Mititei (Romanian Sausage Links)

 What hot dogs are to American food, mititei (literal translation "little ones") are to Romanians, in more ways than one. They're a staple of the grill as spring warms into summer, they're key to social gatherings for leisure, sports or vacation, and the top tier product is all beef*. 

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Before anyone comes after me for the heresy of claiming all beef mititei, I will note that popular recipes include a combination of beef, pork and/or mutton, and I'm here to tell you that even lighter protein can feature too - I've tried with half ground chicken or turkey, though you have to be extra careful to hydrate them well enough and not overcook to lose moisture. However, key ingredients to a good batch are garlic - plentiful and fresh - bone broth and baking soda. I am not entirely sure whether the baking soda is more important for binding the mix together or for texture/slight airiness, but I do know that you can't call something mici/mititei without it.

I adapted my home recipe from the gold standard for mititei in Romania, those served at the historical and legendary Carul cu Bere. The step by step pictures I included in this post were done with a mix of 1lb ground beef and 1lb ground chicken - as I mentioned before, recommendation for optimal results is all beef, 85% lean, which is what I will include in my recipe writeup below.

For optimal flavor, start the mix the day before you plan to eat it, and some prep-ahead can be helpful in streamlining the process. To that end, day 1 (T-2 days before mititei party) plan on making your bone broth. If you use store bought go for the real deal (should be gelatinous when cold) and skip ahead to day 2. I used beef bones in a 4qt pot and simmered them on low heat for 3-4 hours. The longer the better, but make sure the heat is quite low so you don't lose too much to steam. Once done, let the broth cool to room temperature then set in the fridge to chill completely. Skim the fat layer off the top to get a beautifully thick bone broth ready for use.

Onto day 2 (T-1 days before mititei extravaganza) - measure and ready your spices. As with most Romanian food, these are not spicy but rather well seasoned and aromatic. The all star lineup: black pepper, thyme, allspice, coriander, cumin and anise powder. For this step you'll also need a head of garlic, baking soda and lemon juice.

Add the 2lbs of meat in a large bowl, sprinkle the baking soda and pour lemon juice on top, then mix thoroughly. Next, incorporate all the powdered spices and 1/4 cup of cool bone broth, then knead into the meat. I find that a wooden spoon works well for this step, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty on this one, as long as you take proper precautions in handling raw meat (wash hands with soap and warm water before touching anything else for next steps). 

You can push the garlic through a garlic press or mince with a knife. My quick shortcut for this step was blending the garlic into 1/4 cup of bone broth with an immersion blender, then adding it to the meat all together. If you mince the garlic separately, then add it to the bowl along with 1/4 cup of bone broth (1/2 cup so far) and mix well. You're looking for a soft but not too loose consistency at this stage, so you may need to add a touch more broth or hold some back, use your best judgement. Cover tightly and set in fridge overnight.

Day 3 - party day! In the morning, get meat mix out of the fridge and check for consistency - if it's very stiff you can add another 1/4-1/3 cup of bone broth to loosen up, season with salt and add another half a head - one whole head of garlic minced and knead in well. Press into a 9"x13" pan covered in foil, then cover tightly and set back in the fridge for the rest of the day.

About 20 minutes before cooking, pull the meat from the fridge, and fire up the grill. If you don't have a grill available or the weather is not cooperating (as was my case), then a cast iron pan or grill will produce pretty good results. It's time to shape the sausage links - the classic is a bit shorter and thicker than a hot dog, but any oblong shape will do. My favorite hack is to use a spatula to scoop them out of the pan directly into prism-like shapes directly into the pan - less cleanup and some nostalgic reminder of store bought prepped mititei for quick cookouts in my childhood (I don't think my parents ever took on the arduous process of making their own mix, but it was readily available in deli markets).

Cook on all sides until they're nice and brown on the outside and cooked through, but do not overcook! Nothing sadder than a burnt mititel after all that hard work. They should have a slight crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside.

Now let's talk accoutrements. The two must-haves for mititei are toothpicks as utensils (as seen above, two of them per link make a perfect makeshift fork) and mustard as dip. A sharp mustard is preferred, even better if it has some horseradish flavor as well. Next most important is a nice starch/carb side - either fries or bread buns are great. For the meal pictured above, I made both - sourdough dinner rolls and fresh cut fries because why not. While I have certainly eaten my fair share of meat and potato meals in Romania, I decided to also include another staple of summer cookouts in this spread - the tomato cucumber salad. I included thinly sliced red onion, though in the early summer scallions are a great addition as well, and dressed it simply with a touch of olive oil and apple cider vinegar.

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Mititei

Ingredients

• 2lbs ground beef
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 2 tbsp ground thyme
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp coriander 
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp anise powder
• 2 heads of garlic
• 2 tsp salt
• soup bones (beef or pork)

Method

1. Day 1 - make bone broth by simmering bones with water on low heat for 3+ hours. Cool completely and chill in the fridge. Remove fat layer from the top and cover to save for the next day.
2. Day 2 -  Mince first head of garlic with a garlic press.
3. Measure out all the dry/powdered spices.
4. Put meat to a large bowl, then add baking soda and lemon juice and mix thoroughly.
5. Add spices, garlic and 1/4 cup bone broth and knead into the meat. 
6. Add another 1/4 cup bone broth gradually while continuing to mix, until a soft but not quite loose mix is achieved - it should mostly keep its shaped if scooped onto a plate.
7. Cover and place in fridge overnight.
8. Day 3, morning - take out bowl with mixture and check for consistency. If it's too stiff, add up to 1/4 cup of bone broth more and mix well.
9. Season with 2 tsp salt and add half - whole head of garlic more (to taste) and mix thoroughly. 
10. Press into foil lined 9"x13" pan, cover and put back into the fridge until ready to cook.
11. Shape into sausage-like rolls and grill on all sides, turning only after one side is well browned to allow for proper maillard reaction and avoid breaking up the mititei as they cook.
12. Cook thoroughly but do not overcook so you don't lose moisture and flavor.
13. Serve hot with mustard and bread or fries. Best enjoyed with a cold beer :)

Notes

• In the United States, thyme isn't exactly like the thyme in Romania, haven't established if it's a different related plant or just a regional difference. I sometimes use ground savory in place of some of the thyme in this recipe because it's a similar flavor but adds complexity.
• I use two whole heads of garlic in total, but if you're not as obsessed with garlic as I am or if your stomach is sensitive to it, you can cut it in half or even a quarter and still get a good amount of flavor.
• In this iteration, I actually used half beef and half ground chicken. I've made these with ground turkey as well, but beware that if the overall mix becomes too lean, you lose out on texture and moisture in the final product. 
• Dijon or dusseldorf mustard are my preferred pairing for mititei, but if you can get your hands on some authentic Eastern European horseradish mustard, go for it!

Rainbow Pasta Project

Welcome to the story of the rainbow pasta project. I haven't tuned a recipe of my own at this point, but I will link to the recipes I've referenced with notes on what challenges I encountered and the cutting / shaping process overall.

You eat with your eyes first, and while it's always true that beautiful presentation enhances a meal, for the kids it's a crucial element for enjoyment. I love having them engage with the making of food and appreciate the beauty in colors and flavors, so I welcome ideas they offer for the kitchen. This rainbow food phase started when the little one got her hands on the Unicorn Food book (non-affiliate link), which she likes to browse like a restaurant menu. One of the ideas in the book that I kept putting off was the rainbow farfalle, not just because pasta from scratch is a more involved undertaking, but because I knew I didn't want to use any food dyes so each of the 6 colors would need individual attention. In the end, I used 4 different recipes and made slight variations to suit my color needs, and I absolutely love how they turned out.

 First up, my all time favorite for quick home made pasta - the basic pasta dough recipe from Anne Burrell (find it here). The olive oil makes it silky and supple, and the eggs add just enough elasticity to make it fairly easy to work with, but not heavy like yolk-forward egg pasta doughs. I made two half batches, with one including beetroot powder for the red color and one with turmeric powder and a pinch of crushed saffron for the yellow colored dough. The fridge rest time is important in allowing the flour to properly hydrate and the dough to relax enough to roll out easily.

Next, I took on the purple and orange doughs - Japanese purple sweet potatoes and regular (orange) sweet potato baked whole in the oven until creamy were used. I found that the purple sweet potatoes had much lower water content and felt starchier in general, so while they needed a dash extra liquid from the recipe directions, the other ones needed quite a bit extra flour - next time I'll first squeeze them in a towel to remove some of that extra moisture first. I used this recipe as a starting point, and aimed for similar consistency to the basic egg pasta doughs from earlier in adjusting the liquid/flour amounts on the fly.

The blue dough was my only vegan dough (recipe) - since I used butterfly pea flowers infused in water (and reduced to concentrate the color) for the hue I wanted, I didn't need the additional liquid of the eggs. It took a bit more kneading to get the texture right on this one, the the protein from the eggs wasn't there to bind it as easily. It still turned out great in the end, and rolled just as well as the other colors.

Last but certainly not least, spinach was the star of the green pasta - I used an old copy of Saveur magazine that I saved in my recipe binder for the dough recipe (link). I chopped the spinach by hand, and while blending it may have resulted in more uniform color, I love the speckled look of the little spinach pieces give the dough. They do make rolling a bit more unwieldy, but it worked well enough. 

I played the shaping of the farfalle by ear/eye, but it's a pretty manually intensive process. I worked with one color at a time while the others continued to rest in the fridge, so they wouldn't dry out. I used the pasta roller attachment of my Kitchen Aid to make long sheets - starting with a few rolls and folds at the #1 setting to get the dough more supple and ready to roll thinner, then passing it through each number one by one until it felt thin enough to cut and shape - I stopped at #5 though #4 would have probably worked as well. Next, I used the wavy blade of my pie dough roller to cut each sheet (the width of the roller) in 3 long and equal strips, then I cut them across with the straight blade in 1" strips. Each ~2.5" by 1" rectangle got pinched in the middle to form that classic farfalle shape (farfalla means butterfly in Italian).

In the end, I only used about half of each color (so 1/4 recipe of each of the recipes I followed) to make farfalle, and decided I would try something else both for variation and ease for the rest. The amount of farfalle that I shaped was enough for 2 meals for our family of four. I rolled out the remaining dough to #5 thickness and passed it through the spaghetti cutter attachment. I used a good amount of flour to keep the strands separated, then put them on parchment in little nests and froze them to keep fresh for a later meal - the spaghetti was also enough for 2 good sized dinners, unsurprisingly.

Last but not least, I wanted to play around with pasta lamination as inspired by a pasta aficionado I admire on Instragram (account link). I probably took it a bit too far putting all 6 colors together, but if you look closely you can still see each individual color, which is so cool! I hand cut these and shaped them into cavatelli as I learned from Chef Keller's Masterclass. The dark colors and disproportionately tiny plate make them look a bit funny in the one picture I captured, but they were delicious and perfectly al dente :)

Overall, this was a pretty involved multi-day project, but the glimmer in the kids' eyes when seeing the colorful pasta was worth it. I really enjoyed how each of the colors had a distinctive flavor as well, and I still have some spaghetti in the freezer for a future meal awaiting me. Pictured above, turkey Lebanese meatballs with roasted mushrooms and a light cream sauce. Below simply buttered farfalle with a dose of fresh garlic served with a quick salad and oven roasted chicken and veggies.

Grandma's Walnut Cake Bars

At grandma's house, every special occasion, every out-of-town guest visit, was marked by her pulling out her hand grinder the night before, grinding walnuts and making her delicious cake bars. 

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With only a few ingredients, every flavor is allowed to shine and it's such a delight you can never just have one bite. I am grateful I got this recipe passed on by my grandma a few years ago and I started making it around the holidays every year. It ages well too, so if you don't finish it all in the first day like I usually do, as it dries it becomes a wonderful accompaniment to coffee or hot tea.

The list of ingredients really is very simple - eggs, butter, sugar flour and nuts, with vanilla and chocolate flavors lovely bonus light touches on top. It also scales up and down pretty easily, so feel free to make it a bit thinner (in my mis-en-place above I made a 3/4 recipe in the same pan for a thinner bar, for example) or in a smaller/larger pan.

The first, and really important step is to ensure all ingredients are at room temperature before beginning. The sugar and butter need to whip together until light and fluffy and that's really not possible without a very creamy butter to start. Next go in the nuts and flour - I usually cheat and use nut flours (see notes), but for a bit more texture go ahead and grind up your own. As you can see above, at this step your mixture will be quite thick, but here come the egg whites to the rescue! Whip the whites just until you get stiff peaks. A touch of cream of tartar helps the whites along, but you want to make sure you don't go too far and let them break up or they'll deflate as you incorporate them into the batter. 

Start with one third (I call this the sacrificial fraction), and mix thoroughly to help lighten up the buttery nutty base. Then add the remaining thirds one at a time, folding gently but only just until incorporated to get a thick but creamy and fluffy batter. Spread this evenly in a pan prepared with lightly oiled parchment paper (or butter+flour coated) and bake halfway in a preheated oven. You're looking for the cake to be just set but still have a shine in the middle (undercooked) at this stage.

While the cake is doing its first stage of baking, prepare the delicious topping that really sets these bars apart - whip the egg yolks with sugar until very pale and light. They should triple in volume and fall in soft ribbons from the beaters when lifted from the bowl. My easy cleanup secret here is that I just reuse the beaters from the whites as trace amounts of white won't compromise the yolks (unlike whites, which will not whip if there is any yolk in them, beware!). My grandma used to flavor these with a Romanian kitchen staple - vanilla sugar. I don't find this in stores in the US very often, so I just use a dash of vanilla extract or the seeds from half of a vanilla pod if I'm feeling fancy.

Hot tip: Don't throw away the vanilla pod left over after you scrape out the seeds! You can put it in a mason jar with granulated sugar and shake it now and then, and voila! You have vanilla sugar in your pantry which you can use in this recipe next time or in any other baking application to add a touch of vanilla flavor.

Carefully pull out the partially baked cake from the oven and pour the fluffy yolks over the top, making sure to spread them edge to edge. Return to the oven until set and barely starting to change color to a golden brown.

Finally, the signature look of this cake comes from the way my grandma always decorated it - grated chocolate over the top as soon as it comes out of the oven. The warm cake melts the chocolate flecks beautifully so they adhere to the cake and meld with the rich yolk topping. Let this cool completely (if you can resist it for that long), then cut in small bite sized shapes and serve. I try to only remove as many pieces as I want to serve at one time so the rest stay moist and fresh, but a batch of this goes pretty quickly at our house :)

Enjoy with hot coffee, herbal tea or just on its own.

German Crescent Cookies

I discovered these wonderful cookies when a friend baked me a batch a few years ago after my daughter was born, and I've been hooked ever since. They're tender, flakey and nutty but not overly sweet, the perfect snacking treat around the holidays, and frankly any time of the year. Excellent companions to hot tea or coffee as well, and incredibly easy to make. 

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The dough starts out almost like a pie crust, except it involves equal parts butter and cream cheese - the cream cheese makes the dough more tender and gives it a lovely tart and creamy note. It comes together in no time and all and you can use a food processor to make this part of the process even quicker. Chilling it after mixing is important, to give the flour a chance to properly hydrate and the fat to solidify so it maintains its structure through rolling and baking.

   

After the dough is chilled for 2 hours or overnight, cut it in quarters and shape it into discs. Ideally, you'd rolls this out into an even circle, but honestly perfection is not needed here, the cutting and rolling process is quite forgiving and the cookies will look wonderful even if they're not perfectly even in size. 

Here's where the magic comes in though - the dough doesn't get rolled out on a floured surface like any old cookie, but rather on a mix of nuts and sugar (cinnamon and lemon zest optional). This gets embedded into one side of the dough as it rolls out and coats it in flavor and texture. Don't worry too much if the mixture ends up on the top as well as you move the dough around and the rolling pin picks up some of the sugar-nut mix, but keep it on the same side as you roll it all the way out to a ~10" circle. The dough will be quite thin, but keep it as even in thickness as you can.

Cut the circle of dough into 16 triangles, like you'd cut a pizza (in half, then quarters etc to ensure roughly even slices) - you can see in the picture above an example. Then, take each triangle and roll it from the short edge towards the opposite tip as you would a regular crescent roll, with the nut encrusted side on the outside and the (nearly) plain side on the inside. Repeat with the remaining 3 discs, you should end up with 64 little cookies ready to bake.

Place these close together in a pan, I like to use parchment or a silicone mat to ensure easy cleanup. They don't grow a lot in the oven, so in a standard cookie sheet pan I usually fit 32 of them, two rounds in the oven total. 

Bake in preheated 350F oven for 12-14 minutes until baked through and slightly golden on the bottom. They won't take on a lot of color when baking, so keep that in mind as you judge when they're done. Enjoy warm or cooled.

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German Crescent Cookies

Ingredients

• 300g flour
• 200g butter
• 200g cream cheese
• 60g sugar
• 60g brown sugar
• 60g ground hazelnuts
• 1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• lemon zest (to taste, optional)

Method

1. Knead a smooth dough from the flour, butter and cream cheese. 
2. Wrap in cling film and put in the refrigerator for at least two hours or better overnight.
3. Mix both sugars, ground hazelnuts, cinnamon and lemon zest in a bowl.
4. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare two cookie sheets with either parchment paper or silicone mats.
5. Take the dough out of the refrigerator, quarter it and shape it into balls.
6. Sprinkle a little hazelnut-sugar mixture on your work surface and start rolling out one of the dough portions on top. Move around as needed to ensure it doesn't stick/the coating is everywhere under your dough. Keep rolling into an even thickness until you get a 10" disc.
7. Cut into 16 parts (like a pizza) and roll up into crescents.
8. Place on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes.

Notes

• I often skip the cinnamon and lemon zest, especially when I want the flavor of the nuts to really shine through. You can also use other spices and adapt the recipe to your taste.
• You can use any nut flour/ground nuts you prefer. Almonds and pecans work really well.
• The recipe is easy to scale up and down as needed, just make sure the amount of dough you roll out into a 10" disc is roughly the same as the original recipe.
• These cookies freeze really well, and they keep in a covered container at room temperature for several days.