Romanian Meal! Sarmale!

I am pretty sure I have already discussed the fact that we went and spent some time with Stacy’s family in Rachita during our month in Romania. I am pretty sure that there was not an hour that I was awake that I was not offered some type of food, all the way from grapes from the vine hanging above their courtyard to their daughter offering us most of her candy that her Aunt had given to her. One of our favorite memories though is the first meal we had there was Sunday lunch. We sit down and there is chicken noodle soup out and bowls and so we dig in. There is also bread so we start eating most of us assuming that this was lunch. Pretty good lunch, I think. Stacy failed to mention that this was only the first of 4 courses of food which would be brought to the table. We did our fair share of soup, so when they took the soup away we were ready to leave the table and here comes sarmale. We then were made fun of for the fact that we assumed that the soup was all given that there were plates under our bowls. We all tried to eat 2 sarmale. Then comes the fried chicken and mashed potatoes. By this point we are all fighting over the smallest pieces because we are so full from all of the soup and sarmale we have already consumed. Finally out comes dessert. Several types of cakes all containing some form of chocolate (a very good thing in my book), but man we were all so full we could barely enjoy how wonderful these desserts were. After this we all retired for a Sunday afternoon nap, it rained and we ate leftovers for dinner and lunch the next day because we had not been able to eat it all at lunch on Sunday.

I have included here the recipe for sarmale which we had in Stacy’s family’s home as well as the home of our ministry contact’s friend. It is pretty wonderful. You can eat as a full meal or as an appetizer sort of dish (we did both).

 

Get Excited!

Ingredients:
1 large soured cabbage*
1 3/4 lb/750 g ground meat (mixture of pork and beef is
recommended)
4 large onions
2 tablespoons rice
3 tablespoons lard (optional)
5-6 tomatoes or 1 tablespoon tomato sauce
salt
pepper

1 qt/1 l sour cream

Instructions:
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.

* Sour cabbage by letting it sit in salt and water for three days before cooking