Clătite cu fragi (Crepes with fresh wild strawberries) (Romanian)

I already shared here the basic recipe for Clătite (Romanian pancakes). They're not that different to how crepes are made in the rest of Europe. But this filling of fresh wild strawberries (known as fragi in Romanian) and honey is a truly unique local treat and you won't find it in any other European cuisine. 

These little and strongly flavored fruits are not grown industrially and they're therefore difficult to come by. They grow in the mountainous regions, high altitude forests and the like, and if you find them for sale in markets, it's a rare treat; it means that the person selling them probably hiked and picked them up by hand. 

When I was little (about 12), I spent about 3 weeks outdoors with my parents, on a prolonged vacation to the mountains. We had some camp cooking equipment so we could make pancakes, and these Clătite cu fragi are one of the things I remember fondly about that trip. They were just there, ripe and ready to be picked up. The best foraging-based snack ever :). 

If you manage to get your hands on these somehow, do try these crepes. They're amazing. :)

Last year: nothing.

Two years ago: nothing.

Three years ago: nothing.

Four years ago: Espaguetis con atún y alcaparras (Spaghetti with tuna and capers) (Spanish).

Five years ago: Goat feta bits in pesto and walnut crust.

Six years ago: Chili cheese nachos (Nachos con queso) (Mexican).

Seven years ago: Fruit chaat (Indian fruit salad) (raw vegan).

Four years ago: Baby making and no cooking :).

Susam Tahinli Kek (Sesame tahini cake) (Turkish)

One of the greatest things I tasted in Istanbul was this cake, made with lots of tahini paste (yum!) and a lot of sesame seeds (both inside and on top). The cake also contains a few bits of chopped dates and walnuts, just for the occasional taste and texture variation. If you love sesame and you want to try a more modern, but completely authentic Turkish dessert, this tart is your best bet. 

I found several variations of this tahini sesame cake online, but I have to say that none of them were completely like the cake made in the Istanbul cafes I recently visited. So I adapted the recipe a bit in order to come up with a version closer to the original. After it was out of the oven and I tasted it, I became convinced that indeed this is it:). 

I love that the richness of the tahini taste is perfectly counterbalanced by the orange juice in the batter. You can't really taste the oranges, but it definitely feels lighter than you'd expect. 

Last year: nothing.
Two years ago: nothing.
Three years ago: nothing.
Four years ago: Bacon panzanella (bread and tomato salad).
Five years ago: Irish nettle soup.
Six years ago: Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes and greens).
Seven years ago: Turkey pieces in emmentaler sauce.
Eight years ago: Orange caramel pastry windmills, Parmesan cream potatoes and Vegetarian chili tacos with avocado salsa (Mexican).

Creier pane (Breaded pork brain) (Romanian)

One of the less known delicacies of the Romanian cuisine, this dish consists of delicate lobes of pork brain, cooked until just done (by boiling or steaming), then dipped in beaten egg and breadcrumbs and fried until crispy and golden. To many foreigners, it might sound unusual or plainly disgusting, but you don't know what you're missing, so give it a chance. If you manage to find pork brains at a meat store or in a delicacy shop, don't hesitate to get it - the dish is very easy to prepare at home. It would work also with calf brain, but pork is the staple.

Sometime in spring 2014, I was the field guide for two Norwegian researchers and we had a wonderful time doing some field research in villages around the Jiu county :). I remember my time with them in that research fondly. Well, since I was being one of the two guides, recommending food was also part of the ritual, and this dish was one of the most "adventurous" options I encouraged them to try from a local restaurant's menu. One of them built up the courage to try it and was pleasantly surprised. The thing most noticeable about it is the texture: the brain matter is so fine to the taste and its mouth-feel is so soft, it will compare to few things you've ever tasted. Give it a try. 

Last year: Kelewele (Spicy fried plantains) (Ghanaian).
Two years ago: Sfințișori moldovenești (Mucenici) (Moldavian/Romanian).
Three years ago: Simple coconut brownies.
Four years ago: Italian sunset (cocktail), Amaretto (almond liquor) cupcakes and Chicken and avocado salad.

Lussebullar (Lussekatter) (Swedish Lucia breads)

These little buns are traditionally made and enjoyed in Sweden on the 13th of December, known as St Lucia's Day. The history of the Lucia buns (or light buns, since St Lucia is a saint associated with lights) is pretty cute. According to legend, on December 13, 1764, a gentleman in Sweden was roused in the middle of the night by a beautiful voice. He saw a young woman in white moving through his room singing. She had wings and was carrying a candle. She was revealed to be Lucia the Saint. She brought light, food, and wine as comfort on what was, in the old Gregorian calendar, the longest night of the year. She's still an important cultural icon and the holiday celebrating her is still very much alive. (A bit off-topic, I even had a perfume some years ago which was named in her honor and that was supposed to smell like "warm light". The model posing for the perfume's commercial was a very pretty Northern-type of beauty with almost whitish hair and very large eyes.)

Anyway, try the buns. They're not very sweet, but the saffron flavor is so intense and addictive you'll go through them faster than you planned. :)
Recipe source(s): here, here and here.

Last year: Ciorbă de burtă falsă (Romanian shiitake and chantarellus mushroom soup).
Two years ago: Crispy duck with five spices (Chinese).
Three years ago: Tapenade, wild mushroom and red onion galette (vegan).
Four years ago: Romanian and Moldavian "Tochitură" with polenta.

Alivenci (Moldavian and Romanian polenta cream cake bars)

The alivenci (singular "alivancă", plural "alivenci") are traditional cake bars made in the Romanian peasant homes for hundreds of years, especially in the north-eastern part of the country, Moldova. Polenta was a staple in their homes, and from here to inventing a sweet dish using the ever present polenta flour it was only a step :). My mother's grandmother, Bunica Sanda, used to make them as well, and although I never got a chance to meet her, I am fond of this family legacy :).
These cake bars are even mentioned in one of the most well-known children's fairy tales, "Capra cu trei iezi" (The goat and her three kids), by Ion Creangă, the most well-beloved peasant story-teller of the country. :)
I'm also very happy to post this particular recipe considering that it will be my 200th entry in the "world kitchen" category. Filling the 200th space with such a traditional Moldavian recipe couldn't be more fit :).
Moving on from the cultural legacy of this dessert to the actual recipe, you'll find that it's easy to make and it tastes delicious :). Here I made it topped with some caramelized apples, for an extra je-ne-sais-quoi, but the traditional version was usually without a topping. I recommend making the topping as well, though :). Enjoy!
Recipe source: Cătălina and my mother's memories combined :).

Last year: Mascarpone marbled brownies.
Two years ago: Baby making and no cooking :).

Moules frites (Belgian and French)

This is a national Belgian dish consisting of fresh mussels cooked in wine, butter, celery and leeks, accompanied by frites (French fries) and hand-made mayo. When I visited my friends Laura and Vlad in Belgium earlier this year (in June), almost every traditional restaurant displayed this dish on their menus outside the entrance :). I decided to make them at home and present them to you as the local specialty. 
I visited several cities in Belgium (Leuven, Brussels, Bruges), but where I loved it most was in Bruges. You can admire its famous market square and clock tower below:

By far the prettiest city, rightfully compared to a fairy-tale setting. I might be inclined towards it considering my older love for anything medieval (I will have a book - my phd, actually - be published on medieval festivals soon, yey!), but I still think the city is pretty enough to melt anyone.

If you happen to pass by Bruges, you must definitely try one of their boat rides. It takes you through the best parts of what the city has to show you and it's prettier than any boat ride you could imagine :). This is me (below), looking over a bridge towards the canals where the boats pass through (and some hour later we took a boat ride as well).

To see some scenery from Bruges, you could try watching In Bruges. It's a pretty funny movie :). To have a taste of Belgium try my mussels recipe, detailed below, after the jump.

Recipe source: Saveur. 

Last year: Turmeric-fried chicken with three chili marinade and tomato raita.

Two years ago: Baby making and no cooking :).

Sfințișori moldovenești (Mucenici) (Romanian)

"Sfințișori" means "little saints" and they're eight-shaped sweet bread pieces traditionally baked in Romania on the 9th of March (The 40 saints day). It would be ideal to bake 40 of them to stick to the tradition, but the recipe here is for only half (20). 
This specific variation is Moldavian, because that is the historical region I grew up in and I follow my mother's recipe. Also sfintisori is the Moldavian name, in the rest of the country people tend to call them "mucenici" more often than "sfințișori". In the south of the country (Muntenia region) they are usually a lot smaller, not very sweet (sometimes they're more like "8"-shaped soup noodles, very small) and very often commercially sold in packages, dried like pasta and needing to be boiled. Almost everyone agrees that those are really bad compared to the home-made "bread" version and that from the different kinds of home versions, the Moldavian "sfințișori" are the best. (Like the Moldavian kitchen in general, actually :) ).
The dough is yeast-based, semi-sweet, and they're served with a sweet syrup, honey and ground walnuts sprinkled on top (at least in Moldova). 

As to more on my personal experience with them - I liked to make them with my mom when I was little, though that didn't happen every year (we weren't a very traditional family). There was also a funny saying that the more "saints" one managed to eat on that day the more sins of his/hers would be forgiven. To this day I'm not sure that this was indeed a popular saying which other people knew about or just something my mom made up and used to say only to encourage me to eat more, given the fact that I was an extraordinarily thin child. :)

Last year: Simple coconut brownies.
Two years ago: Italian sunset (cocktail), Amaretto cupcakes and Chicken-avocado salad.

Ti ki Burfi (Sesame seed Burfi) (Indian)

I expected this kind of burfi (Indian candy-like cake bars that come in many variations) to be similar with those ready-to-buy sesame and honey bars conveniently found everywhere. And so wrong I was. Softer and chewy in texture, the strong milky taste is so far from what you would normally expect and so much better; that you could not believe your mouth. :)  I was so pleasantly surprised by these that they became one of the things I often repeat. 

I even made some a evening before going to the airport and arriving in Romania and packed them up and made sure they survived the transport so we could give a few to our friends Vlad and Laura for the brief 15 minutes we had with them at the airport, before departing again. We didn't have much time because we had to get home with our baby girl Mira and we still had 4-5 hours of travel ahead and the day was already very straining for her, but those two really wanted to see us and most of all wanted to meet her. :) A week later they also became her godparents. 
So while we were taking a bit of air and waited to meet them, they arrived with the traditional salt and bread platter - it was very unexpected, funny and cheesy but also kind of cool. That's the kind of relationship we have :). Our return of gift on the spot was these sesame seed burfi bars, made a night before and carried all across Europe :). Somehow, I find this dessert very fitting for a baby celebration, since we made them with some of Mira's powder milk :).
To cut a long story short - Mira, this is how you met your godfather and godmother. They were charmed by "how white and delicate your hands are" and "how big and blue your eyes are", how much you resemble me and how heart-melting you cling to me and need me and grow restless when I'm not in sight and suddenly calm down when you feel me close. In short, Mira, you made quite an impression and you were a little wonder, as you always are. Today is your first anniversary. Happy birthday! :)

For you other folks, the moral of the story is that these bars will make for the most heart-felt home-made gift and be delicious. :)

P.S: You need a good non-stick pan and a rubber spatula and continuous attention for about 20 minutes or so. Recipe source: here.

Last year: Sprinkle butter cookies (Italian).
Two years ago: Pickled mustard and Marliesentorte (German chocolate and hazelnut cake).

Upside-down pineapple cake (American)

Ever since pineapple started being available in its canned form, this cake has become a classic of the American cuisine. Found commonly in American homes throughout the twentieth century, it eventually leaked into the European cuisine as well.

We made it during a movie night with friends and it was fluffy and sweet and delicious, in a home-like and uncomplicated way. Cozy and nice :)
You can find more on the history of this dish here.
Recipe source we followed: here.

P.S: This actually reminds me a lot of a particular cake my mom made for me on my 6th birthday. It had pineapple rounds just like these on top, six of them, and a little birthday candle in the middle of each round. A total of six candles. For my little six-year old self. I seem to have a particular vivid memory of that birthday cake, since I can't remember the ones before or after. And today is again my birthday :)

Last year: Classic Pavlova (New Zealand and Australia). 
Two years ago: Light and colorful field salad and Drink of the gods (Gottergetrank).

Chocolate chip cookies with salted butter (American)

Chocolate chip cookies are a well-cherished American tradition ever since the 1930s when Ruth Wakefield accidentally invented them by putting regular chocolate chips in a cookie dough, thinking they would melt just the way baker's chocolate would. The chocolate chips didn't, however, melt during baking, but the recipe became a huge success, known as "Toll House cookie" or "Toll House chocolate crunch cookie", Toll House being the inn where Ruth cooked home-meals for customers during that time.
To this day, every Nestle bag of chocolate chip cookies sold in the USA today has a printed recipe of her cookies on the back :)
Traditionally, every chocolate chip cookie must contain both white sugar and brown sugar and backing-resistant semi-sweet chocolate chips. Most recipes (but not all) also include chopped nuts of all sorts, as we did here also. And another lovely variation is using salted butter to create an over-the-roof pleasant contrast. 

As a personal history note, I should say that I intended to make this on the 7th of February 2012, in the evening. I even fried and chopped the nuts, preparing them for the cookies. As I was feeling tired, I postponed to the next day. But sometime during the night, our little girl Mira, still residing in me, decided she wanted to see the world, therefore the cookies had to wait... and wait for another 2-3 weeks or so until I recovered and we both grew accustomed to each other enough to create a routine that allowed me a bit of spare time. When I found the time and the energy to bake them, I just got the nuts from a jar in which my mother had put them (to save for my later use) and in which they stayed as a reminder the whole time since before the birth. :). I will always associate these cookies with those crazy tired-worried-incredibly joyful roller-coaster weeks :)
Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz, via Crazy Mother Cooker.

Last year: Irish soda bread buns with mixed seeds.

Turpork (Romanian Porcurcan)

Today we have a guest post from our friend Vlad (who is also the godfather of our Mira). He's a very poetic guy and especially poetic when it comes to meat :). Enjoy the story he has to share with us:

Turducken is probably the western world’s greatest contribution to gastronomy. There are many variants, and there have been used as many as 16 species in a single roast, but the usual recipe involves stuffing a turkey with a duck stuffed with a chicken, matryoshka-style and roasting it in the oven. The paternity of this sick human contraption is disputed among the coasts of the Atlantic: Americans try to appropriate it as a traditional thanksgiving meal while Europeans point to their long history of animal abuse (as documented, for example by the Spanish Inquisition). However, its origins are probably lost in pre-history, since its ritualistic nature is hard to deny. Whether used diplomatically, by sharing a bi-totemic supper among the members of two tribes when one tribe „swallows” a smaller tribe, preventively, as a means to sublimate cannibal desires that reminded the primitive of the original sin of killing and devouring the primordial father, or ascetically, as a way to build a deleuzian body without organs that is full (thus acheiving true freedom), the turducken’s role in history cannot be denied.
You know it’s wrong, and yet you crave for it. It wakes one’s inner dr. Moreau to cram dead birds one inside another and try to bring them back to life (in your stomach, that is). And why settle on birds? You can take it to the next level by shoving the whole thing inside a pig, turning it into a pork-turducken, and it has been done (a bit overdone, if you ask me) by my gourmet role models, the guys from EpicMealTime. Since I don’t want to be labeled a copycat, I said to myself “why not turn this recipe on its head and stuff a pig inside a turkey, and add some beef while we’re at it?”.

Garlic soup with chorizo and mustard (Czech)

We are great fans of garlic soup. If you haven't tasted any kind of garlic soup so far, you might think it's a yucky thing that will make your breath chase away all vampires :)). But a good garlic soup has a very subtle flavor, is great in the changing of seasons (treats light colds and such) and is so delicious and addictive you'll want one more bowl as often as you can get it. Try it when you see it on the menu at a restaurant you trust and you'll see for yourself.
There are many kinds of garlic soup - the creamy types, the very creamy types:)), the roasted types etc. But what we'll show you today is a soup made precisely identical to a soup we fell in love with while visiting Prague. It's the clear broth type, with visible slices of garlic, with a je ne sais quoi given by the grainy home-made mustard and a slight smokiness from the very thin and very fried slices of chorizo-type sausages :). Very rustic and warming. Below are some pictures from the nice historical tavern where the soup was at its best (though we sampled it in other Prague restaurants as well):

...As we've said, rustic and homey :). There was a guy inside singing folk songs at his accordion that looked exactly like the soldier figure painted outside (the legendary Svejk). We thought that was cute:). Make the soup and enjoy it as soon as you can :)


Last year: Romanian Pricomigdale (walnut biscuits), Salata z Boczkiem (Polish Wilted Lettuce Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette), Smoked salmon and cucumber starters and Sahne liquor cocktail (Cream cocktail). 

Sprinkle butter cookies (Italian) and baby arrival

After a long wait, our baby arrived (well, more than a week ago, but we were too caught up with everything to make time to post) :). Her name is Mira. We're posting a recipe of cookies with sugar confetti to celebrate the little princess. Powerpuff girl style :)


Buttery sugar cookies, with a hint of lemon and a coating of colorful sugar sprinkles that are a staple in Italian bakeries. We had these around for the winter holidays and they sure were a delicious treat :).
Recipe adapted from Saveur. 

Last year: White Turkish rice pudding (with rosewater and almonds), Florentine pie (with spinach and egg), Bramboraki (Czech potato pancakes) and Chicken with cream and mushrooms. 

Plăcintă cu dovleac (My mom's pumpkin pie, with puff pastry) (Romanian-Moldavian)

As long as I can remember, I was always mad about this pie, but my mom wouldn't make it very often because grating all that pumpkin was pretty exhausting (in the age before food processors and such). So she would make me a deal that if I wanted her to make it I could grate it myself (with the help of my friends who also wanted a piece or two as a reward :D ). Of course I agreed, but still, the pie did not happen as often as I wanted (even employing all that additional voluntary workforce was not that easy to organize). But in the last years, the use of high-tech kitchen gadgets have took all that away, mostly for the best, of course (except the nostalgia) :). 
Of course, that didn't mean we can't have a pumpkin-pie-making party nowadays as well. So, I'm quite giddy about the fact that for this particular cooking feat, I had the manpower of not just one, but two strong men (as you'll be able to observe down below from the pics). The extra hand came this time from our friend Madalin :).
Now, I proudly present to you my version of mom's pumpkin pie, which I can now have anytime I like (and the mood strikes quite a lot, as you'll see for yourselves after tasting this). Enjoy. :)

Aubergine and zucchini pizza

Although I'm not vegetarian, my favorite pizza in the whole world (and I've been around a few places) is the "Vegetarian pizza" from "Mamma Mia" bistro next to my Faculty in Bucharest. For years I've ate there almost everyday and most times that was the pizza on the menu, followed by a slice of one of their delicious cakes and tarts (sort of like in the movie Blueberry Nights). 

Can you imagine what it means for a picky spoiled brat like me to eat almost the same thing for lunch everyday? It means that pizza was darn good. 

This was an attempt to recreate the home taste away from home and folks, I believe I've succeeded and extra. This was really, really good (to me at least). The eggplant and zucchini baked flavors are spiced up with thyme, olive oil, caraway fruit and the overall crispiness. Give it a try.

Blue Skies cocktail (Milk and Blue Curacao)

Considering my personal experience with this warm milk drink (or non-alcoholic cocktail, call it what you may), I may just as well name it "The Forbidden Milk". I had a strange experience in my pursuit of it :)

I first had it in a small charming bar called Arcade in the Bucharest's Old Town (Lipscani area). It was my first time going there (in a March just like this one, in 2007, when the magazine I was writing for gave all ladies a free afternoon for Women's Day). When I looked at the menu I wanted to try one of the Hot milks, but all the other flavors seemed a little to conventional - chocolate, hazelnut, white chocolate etc. Don't get me wrong, they're great, but when I saw something simply labeled "Blue Milk" I had to try it. After the first sip I was charmed. I asked the waiter what it contained and he replied "Blue Curacao". I knew that was an ingredient in cocktails, but had no idea it was derived from oranges because the flavor, although tangy and sweet, was much richer and intense than a plain orange one.

Well, after savoring another cup of the pretty pretty milk (did I mention blue is also my favorite color?) I got up and left thinking I will return and enjoy it many other times. But fate had fated otherwise :))

It may sound funny, but all my attempts to return to the magical place - that served the milk I was hooked on - were in vain. I mean, I literally went in circles around the place on more than one occasion without being able to find it. The bar was very much still alive and enjoying a lot of customers but I couldn't find it anymore. I complained to my friends, they drew me explicit simple maps on how to get to it (and the area is not complicated at all), they even went there from time to time (but, of course, anytime just not when they were with me :)) ) but all in vain. I felt like in one of Mircea Eliade's novels (like La Foret Interdit) - when the character gains access in a magical place without being able to return to it ever again - thus I feel like naming this drink "The Forbidden Milk".

You can imagine my joy when we bought some cocktail ingredients and the first thing I wanted to make with the Blue Curacao syrup was not some fancy alcoholic tropical cocktail but my beloved milk drink, which, as I found out later, is called "Blue Skies". You must try this. Now. :D