The Slavic east and the Balkans · Volume 30, The Living Culture, the Roman Vein and the Rose Valley
Sarmale
Romania
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 3 hours
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Romania, the stuffed-cabbage dish that runs through every regional table in the country.
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 3 hours.
Ingredients
- 1 kg minced pork, sometimes with beef added
- 100g rice
- 2, finely chopped onion, sautéed
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- roughly 2 tsp per batch sweet paprika
- 1 whole soured cabbage, about 20 to 25 leaves whole soured cabbage leaves
- to serve smântână
- to serve mămăligă
Method
- Mix the minced pork, sometimes with beef, with rice, sautéed onion, tomato paste and roughly two teaspoons of sweet paprika per batch.
- Roll into a compact but not overtight cylinder inside whole soured cabbage leaves, leaving room for the rice to expand.
- Simmer long and slow over low heat until the leaves are fully soft.
- Serve with smântână and mămăligă.
What a modern chef changes
Sous vide rice, smoked leaves and a chinois-strained braising liquid
About 3.5 hours
Method
- Part-cook the rice separately in stock under sous vide before folding it into the filling, so it cannot crack the leaf by over-expanding during the long simmer the traditional method still needs.
- Smoke the soured cabbage leaves briefly over embers on the Big Green Egg before rolling, a genuine but not traditional flourish that plays to the leaves' own sourness rather than fighting it.
- Blend a portion of the cabbage's own soured brine into the braising liquid and pass it through a chinois for a smoother, more integrated sauce.
- Plate with a quenelle of properly fermented smântână rather than a spoonful straight from the tub.