Names of Moldovan dishes. Moldovan cuisine! Photos of traditional Moldovan dishes! Proper serving at the dinner table

Greetings, dear guests of the site! due 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 cereals. The variety of plant foods practically leaves no place for meat on the table of Moldovans, Gagauzians and Bulgarians living on the territory of modern Moldova.

About the richness of Moldovan cuisine, what dishes are the hallmark of this country, what chorba, zama and vertuta are, and much more interesting. By the way, I have not 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, of course, is not true. Maybe it is not so bright as to shine in restaurants, but nevertheless it is there, and it has its own characteristics that are simply impossible not to notice (I will talk about them later).

Of course, it was not without borrowing from Turkish, Greek, Russian, Balkan and Romanian cuisines. It's quite normal for neighboring cultures to influence each other, it always happens. However, it is worth noting that not a single recipe was copied completely without changes. In each dish, Moldovan chefs and culinary specialists put their own zest, this is creativity, in which all parts of the world are connected on one dining table.

What dish is the hallmark of Moldova?

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

This simple and at the same time very healthy dish has always been attributed to the food of the poor, and once in poor Moldovan families, hominy was a substitute for bread. It can be served as an independent 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 happened, we will not betray ancient traditions). Next, a piece of hominy is crushed in the hands and dipped in sour cream or grated cheese.

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

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

Both placinda and vertuta - both are prepared from the exhaust dough with various fillings: with cottage cheese, feta cheese, nuts, fruit, potatoes, onions and eggs. Their main difference lies in the shape: a vertuta is a roll rolled up in a spiral, and a placinda is a flat cake. We tried cherry twirls - I was amazed at how much stuffing they had! It is immediately clear that there is a surplus in the country.

They also bake kalachi, Easter cakes and apple pie known to us. Very often they use puff and butter dough for baking sweets, gingerbread with honey from cornmeal, cookies with a layer of marmalade called semilune, gogosh shortbread cookies. By the way, our well-known pies with cabbage got a name there - verzere.

What sweets are typical for this cuisine?

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

The result of the evolution of Moldovan cuisine is the Guguta Hat cake. This cake has the shape of a pyramid, assembled from rolls with cherry filling, decorated with cream and meringue.

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

The most popular vegetables here are bell peppers, sweet peppers with a spicy taste, which has its own name - gogoshar, and, of course, tomatoes, onions, pumpkins, zucchini and eggplants. By the way, many of you probably like boiled corn. She has her own name there - fluff. As a rule, popushoy 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 onion, garlic and vegetable oil. The most common: beans - white and green beans, chickpeas, lentils.

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

Brynza occupies a special place on the table of these peoples - 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 in the role of 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 of walnuts with garlic, and muzhdey is a sauce of garlic, salt and meat or vegetable broth. Of the spices in Moldova, they use in abundance: red, black and allspice, thyme, tarragon, leek, garlic, celery, parsley, dill, tarragon, coriander, cloves, bay leaf, nutmeg, cinnamon.

How are first courses prepared?

The soups they prepare are a mixture of Russian, Caucasian and Mediterranean traditions. The most famous and beloved national soups are: zama - a soup made from potatoes, onions, raw eggs and poultry meat; chorba - soup boiled with fresh, not fried 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, syrbushka - a soup with vegetables and cornmeal.

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

What can you say about meat?

There are no bans on any types of meat here. In the villages and villages, many people keep geese, ducks and chickens, since it is easier to run such a farm than to keep cattle. 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 the traditional ancient dishes of this region, and in modern cuisine it is often used as an additional optional component of dishes. One of the ancient meat dishes is, for example, bone - pork marinated in wine, baked on fire; kiftelutse - fried beef meatballs; resol - rooster jelly; fly - smoked pork ham; cooked whole chickens and geese. Very often, meat is fried on an open fire: on a spit or on a grill.

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

A characteristic feature of the preparation of fatty meat and fish is the use of an acid 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 offal in Moldova. For example, a shot is a mutton liver baked in an omentum. Mititei and kyrnetsei - fried pork and beef sausages. Mititei are small fried beef sausages without a shell, somewhat reminiscent of meatballs, but different in taste from them. And kyrnetsei are pork sausages in a casing.

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

What is the most popular drink in Moldova?

You yourself can guess. The most favorite national drink is, of course, red wine! Scientists claim that Moldovan wine-making traditions are among the most ancient in the world. This low-alcohol drink was known here 5000 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, white and red dry wines for meat and poultry, blended wines for hominy, Cahors wines for sweet pastries and pies, rosé wines for vegetables.

In confirmation of the wine glory of Moldova, I will cite the following fact: wine galleries in the Moldovan village of Malie Milesti in 2005 were included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest in the world! More than 1.5 million bottles of wine are stored in their cellars with a length of more than 200 km.

What other drinks do Moldovans drink?

The variety of fruits and berries has made such drinks as compotes, kissels, juices much more popular than hot teas and coffee. In 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 let slip a couple of times about my festivities in Moldova. This summer, during my vacation, I went there to visit my relatives. It was my first visit to sunny Moldova. I was in Gagauzia - the region of Moldova, where the Gagauz live - the nationality is closest to the Turkic language group. By the way, Moldovan and Gagauz languages are completely different. In general, these are two different peoples. As an example, a flat cake, which is called placinda by Moldovans, is called kyirma by Gagauz. There are other language differences of the same things, but this is a topic for a completely different article.

In conclusion, I want to show you a snapshot 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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When I first thought about going to Moldova and told my family about it, they immediately started talking with admiration about Moldovan 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." Moldovan cuisine is no exception. Looking ahead, I’ll say that in the national cuisine of Moldova, my top 3 dishes are hominy, pancakes with cherries and placinta with cheese. Nevertheless, we tried most of the Moldovan dishes and I can confidently say that I liked everything! You know, Moldova has become for me one of those countries where I would return for a gastronomic tour.

In this article, I will talk about the dishes that we tried during 3 days in Moldova, as well as 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 need to think where to go in the morning and where exactly what I like for breakfast will be. Moreover, I'm not a fan of overeating for breakfast.

Let me start with the plinth. In general, all the names of Moldovan dishes sound very unusual and sometimes funny. Placinda- delicious cakes of various shapes with cheese, cottage cheese, cabbage, potatoes, meat or fruits (cherries or apples). In our hotel for breakfast, pies were with almost all flavors, but for me the most delicious was with feta cheese.

An analogue of placinta, but only from puff pastry - twirls. They are similar in shape to tubules, and the fillings are almost the same as those of Moldovan flatbread. The truth of the unusual can be found with sauerkraut or fried onions.

In Vietnam, I love Pho soup with beef, in Thailand, Tom Kha with coconut milk and 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, we get the Moldavian zama soup. Second most popular soup Chorba. I didn't have time to try it, but its composition is more unusual. It is prepared on the basis of offal broth with the addition of kvass or brine, which gives the dish a sour taste. Peppers, beans, cabbage or rice are added from vegetables (instead of potatoes), and offal can be replaced with beef.

It is interesting that the name "Chorba" comes from the Turkish "Shurpa", as soups were called in the Ottoman Empire.

The Hutsuls Banush or banosh, while the Moldovans - Hominy. This is finely ground cornmeal. I like most of all in what form it was served in cafes, like medallions.

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

If we replace greaves with pork in hominy, we get a dish Tokana. Pork is fried in chunks with onions and wine and sauce are sometimes added. Crushed garlic is added to almost every dish, which gives a rich flavor. Garlic occupies a special place in Moldovan cuisine, not only the taste preferences of Moldovans are associated with it, but also beliefs (for example, vampires).

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

What do you like more dolma or cabbage rolls? I'm doing dolma, and the Moldavians 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, I was subdued by a pancake with meat. When I saw the photo on the menu, I did not expect that in reality the dish would be large and satisfying.

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

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

Let me remind you that for sweets, there are still pies and twirls with fruit.

Cafes and restaurants in Chisinau

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

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 enthusiastic about the cuisine.

The second place we visited to get to know Moldovan cuisine better is the new one. Moldovanesc restaurant. It has just been 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. So, for example, Moldovan cuisine 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 puff pastry, the use of vegetable oils in cooking, as well as the use of wines for cooking vegetable and meat dishes. In addition, you can find in the national cuisine of Moldova and some Russian notes, since this country in the period from the 8th to the 13th century was part of the Old Russian state. Slavic influence to a large extent 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 of Turkey, Moldovan cuisine has also been enriched with oriental notes. So, for example, Moldovans prefer mutton from meat products, and also during cooking, the products lend themselves to combined processing, which is typical for Turkish cuisine.

As for the list of types of dishes of the national Moldavian cuisine, among them you will find first and second courses, snacks, a variety of flour products, desserts. Traditional soups are distinguished by a touch of sourness in their taste and the invariable addition of a whole bunch of various herbs: 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 citric acid. As a dressing, use flour with a beaten egg. In general, two types of soup are most famous in Moldovan cuisine: chorba or thick soup and zama or chicken broth.

Second courses in Moldavian cuisine can be very diverse, but invariably add vegetables or fruits to them, which grow in abundance in sunny Moldavia! Greens of all kinds are also an invariable component in the preparation of such dishes. Thus, the taste of 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 on coals, which gives such dishes an incredible flavor!

Recipes of Moldavian cuisine are very diverse. This most directly applies to flour products. They are represented by pies, pies, Easter cakes, and also kalachi. The filling can also be very diverse, 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 versatile! The nature of the Moldovan region allows the cultivation of various varieties of grapes, which actually led to the development of winemaking.

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

Food in which Germans and Russians, Turks and Romanians, Ukrainians and Greeks will find something native - all this is about the Moldovan national cuisine. The history of the country has formed an international system of bright and hearty dishes, colorful and fragrant. Studying the cuisines of the world, it would be a crime to bypass the Moldavian one. It is worth returning to it every time you want something truly traditional, no matter where you live.

Differences of the national cuisine of Moldova

Moldovan national cuisine is very similar to the cuisines of neighboring countries, but at the same time it differs from all others. It has individual features, which we will learn about today. Like the culture of other states, the Moldovan one was formed under the influence of history. It was her unexpected turns that ensured the modern habits and taste preferences of Moldovans. Before the formation of the Moldavian Principality in the 14th century, the lands of modern Moldavia were inhabited by several folk groups. The emergence of national cuisine is attributed to the period of the principality, and the gastronomic preferences of the first settlers are not taken into account. With independence, the principality began to trade with neighboring countries, which did not bring much novelty to the kitchen.

The initial base for the national cuisine were those products that grew or were grown in the given territory. Although this is not a little: the geographical position of the country is simply created for agriculture. The local climate allows you to successfully grow both root crops and greens, as well as cereals with fruits. Back in the Middle Ages, Moldovan housewives learned to combine vegetables in a variety of combinations, because these ingredients were the sea here. And today you will never learn how to combine vegetables so perfectly with each other, as in Moldova.

The fertile lands attracted the attention of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. And the Turks had a rule to conquer everything they liked. So Moldova fell under the rule of the Ottomans for a long 300 years. During this period, the culture of the country took on some of the features of its enslavers, including cuisine. So the Moldovans learned from them the combined processing of dishes, the use of vegetable oils. Increasingly, they began to use, which had previously been preferred by the bird. And today you can find the same dishes for both cuisines, for example, chorba or givech.

The proximity to the Slavic peoples also left its mark on this culture. The greatest contribution of the ancient Russian peoples to the Moldavian cuisine is the tradition of pickles and marinades. This technique of harvesting products for the future was here without the influence of Russians and Ukrainians, but the latter made their own adjustments. For example, the use of a large amount of greens in salting, the cabbage sourdough technique and. Thanks to the Turks, the Moldovans got to know spices better, and they knew how to mix different components themselves. Thus, various pickles and marinades in Moldovan cuisine have acquired their own individual character.

Popular foods and dishes

Here, vegetables, dairy products and meat are equally often used, they love fish and sweets. In the cuisine of Moldova, it is impossible to single out one traditional product, everything is used here. Of vegetables, most often in dishes you can find and, they prepare stews, stuff them, and ferment them for the winter. From sweet pepper, native gogoshars are preferred - a special resistant variety similar to Bulgarian. In general, Moldovans are very fond of stuffing vegetables, unlike the common stuffed peppers, here you can also try minced eggplants. Moreover, such dishes are more common in home kitchens than in restaurants.

From spices in Moldova prefer greens, paprika. Such classic seasonings allow you to create delicious at the same time. But no frills dish. Very popular, sauces are prepared on its basis, added for taste and aroma to second courses. The most popular garlic-based sauces are mujdej and skordola. The latter is especially good, it is prepared with nuts and herbs.

All types of meat are used in Moldova, a distinctive feature of the cuisine is a large number of lamb dishes. Unlike neighboring peoples, young meat is preferred in Moldova: lamb. Such a product has a delicate little pronounced aroma and taste.

A lot of national dishes are prepared from meat, such as:

Mititei - they look like small sausages, but they are cooked without lamb casing or with spices. They are roasted over an open fire using charcoal, which gives the dish a subtle smoky flavor.
Moussaka is a casserole with meat and cow, the dish was adopted from the Greeks, where it is called the same.
Kostitsa is fire-roasted pork, marinated in red wine and pepper before cooking. Prepared in the traditional way on a grate (special coarse grate).
Kyrnetsei - sausages, very similar to mitites, but they are made from lean pork meat with spices.
The jelly is an ordinary jelly, with the obligatory addition of spices and garlic.
Pastroma is a dish adopted by Turkic cuisine, in fact, the usual basturma.

Most meat dishes are eaten with mujdei and skordola sauces. Beans and vegetable stews are also popular here as side dishes. Paprikash - the most popular of them, is prepared with meat, peppers, onions and other vegetables. The best combination of vegetables is still obtained in the Moldovan mange. This is an eggplant or zucchini paste, it is customary to fry the vegetables on the fire before cooking so that the dish gets that same smoked flavor. Manzha is also considered the most popular cold appetizer in Moldova; it is eaten fresh or prepared for the winter.

Of the cold appetizers, you should definitely try the fakeluite beans. This dish is borrowed from Jewish cuisine and resembles hummus, but is made with beans. You can eat it as a substitute for mashed potatoes or spread it on as a snack. Dried gogoshars (peppers) – macareshty, sweetish with a woody caramel smell – also deserve special attention among cold dishes. However, such a simple and tasty dish can be tasted practically only in Moldova.

The first dishes of the Moldovan national cuisine are a real kaleidoscope of ingredients. Soups and borscht are colorful and rich. They prepare both cold options for refreshment in the summer, and hot ones to keep warm in the winter. The most popular of them:

Chorba - a hot soup based on bread kvass with a vegetable mix, it turns out a thick rich dish with sourness.
Zama is also a kvass soup, but it is customary to cook it on the basis of a bran drink, it also includes egg noodles and fewer vegetables, a lot of greens. Maybe with fish or meat.
Syrbushka is a liquid hot soup made from whey and semolina or corn grits. As a rule, nothing else is put in the soup, except perhaps greens.
Buryakice - soup with dumplings and tomatoes.
Shurpa is a vegetable soup made from lamb or veal. A distinctive feature is the characteristic smell of meat in the composition of the dish.

Of course, in addition to unusual Moldovan dishes, here you can also find the usual Ukrainian borscht, light broth or pickle. True, they mostly eat first courses with traditional sauces, most often men.

A separate branch in the national cuisine is occupied by various flour products. Spindles from and exhaust dough are very popular, it is often replaced with a simpler one to prepare -. The presence of baking in the house is considered an indicator of prosperity, and at the same time a test of the hostess. As a filling, choose an egg with herbs, meat. Cheese is especially popular, and not only as a filling. This pickled cheese is also used here as a snack for sweets, as an addition to salads, and as a substitute for hard cheeses. Cheese from sheep, cow or goat milk is produced on an industrial scale and simply at home.

From baking, one cannot but mention the pies. They can be in the form of whole baked pies or resemble a large round pie. Traditionally, they were still fried in vegetable oil with cheese, although today the filling can be anything: cabbage, eggs, meat, pumpkin. Under the influence of Russian and Ukrainian cuisine, they are addicted to Easter cakes, kalachs and loaves. Although such delights of pastries are prepared mainly only for the holidays.

Memorable days are not complete without a sweet table. Desserts in most of Turkish cuisine are popular here: halva, sherbet, nut nougat, kitonoage (quince marshmallow), marshmallows. But there are also their own sweet "inventions". These include peltya, this is jam or jam made from the juice of berries and fruits. Thus, they get rid of small seeds and get a delicate texture of sweetness, which is harvested for the winter. Another classic Moldovan dessert is gogosh, these are flat, thin cookies made from egg dough, sprinkled with crushed ones during baking, and put in the middle.

Delicious recipes

Discussing national cuisine, one cannot help but consider individual Moldovan recipes. Thus, you can cook something unusual on your own, even from familiar products. Finding a recipe with photos and step-by-step cooking is easy today.

From all the color of this cuisine, we will choose only the most popular.

Hominy

Products for cooking:

- 1.25 l;
corn flour - 400 g;
salt to taste.

Cooking steps:

Pour the measured amount of flour onto a baking sheet and place in the oven for a while to dry.
Sift the dried flour through a fine sieve. At this time, put a cauldron of water on fire.
When the water boils, salt it and reduce the heat. Slowly add flour, constantly stirring the porridge. Stir so that there are no lumps left.
Porridge sticks to the walls very easily. You need to cook it constantly stirring, with breaks for 1-2 minutes. Thus, cook the hominy for half an hour, and then make the fire minimal and leave for another 15 minutes. The porridge should thicken well.
After that, a wooden spoon should be moistened in cold water and run along the edges of the cauldron, so the hominy will separate from the walls of the dish. Dump the contents onto a board and cut into pieces with a thread.

They eat such a dish with their hands, while dipping it in melted butter and cheese. Butter can be replaced with fried (greaves).

Buryakita

For cooking you need:

- 800 ml;
water - 1 liter;
- 2 pcs.;
onions - 4 pcs.;
root -1 pc.;
celery root - 1 pc.;
dumplings - 500 g.

Vegetables are cut into large pieces, onions - into four parts, carrots - into large circles. Pour all prepared vegetables with water and tomato juice, put on fire. When everything boils, reduce the flame and salt, cook under the lid until the vegetables are completely softened. After the vegetables are boiled enough, you can fill in the dumplings and cook everything until they are ready. Served with or muzhdey sauce.

Sauces

Mentioned muzhdei and skordolya sauce in Moldovan cuisine is present with almost every dish. Traditional national sauces are the best option to try the cuisine of another country. After all, they can be applied to native dishes. For a husband, you just need to grind the garlic with salt into a homogeneous mass, add a couple of tablespoons of meat broth and a little vinegar to them. Such a dressing can be supplemented with dishes of fried or baked vegetables, meat, potatoes. In Moldova, it is added even to fish.

Skordola is also a garlic sauce, but tastier due to walnuts. So, garlic and nuts need to be ground to a slurry, add soaked bread crumb and vegetable oil to it. All ingredients should turn into a homogeneous mass, which is best done with a blender, and for those who want to achieve authenticity, you can grind in a mortar. Wine vinegar or is added to the finished sauce. The tastier sauce comes out if it contains the most nuts.

Moldovan drinks

Non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks are also part of any national cuisine. As for non-alcoholic drinks, Moldova is no different from neighboring countries. Homemade berries and fruits are often prepared here, uzvar is very popular - compote from. Also cooked from the same compotes or jam. The yield of this country allows you to come up with a lot of natural homemade drinks.

Borsh is considered an unusual Moldovan drink. This is boiled homemade kvass made from wheat bran and boiling water. The ingredients insist for several days, filter and drink. In appearance, it is completely different from the usual one, as it has a milky color. It is also added to chorba or beetroot soup.

Regarding alcoholic beverages, Moldova has earned fame for itself almost all over the world. Local is an integral attribute of both the whole culture and cuisine in particular. Making wine here is also popular at home, with a large share of the red variety. Although you can find here mono and sherry, and rose wine, and Cahors, and dozens of other varieties. Moldovans also prepare their own kind of brandy - divin. National alcoholic drinks can brighten up your acquaintance with the local cuisine, the main thing is not to overdo it with either alcohol or hominy.

As we have seen, the gastronomic traditions of Moldova consist of many branches. Anyone who wants to experiment with the cuisines of the world should definitely pay attention to this one. After all, the traditions of several peoples converged here at once, and therefore there will be a whole lot of amazing discoveries.

Each of us, coming to some country, wants to try the local, national cuisine and learn about its specialties. In Ukraine it is borsch with bacon and dumplings, in Holland it is fresh salted herring, in France it is various soups or frog legs with sauce….

And what is delicious in Moldova, what can surprise us Moldovan food?

I have been accompanying for several yearstours to Moldova from Kyiv . Therefore, I decided to make the top 10, as for my taste, the most delicious dishes of this country.

Perhaps it will be useful to a curious traveler who is interested in tours from Kyiv to Moldova...

So let's taste!

1. Placindas

Moldavian placintas are delicious flatbreads that Moldovans prepare from exhaust, yeast or puff pastry. The cake itself is round, flat, with a filling inside. As a filling, it happens - cheese, cheese, cottage cheese with herbs, cabbage, potatoes, meat, or fruits - cherries, apples are used for a sweet filling. As a rule, pies are served hot, and this is just the same delicious treat!

2.

Moldavian vertuta are also fried cakes, like pies, but they are usually made from puff pastry and have a different shape. Vertuta - similar to a tube of dough stuffed with potatoes, cottage cheese, fried onions, apples or even raisins with poppy seeds. Vertuta, like placinta, will always be appropriate - as a snack with another dish, as a dessert or as a snack on the road.

When we go on a tour to Moldova and Transnistria, the whole group is happy to stock up on them for a snack on the road! On a full stomach tends to get even more interesting...

3. Hominy

Mamaliga is one of the most famous Moldavian dishes. This is such an analogue of the Transcarpathian banosh.

It is prepared from finely ground corn grits, and unlike banosh, hominy is boiled on water. It turns out it is so thick that it can be easily cut into pieces. It is usually served with sour cream, tokanoy (more on that below), feta cheese or Muzhdei sauce (garlic sauce in broth with spices).

Moldavian sour vegetable soup with bran kvass. Chorba is prepared with an abundance of different spices and vegetables. Depending on the recipe options, beans, sweet peppers, cabbage or rice (instead of potatoes) can be added to chorba. Chorba recipe with offal is popular, in another case, beef is added.

Chorba must be served with sour cream and hot pepper.

Interestingly, the origin of the name “Chorba” comes from the Turkish word “shurpa”, which is how soups were called in the Ottoman Empire. Apparently, the influence of the long stay of Moldova in the status of a vassal of the Ottoman Empire had an effect.

Zama. Zama is one of the most popular Moldavian soups. It is cooked from homemade chicken with homemade noodles, carrots, parsley, bran kvass, sometimes thyme and even tomatoes are added. Served, as a rule, with herbs and sour cream.

These are small juicy, meat sausages, without casings, traditionally fried on a “gritar”, a kind of grill analogue. Prepared, as a rule, from beef meat with the addition of lamb and the addition of spices. Served hot, with herbs and Husbands sauce.

7. Tokana

Another meat Moldovan dish popular in Moldova. As a rule, it is pork roast, which is fried with spices, sometimes with the addition of wine and sauce, with onions. At the end of cooking, crushed garlic is added, this gives the dish an appetizing aroma. Served with hominy, cheese and greens.

There is also - "Vegetable Tokana". It is actually fried - vegetables stewed in sour cream sauce. What vegetables? Yes, everything that grows in the Moldovan garden!

Sarmale is a dish similar to cabbage rolls and dolma. Prepared from different meats, sometimes from several types. Rice and various spices and herbs are added to minced meat. Instead of ordinary cabbage, pickled cabbage or grape leaves are often used for wrapping. According to tradition, it is stewed in a cauldron.A dish popular at Moldovan weddings. And again - let's remember the Ottoman Empire, since the name comes from the Turkish word "Sarmak". And this is in translation - to wrap.

9. Givech

Moldavian Givech is most often a vegetarian dish, in other countries, its analogues are mainly with meat, although how many housewives - so many recipes ...

All the vegetables that Moldovans love are bell peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes. It's all stewed with spices and fragrant herbs. So vegetarians in Moldova will not go hungry!

10. Gugutse hat

In Moldova, in addition to delicious vegetable and meat dishes, there are also delicious desserts in Moldova. In addition to placindas and twirls, with sweet fillings, more often with fruits, one can also distinguish this delicious cake - Hat Gugutse.

Its name comes from the name of a children's story about the adventures of a little restless boy who had a huge funny hat ...

It consists of tubes baked using a certain technology with cherries inside. The composition may also include nuts, and of course, the cake is soaked with delicious cream, so for those with a sweet tooth, it’s a must try!

I hope this article was interesting and useful to you.

And if you want to try all this yummy in Moldova -

see our tours to Moldova andjoin the Drive Club journey to this wonderful little country!