish is popular even in elite restaurants. Basic dish served with cracklings, feta cheese, egg, sour cream and sauce Husbands(garlic sauce based on broth with the addition of vegetable oil and dill).

If you replace the cracklings in mamaliga with pork, you get a dish Tokana. Pork is fried in pieces with onions and sometimes wine and sauce are added. Almost every dish is added crushed garlic, which adds a rich aroma. Garlic occupies a special place in Moldovan cuisine; not only the taste preferences of Moldovans are associated with it, but also superstitions (for example, vampires).

Funny names of national dishes of Moldova include Mititei- grilled beef sausages with the addition of lamb and spices.

What do you like more: dolma or cabbage rolls? I’m doing dolma, and the Moldovans have their own name for these dishes - Sarmale. Instead of regular cabbage, pickled cabbage or grape leaves are often used. According to tradition, it is stewed in a cauldron. Of the baked dishes, the meat pancake captivated me. Having seen the photo on the menu, I did not expect that in reality the dish would be large and filling.

I would especially like to highlight the Moldovan pickles. Either I haven’t eaten them for a long time, or they were really so different from ours. For 3 days in Moldova, we completely ate all the pickles that were brought to our dishes, and on the last evening we went to the Moldovanesc restaurant of Moldavian cuisine and ordered a plate of pickles there separately.

Cake became the king of desserts for me Gugutse hat. It combines my favorite pancakes and cherries. The cake is soaked in sweetish cream and sprinkled with chocolate on top. It's just something with something! I usually don’t eat sweets for breakfast, but in Moldova I made an exception. Just looking at the photo makes my mouth water.

Let me remind you that for sweets there are also placintas and vertutas with fruit.

Cafes and restaurants in Chisinau

It’s good that I didn’t devote this article to a cafe in Chisinau. To be honest, we were regular visitors to the network Cafe La Placinte. It was just a few minutes from our hotel, the Bristol Central Park Hotel. The cuisine here is amazing, and the prices are very affordable, even cheaper than in Kyiv.

Several menu pages with prices at La Placinte.

We also went to the Indian cafe Himalayan Kitchen and Bar for dinner; it has a good rating on TripAdvisor, but I was not very impressed with the cuisine.

The second place we visited to get to know Moldovan cuisine better is a new Moldovanesc restaurant. It just opened in the Sun City shopping center in the city center. It is expected that every evening there will be Moldovan dances and performances. When we arrived, there were very few people, or rather we were the only ones that evening, so we didn’t see any dancing.

Moldavian cuisine or the national cuisine of Moldova has a rather long history of existence. Its formation was influenced by Greek and Byzantine culture. For example, Moldavian cooking has been enriched with a recipe for such a dish as vertuta. In addition, the influence also affected the emergence of specific technologies and techniques in cooking. Also common in traditional Moldavian cuisine is the use of puff pastry, butter and stretch pastry, the use of vegetable oils in cooking, as well as the use of wines for preparing vegetable dishes and meat dishes. In addition, you can find in the national cuisine of Moldova some Russian notes, since this country was part of the Old Russian state from the 8th to the 13th centuries. Slavic influence greatly affected the tradition of making preparations for the winter. In addition, thanks to the Russians, Moldovans fell in love with cabbage pies! It is also worth noting that Thanks to almost three hundred years of subjugation to Turkey, Moldavian cuisine has also been enriched with oriental notes. For example, Moldovans prefer lamb as a meat product, and during cooking, products lend themselves to combined processing, which is typical for Turkish cuisine.

As for the list of types of dishes of national Moldavian cuisine, among them you will find first and second courses, snacks, a variety of pastries, and desserts. Traditional soups are distinguished by a hint of sourness in their taste and the constant addition of a whole bouquet of various greens: parsley, dill, celery, tarragon, thyme, mint, lovage. They are prepared on the basis of vegetable, meat and fish broths. First courses are acidified with bread kvass called Borsh or with citric acid. Flour with beaten egg is used as a dressing. In general, two types of soup are most famous in Moldavian cuisine: chorba or thick soup and zama or chicken broth.

Main courses in Moldavian cuisine can be very varied, but they always include vegetables or fruits, which grow in abundance in sunny Moldova! Greens of all kinds are also an invariable component in the preparation of such dishes. Thus, the taste of the dishes is rich and spicy. As for cooking methods, one of the most popular is baking in clay pots. In restaurants of Moldovan cuisine, fish and meat are often cooked over coals, which gives such dishes an incredible aroma!

Recipes of Moldavian cuisine are very diverse. This directly applies to flour products. They are represented by pies, pies, Easter cakes, and rolls. The filling can also be very varied, but the most common is the filling of cheese, as well as nuts and pumpkin. In addition, Moldovans bake all kinds of cakes, pastries and cookies. The filling of such desserts, as a rule, consists of local fruits and berries.

Speaking about the national cuisine of Moldova, one cannot fail to mention the wines of this country. They are truly diverse! The nature of the Moldavian region allows for the cultivation of various varieties of grapes, which in fact determined the development of winemaking.

You can get acquainted in more detail with the national Moldovan cuisine, or rather, with the recipes for its dishes, on our website. All of them not only have detailed descriptions, but are also equipped with photos of all stages of preparation.

Moldavian cuisine in the modern world is in the position of Cinderella. She is simple and modest, rarely leaves the house, she does not have any gloss or exoticism to shine in restaurants. Some even believe that it does not exist at all. Nevertheless, Moldavian cuisine is wonderful: it is bright, original, rich in flavors and aromas. As for its usefulness, many traditional Moldovan dishes are the standard of healthy nutrition.

There is an opinion that since Moldova was not independent for most of its history, it is impossible to talk about independent Moldavian cuisine, and all dishes common in the territory of modern Moldova are Romanian or borrowed from Turkish, Russian, Greek, Balkan and other cuisines. This point of view is easy to refute: Romania was artificially created in the 19th century from parts of Moldova, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria. The cuisine that spread there accordingly began to be called Romanian, although in fact most Romanian dishes have ancient Moldavian roots.

A large number of borrowings from neighbors is also not an argument against Moldavian cuisine, because there are borrowings even in the closed Japanese cuisine, and Moldova, with its mild climate and fertile lands, has always been a tasty morsel for numerous conquerors, it was part of the Old Russian state, Turkey, and later - Russian Empire and USSR. Moreover, being located at the crossroads of ancient trade routes between north and south and between east and west, it was simply impossible for Moldova to avoid a mixture of culinary traditions. Many processing methods and principles of combining products in Moldova are the same as in the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine; the influence of Jewish, German, Mediterranean and Eastern traditions is strong here. However, not a single recipe was borrowed completely, without changes. Moldavian chefs, cooks and housewives have always had their own view of cooking and did not copy, but created, combining all parts of the world on their dining table.

A striking example is corn. This South American cereal appeared in the Principality of Moldova relatively recently (about 300 years ago), but a dish made from it - hominy - is considered the hallmark of Moldavian cuisine. Corn was much better suited for hominy than millet, from which this ancient dish was originally prepared. It is believed that the ancestor of hominy is Italian polenta, and among gourmets there is ongoing debate about which of these poor people's dishes is tastier. Be that as it may, mamalyga, this simple but very tasty and healthy dish is still loved and revered in Moldova. Corn hominy can be an independent dish, you just need to add something for taste: butter, sour cream, milk, garlic, cheese, cracklings, mushrooms. It is not customary to cut hominy with a knife; it is broken by hand or separated with thread. Then everyone crushes a piece of mamalyga in their hands and dips it in melted butter and grated cheese: it makes an excellent appetizer for dry red wine. If this is too simple, you can prepare other interesting dishes from hominy: urs (cheese cheese baked in hominy balls), sarmale (cabbage rolls or cabbage rolls with hominy) or simply fry pieces of hominy in butter.

Mamalyga cannot be called a substitute for bread, as it once was in poor Moldovan families. Today, white wheat bread occupies a special place on the Moldovan table. There are also many recipes for pies here. The most famous Moldovan pies are placinta (placinda) and vertuta. Their main difference is in shape: placinta is a flat pie, and vertuta is a roll rolled into a spiral. They are made from unsweetened stretch dough with a variety of fillings: cottage cheese, feta cheese, onions, eggs, potatoes, fruits or nuts. Pies with fresh or sauerkraut - verzere - came from Russian cuisine and became popular.

Moldavian sweets are very unusual; they are closer to oriental cuisine than to European cuisine. Of course, Moldavian cuisine has the familiar kalachi, Easter cakes and apple pies, but especially interesting are Mediterranean sweets made from puff pastry and butter dough, honey cakes made from corn flour with cinnamon, gogosh wheat shortbread, and semilune cookies glued together with marmalade. And there is also a mysterious black babka - either a cake or a pudding, which is baked in the oven for 4 hours.

In addition to sweet pastries, Moldavian cuisine also contains completely different sweets based on fruits, berries and nuts: kitonoage (quince and apple pastille), alvitsa (halva with walnuts), peltea (jelly made from fruit and berry juices and decoctions). They also know how to prepare typically oriental sweets: nut nougat, fruit marshmallows, marmalade, marshmallows and soufflé. Moldavian confectioners cannot do without wine to soak the finished sweets. Another local specialty: the use of must, thick grape juice, a by-product of wine production. Fruits and even vegetables are cooked in it.

The climate of Moldova is ideal for growing grapes, vegetables, fruits and grains. The abundance and variety of plant foods in Moldova is such that there is little room left on the table or in the stomach for meat. Therefore, for a long time, Moldavian cuisine was considered poor and uninteresting. Many traditional Moldavian dishes were almost unknown outside the country, although it is not difficult to replicate them if you have the ingredients. Today, when the view on nutrition has changed to the diametrically opposite one, and the main value of food instead of calories and fats has become antioxidants and fiber, Moldovan cuisine can be called one of the healthiest in the world, close in its range of products to the cuisines of the Mediterranean.

There is a special approach to vegetables in Moldova: they are baked whole, chopped and fried, pureed, stuffed and stewed, and pickled and salted for the winter. Simple boiled or baked corn on the cob, and it is considered an independent dish, has its own name - popushy - and is served with salt and butter or a special spicy sauce. The most favorite vegetables in Moldova are sweet peppers, gogoshar (a type of sweet pepper with a spicy taste), tomatoes, onions, eggplants, zucchini, and pumpkin. Legumes are very popular here: white and green beans, lentils, chickpeas. They are usually pureed with onions, garlic and vegetable oils. Vegetables and legumes are used in Moldova almost all year round in the form of salty snacks, salads, side dishes, main courses, soups and meat dishes.

The secret of the taste of Moldavian vegetable dishes lies in the extensive use of hot sauces, rich sour cream and feta cheese - a pickled cheese made from sheep's milk. Pickled cheeses and other fermented milk products are found in the cuisines of almost all nations, but in Moldova sour cream and feta cheese occupy a special place. They add satiety and nutrition and act as spices to create salty and sour flavors in meat, fish, vegetable and flour dishes. But this does not mean that spices are tight in Moldova. Here, aromatic herbs are used in abundance: onions, leeks, garlic, tarragon, thyme, lovage, dill, celery, parsley and classic spices: black, red and allspice, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, bay leaf, cinnamon. Simple sauces came to Moldova from the cuisines of the Mediterranean, but they changed so much that you can no longer recognize the classic pesto in the Moldavian scordola, or aioli in the mujdei.

Meat, poultry and fish are not given much attention in Moldova, but there are no bans on pork or any other meat here either. In Moldavian cuisine, tender meat of lambs, calves, and young chickens is valued. Meat is often used as an additional, optional ingredient in dishes, as a spice. It’s delicious with it, but not bad without it. For example, in giveche, lamb is stewed and baked along with carrots, peppers, zucchini, eggplants, cauliflower, garlic, potatoes, onions, tomato juice and is practically lost against this bright background. In Moldavian moussaka - a tender layered “pie” made from eggplants, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, potatoes, cabbage - minced lamb makes up less than half the volume, and may be completely absent.

Meat is the main ingredient only in ancient dishes common to all peoples of the region. These are, for example, kostitsa - fire-roasted pork marinated in wine; mushka - smoked pork ham; kiftelutse - fried beef meatballs; Resol - rooster jelly, whole fried chickens and turkeys. Often, meat in Moldova is simply fried over an open fire: on a spit or on a grill (grater). At the same time, prepare eggplants, sweet peppers, bake potatoes - and a simple, hearty, beautiful dinner with a smoky aroma is ready. According to Moldavian traditions, especially fatty meat and fish are always prepared with a sour component: tomato juice, lemon, quince, apples, apricots, wine. This is done not only for taste, but also for better absorption of animal fats, which is confirmed by modern science.

Like any truly folk cuisine, Moldavian cuisine makes extensive use of offal. The most famous offal dishes are lamb liver baked in a stuffing pan (drob), and fried beef and pork sausages (mititei and kyrnetsi).

Moldavian soups are very interesting - a mixture of ancient Russian, Mediterranean and Caucasian traditions. For example, chorba is a sour soup in meat broth, cooked from young, unroasted vegetables and seasoned with herbs, sour cream, cabbage brine or the national Moldavian bran drink, reminiscent of sour kvass. From poultry meat, onions, carrots, potatoes, lemon juice and a raw egg, beaten with sour cream, you get another sour soup - zama. And if the household only has vegetables and corn flour, you can add whey and prepare a simple soup called syrbushka.

Interestingly, hot drinks are not very popular in Moldova. The abundance of berries and fruits left tea, coffee and cocoa no chance of popularity. People traditionally drink juices, compotes, jelly, syrups, sorbets and a variety of fermented milk drinks here. The favorite drink in Moldova is, of course, red wine. Archaeologists claim that Moldavian winemaking traditions are among the oldest in the world. On the territory of modern Moldova, grape wine was known 5000 years ago. Many Moldovan villages, despite the long rule of the Muslim Ottoman Empire and the ban on wine production, have preserved ancient grape varieties that are not found anywhere else on the planet. The most famous among them are Feteasca Regale, Feteasca Alba, Rara Neagra. The climate and soils of Moldova allow the cultivation of classic French grape varieties: Pinot Gris, Aligote, Cabernet, Muscat. Divins are also made in Moldova - strong drinks using brandy technology.

The variety of wines allows you to choose your own accompaniment for each dish: light white or red wines for beef and poultry; pink for vegetables; blended reds - for hominy; Cahors or sherry - for Easter cakes and sweet pies; strong drinks - for heavy and spicy dishes. The importance and ancient traditions of winemaking in Moldova are most convincingly demonstrated by the fact that in the Moldovan village of Mileştii Mici there is the world's largest collection of wines: more than one and a half million bottles are stored in cellars 200 km long.

In the 20th century, Moldavian cuisine underwent strong metamorphoses: many ancient dishes disappeared or changed beyond recognition, but new ones appeared that had nothing in common with traditional Moldavian recipes. This is, for example, the Chisinau salad. According to some sources, it consists of cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions, herbs and seasoned with sour cream or mayonnaise, while according to others, it is a pompous salad of cabbage, apples, carrots, cheese, nuts, cinnamon, citric acid and mayonnaise.

Relatively recently, by historical standards, a new meat dish appeared in Moldova: Tiraspol-style cucumbers. It's actually fried meatloaf with garlic, lard and spices. Some chefs add cucumbers and feta cheese to the rolls to match the name. It turns out to be some kind of meat similarity to sushi. Another example of New Moldavian cooking is the “Gugutse Hat” cake. This is a very complex cake in the shape of a pyramid, assembled from rolls with cherry filling and decorated with cream and meringue. Such recipes, far from tradition, mean that Moldovan cuisine is not going through its best period. But as we know from history, she is able to withstand any test and come out enriched. Even now, Moldovan cuisine is alive and continues to develop.

Moldova is a region of grapes, fruits and various vegetable crops, as well as poultry and sheep farming. Therefore, she uses all her wealth, offering guests aromatic, unique and satisfying dishes for every taste. Today, Moldovan national cuisine is increasingly attracting the attention of many culinary specialists, as it is rich in interesting dishes. Recipes for vegetable dishes and snacks are quite varied. Thus, traditional food is considered to be mititei (elongated cutlets), hominy, which is served with meat and cracklings. Of the soups, zama and chorba gained great popularity, and flour products became famous due to vertuta. And what are the Moldavian placintas worth? Of course, any treat becomes even tastier when served with a glass of the famous Moldavian wine.

A little history

Today we will look at some popular dishes all over the world that originated from Moldova. Before we do this, let's take a short excursion into history.

So, Moldavian cuisine was formed gradually. It is quite natural that it was influenced by neighboring countries with different cultures, because Moldova is located on one of the most ancient and busy trade routes.

Between the tenth and twelfth centuries, a large number of Greek dishes were incorporated into this cuisine. In addition, Moldovans mastered the technologies for preparing butter, puff pastry and puff pastry, which were practiced by Southern European and Mediterranean cooks at that time. There was also experience in using olive oil, dry wine and spices for preparing vegetable and meat dishes and sauces.

From Turkey, Moldova took a penchant for using lamb meat in cooking, and from the Slavic peoples - a love for pickles and fermentations.

Thus, Moldavian cuisine has formed into a coherent structure with pronounced characteristics, organically combining different, sometimes contradictory influences, and has managed to find the most successful combinations of products to create a bright, colorful picture of natural ingredients, which is so loved all over the world.

Let's take a closer look at what Moldavian cuisine is. The recipes with photos offered below will help us with this.

Chorba with pork

Ingredients: five hundred grams of pork and veal ribs, one leek, one carrot, one small head of cabbage, large parsley root, one spoon of tomato paste, one onion, two sweet peppers, one glass of green beans, two spoons of lard or lard , five potatoes, as well as two stalks of green onions, two glasses of Moldavian kvass, two tablespoons of parsley, dill to taste, salt, pepper, bay leaf.

Preparation

Moldovan dishes like this are very filling and tasty because they contain nutritious ingredients containing large amounts of vitamins and minerals.

So, the breast is washed, dried and cut into two pieces with a rib for one serving. Then they are fried in lard until golden brown, adding pre-chopped leeks at the end. Place all this in a saucepan, add hot water and bring to a boil. Then skim off the foam, add salt, add herbs and pepper and continue cooking until the meat is cooked. Then the brisket is removed and the broth is filtered.

Chop an onion, carrot, parsley root, and one sweet pepper into strips, sauté in lard or lard, add tomato paste at the end and fry for about another minute. Place two whole sweet peppers into the broth, bring it to a boil, add bean pods, diced potatoes, prepared vegetables and cook until tender.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped cabbage in vegetable oil until golden brown. It is added to the soup two minutes before it is ready. Separately, warm up the Moldavian kvass, filter it, add it to the broth along with salt, bay leaf, parsley and dill and boil for two minutes.

Moldovan dishes such as chorba are served in portioned plates, where two pieces of meat are first placed and sprinkled with herbs and fresh green onions. The dish comes out with some sourness.

Moldovan placintas

Ingredients: five hundred grams of milk, forty grams of fresh yeast (one pack of dry), one spoon of salt, one spoon of sugar, five eggs, fifty grams of margarine (two spoons of vegetable oil), one kilogram of flour, half a head of cabbage, four onions, and ground pepper, vegetable oil, five potatoes.

Preparation

Moldovan cuisine offers very interesting dishes. Placindas are direct confirmation of this. Local chefs recommend making this pastry as follows. First prepare the dough. To do this, crumble the yeast in a container, sprinkle it with sugar, add two tablespoons of warm water and leave until it is completely dissolved. In the meantime, beat the eggs with salt, add warm milk, and then the prepared yeast, mix everything well and begin to pour in the flour. While kneading the dough, add soft margarine and a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. The dough should be soft, cover it with a towel and leave to rise.

Preparing the filling

How to make Moldovan placintas next? You need to prepare the filling. To do this, chop the cabbage, cut the onion into cubes, mix everything, salt it and put it in a heated frying pan to simmer in vegetable oil. The eggs must be boiled, added to the prepared cabbage, first cut into strips, mixed and left for ten minutes. Peel the potatoes, grate them along with onions, add salt and spices, you can add cracklings.

Formation of "envelopes"

The dough is divided into small pieces, each one is rolled out with a rolling pin to form a circle. Place the filling (cabbage or potatoes) in the center of each and spread it over the entire crust. Then one edge is carefully pulled out and placed on the filling towards the center. Then take the edge from the other side and do the same. Similar manipulations are done with the remaining edges. The result should be an “envelope”.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, place the placinda top side down and fry, then turn it over and continue frying until golden brown.

Hominy

Ingredients: two glasses of corn flour, three glasses of water, salt to taste.

The finished dish is served with feta cheese, cracklings, sour cream or melted butter. It all depends on personal and taste preferences. When serving, hominy is placed on a dish with a spoon, which is moistened with cold water, poured with butter or sour cream, and sprinkled with goat cheese or cracklings.

How is mamaliga prepared? Moldavian cuisine knows two cooking recipes. Let's look at each one separately.

First way

The cornmeal is toasted in the oven for a few minutes until it becomes dry and crumbly, but not cooked. Hominy is cooked in a cauldron. Place salt and part of the flour into boiling water and mix thoroughly so that lumps do not form; cook for five minutes. Then add the rest of the flour in a heap, using a wooden spoon to circle it around the walls of the cauldron so that it does not touch them. The top is divided into four parts and cooked for twenty minutes under a closed lid. After the specified time has passed, the lid is removed, the contents of the cauldron are quickly kneaded, leveled and steamed over low heat for three minutes. After this, the hominy is removed and left to infuse for fifteen minutes.

Moldavian cuisine offers everyone to try its national dish. But before that, it must be laid out on a wooden board and covered with a linen towel for five minutes. Then the lump needs to be cut into pieces with a harsh thread.

Mamalyga is often served with chorba instead of bread. They eat it by dipping it in butter with cracklings or sour cream and feta cheese.

Second way

Add salt and four tablespoons of flour to a cauldron with boiling water, stir well, bring to a boil, add the rest of the flour, stir thoroughly and cook over low heat. Then the finished dish is collected with a spoon from the walls of the container into the middle, the surface is leveled, poured with oil and left to cook for another fifteen minutes. In this case, the dish turns out somewhat thinner.

Mititei

Moldavian cuisine, the recipes of which we are considering today, is rich in vegetable dishes, but meat dishes are also not uncommon. Mititei is prepared from beef on a grater (grill).

Ingredients: eight hundred grams of beef, thirty grams of bacon, one hundred grams of fatty pork, five cloves of garlic, half a spoon of soda, five spoons of water, salt, herbs, red and black pepper to taste.

Preparation

Moldavian cuisine is very original, and you can see this for yourself by preparing this delicious treat. So, how to cook mititei? For this dish, you need to take two thirds of first grade beef and one third with connective tissue, then it will turn out more fluffy. If the meat is lean, it is recommended to add bacon.

So, the beef is washed, freed from tendons and films, cut into small pieces, salted, mixed and placed in a bowl for three hours to marinate. After this, it should be put in the refrigerator for one day, after covering the container with a lid.

Fry on the grill

After a while, the beef is passed through a meat grinder along with the pork, a mixture of peppers, soda, and water are added, kneaded and beaten on the table. After all this is done, the minced meat is left in the refrigerator for four hours. Then sausages are formed from the resulting mass (using a meat grinder or manually). Place the mitites on a greased baking sheet, grease them with fat, place a second layer on top, and place everything in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, the hot grate is greased with lard, the pieces are placed on top and fried on both sides until golden brown. Green peas, fresh tomatoes, onions or green onions, and various pickles go well with the finished dish. The sauce is served separately.

It should be noted that if there is no grater, then the sausages can be fried in a frying pan or baked in the oven. On the grill the dish turns out a little dry, on the frying pan it turns out juicy.

Finally

Dishes of Moldavian cuisine (the recipes presented in the article are only a small fraction of the entire culinary diversity of this sunny country) are distinguished by their excellent taste. In the past, they were considered simple and therefore not worthy of attention. And completely in vain. Simple does not mean dull and banal. Today, Moldavian cuisine is popular; its dishes are valued not so much because of the wide variety of recipes (this hardly surprises anyone), but because of the successful combinations of various products and flavors.

Greetings, dear guests of the site! Thanks to its traditional dishes, it is considered one of the healthiest cuisines in the world. And this is not an exaggeration at all - the climate of Moldova is ideal for growing fruits, vegetables and grains. The variety of plant foods leaves virtually no room for meat on the table of Moldovans, Gagauzes and Bulgarians living in the territory of modern Moldova.

About what is rich in Moldavian cuisine, what dishes are the hallmark of this country, what chorba, zama and vertuta are, and much more equally interesting. By the way, I haven’t written anything on the site for a very long time - so maybe you can guess why this particular article was published?

There is an opinion that the cuisine of Moldova does not exist at all. This is, of course, not true. It may not be so bright as to shine in restaurants, but nevertheless it exists, and it has its own characteristics that are simply impossible not to notice (I will talk about them later).

Of course, there was some borrowing from Turkish, Greek, Russian, Balkan and Romanian cuisines. It is quite normal for neighboring cultures to influence each other, this always happens. However, it is worth noting that not a single recipe was copied completely without changes. Moldovan chefs and culinary specialists put their own twist into each dish; this is creativity that brings together all parts of the world on one dining table.

What dish is the hallmark of Moldova?

Let's start with the most important dish of this country - mamalyga! It is prepared from corn, more precisely from corn flour. By the way, corn itself appeared in the Principality of Moldova relatively recently - about 300 years ago, and a dish made from it has already acquired a national character. Mamalyga is a very ancient dish, and was originally prepared from millet. It is believed that the ancestor of hominy is Italian polenta.

This simple and at the same time very healthy dish has always been attributed to the food of the poor, and once upon a time in poor Moldavian families, hominy was a substitute for bread. It can be served as a separate dish, but usually something is added for taste: it can be sour cream, grated cheese, butter, milk, garlic, cheese, cracklings or mushrooms. The most interesting thing is that it is not customary to cut hominy with a knife; it is separated with a thread or broken by hand (I don’t know why with a thread: would it be easier to use a sharp knife? - but it just so happens, let’s not betray ancient traditions). Next, a piece of mamalyga is crushed in your hands and dipped in sour cream or grated cheese.

This, of course, is a classic version of cooking mamaliga. I was once treated to lazy hominy, i.e. pieces of mamalyga fried in butter mixed with feta cheese, and sour cream as a sauce - I really liked it. Other tasty modifications are also prepared from it: Sarmale - cabbage rolls or cabbage rolls with hominy; Urs – feta cheese is baked in hominy balls.

I must say that white bread takes pride of place among them: all my attempts to find pure rye bread were unsuccessful (see the article where I talk about the healthiest flour, guess which one?). Therefore, they know a considerable number of recipes for pies, the most famous of which are: vertuta and placinta (placinda) (we visited a restaurant named after one of them: “La Placinte”, located in Chisinau).

Both placinda and vertuta - both are prepared from stretched dough with a variety of fillings: cottage cheese, feta cheese, nuts, fruits, potatoes, onions and eggs. Their main difference is in shape: vertuta is a roll rolled in a spiral, and placinda is a flat pie. We tried cherry twirls - I was amazed at how much filling they had! It’s immediately obvious what the country has a surplus of.

The well-known kalachi, Easter cakes and apple pie are also baked there. Very often they use puff and butter dough for baking sweets, gingerbread with honey made from corn flour, cookies with a layer of marmalade called semilune, and gogosh shortbread cookies. By the way, our well-known cabbage pies were called there - verzere.

What sweets are typical for this cuisine?

The peculiarity of the sweets is the use of mainly nuts, fruits and berries, which is very similar to typical oriental sweets. For example, quince and apple pastilles, jelly from fruit and berry juices, nut nougat, fruit marshmallows, soufflé, pastille, marmalade. Another characteristic feature of Moldovan sweets is the use of thick grape juice, a by-product of wine production - must. Fruits and vegetables are cooked in it.

The result of the evolution of Moldavian cooking is the “Cap Guguta” cake. This cake has the shape of a pyramid, assembled from rolls with cherry filling, decorated with cream and meringue.

As I already said, the climate of this sunny country allows you to grow a whole variety of vegetables: eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, beets and others. They are fried, steamed, stewed, baked whole, chopped - made into adjika, stuffed. You can see vegetables and legumes on Moldovan tables all year round in the form of salads, pickles, side dishes, first and second courses. In the summer, people prepare pickles for the winter, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, etc. Look how much you can find in their basement at home - as I was told, this is still not enough.

The most popular vegetables here are: sweet peppers, sweet peppers with a spicy taste, which has its own name - gogoshar, and, of course, tomatoes, onions, pumpkin, zucchini and eggplants. By the way, many of you probably like boiled corn. It has its own name there - popushoy. As a rule, popusha is served with salt, sometimes butter or spicy sauce is added to it. Legumes are also very popular here - various purees are prepared from them: with onions, garlic and vegetable oil. The most common: beans - white and green, chickpeas, lentils.

What is the secret of the taste of Moldavian vegetable dishes?

A special place on the table of these peoples is occupied by feta cheese - pickled cheese made from sheep's milk and sour cream. These dairy products are added to meat, fish, vegetable and flour dishes to add salty and other flavors, i.e. they act as if they were spices and at the same time make the dish more satisfying and nutritious.

In the same way, various hot sauces are widely used. For example, Moldavian skordola is a sauce made from walnuts with garlic, and mujdey is a sauce made from garlic, salt and meat or vegetable broth. The following spices are used in abundance in Moldova: red, black and allspice, thyme, tarragon, leeks, garlic, celery, parsley, dill, tarragon, coriander, cloves, bay leaf, nutmeg, cinnamon.

How are first courses prepared?

The soups they prepare represent a mixture of Russian, Caucasian and Mediterranean traditions. The most famous and beloved national soups: zama - soup made from potatoes, onions, raw eggs and poultry; chorba - soup cooked with fresh, unfried vegetables in meat broth and seasoned with fresh herbs and a sour drink, which I will talk about below; chorba is served with sour cream. There are also simple soups - for example, sirbushka - soup with vegetables and corn flour.

The national Moldovan drink, which is added to soups and other liquid dishes to add a sour taste, is sour bran kvass. This drink is very popular among the people.

What can you say about meat?

There are no prohibitions on any types of meat here. In villages and villages, many people keep geese, ducks and chickens, since running such a farm is easier than keeping livestock. However, sheep, goats, lambs and even cattle are also present. The meat of lambs, calves and young chickens, geese and ducks is especially valued.

Meat is the main ingredient in traditional ancient dishes of this region, and in modern cuisine it is more often used as an additional optional component of dishes. One of the ancient meat dishes is, for example, kostitsa - pork marinated in wine, baked over a fire; kiftelutse – fried beef meatballs; resol - rooster jelly; mushka – smoked pork ham; whole cooked chickens and geese. Very often, meat is fried over an open fire: on a spit or on a grill.

A meat dish in which meat is a minor component is givech - it is something like a vegetable stew that can be prepared with or without meat. Vegetables are stewed and baked in giveche: eggplants, peppers, onions, garlic, mokrov with the addition of tomato juice or tomato paste with pieces of lamb. Moldavian moussaka is a vegetable dish in which less than half the volume may be minced lamb, or may be completely absent.

A characteristic feature of cooking fatty meat and fish is the use of an acidic component: lemon juice, tomato juice, fruit and wine. The sour taste stimulates the liver and pancreas, which in turn facilitates digestion and absorption of heavy foods.

Various delicacies are prepared from meat by-products in Moldova. For example, drob is lamb liver baked in a cauldron. Mititei and kyrnetsei - fried pork and beef sausages. Mititei are small fried beef sausages without casing, somewhat reminiscent of cutlets, but different in taste. And kyrnetsei are pork sausages in a casing.

Recently, a meat dish has become popular: Tiraspol-style cucumbers. They are fried meatloaves with lard, garlic and spices. Sometimes cucumbers and feta cheese are added to them.

What is the most popular drink in Moldova?

You can guess it yourself. The most favorite national drink is, of course, red wine! Scientists claim that Moldovan winemaking traditions are among the most ancient in the world. This low-alcohol drink was known here 5,000 years ago. Many villages have managed to preserve the rarest grape varieties that are not found anywhere else on the planet. A large selection of wines allows you to choose your own drink for each dish. So, for example, dry white and red wines go with meat and poultry, blended wines go with hominy, Cahors wine goes with sweet pastries and pies, rose wines go with vegetables.

To confirm the wine glory of Moldova, I will cite the following fact: the wine galleries in the Moldovan village of Small Milesti in 2005 were included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest in the world! Their cellars, which stretch over 200 km, contain more than 1.5 million bottles of wine.

What other drinks do Moldovans drink?

The variety of fruits and berries has made drinks such as compotes, jelly, juices much more popular than hot teas and coffee. In the summer, many different compotes are prepared: apricot, peach, strawberry, apple, pear and others. In my opinion, this is the best alternative to those juices that are sold in stores.

Have you already guessed why this article was born?

In the article I have already spoken a couple of times about my festivities in Moldova. This summer, during my vacation, I went there to visit my relatives. This was my first visit to sunny Moldova. I was in Gagauzia - the region of Moldova where the Gagauz people live - the nationality closest to the Turkic linguistic group. By the way, Moldavian and Gagauz languages ​​are completely different. And in general these are two different nationalities. As an example, a flat pie, which the Moldovans call placinda, is called kyirma by the Gagauz. There are other linguistic differences for the same things, but this is a topic for a completely different article.

In conclusion, I want to show you a photo of the land in the field: the climate of this country is quite dry.

That's all for me. Thank you all for your attention!

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