• Capital: Bucharest
• Population: about 19.6 millions
• Area: 238 397 km²
• Currency: Romanian Leu

For my Romanian recipe I made sarmale. Sarmale are cabbage rolls stuffed with meat, spices and rice. They are then cooked for a long time in a tomato and sauerkraut sauce. I served them with simple mashed potatoes.

Sarmale

Ingredients:

• 1 cabbage
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 cup rice
• 32 ounces Sauerkraut
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 32 ounces can of entire tomatoes
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 onions
• 1/2 cup dill
• 1/2 cup parsley

Directions:

First in a large pot start boiling water. Add the white wine vinegar and salt to the water. Remove the core of the cabbage. When the water is boiling, put the cabbage in the pot and let cook for about 8 minutes. Using tongs, while the cabbage is still in the boiling water, slowly remove the cabbage leaves one by one without breaking them. Set all the leaves aside. on a plate and let them cool.

While the cabbage leaves a re cooling, prepare all your ingredients. Chop the onions, the dill and the parsley. Slice the bacon in 1/2 inch slices and measure out all the other ingredients.

In a pan, cook the bacon on medium high heat until it’s slightly brown but not too crispy. Add the onions and cook until the onions are translucent. Season with salt and pepper and let cool.

When the bacon and onions mix are cool enough to handle with your hands, mix the pork, onions and bacon, paprika, parsley and dill in a large bowl. Add salt and pepper to the ground pork mix.

Take the cabbage leaves one by one, put some meat on them and roll them. Tuck in the edges to obtain a pretty roll. Repeat until all the cabbage leaves are stuffed.

Drain and rinse the sauerkraut. Press the sauerkraut to get some of the liquid out. In a slow cooker, set half the sauerkraut on the bottom and using your hands, crush half the tomatoes on top of it. Lay all the cabbage rolls seem down on top of it (you will need to make a few layers of cabbage rolls). On top of the cabbage rolls, put the second half of the sauerkraut and tomatoes. Add the juice of the tomatoes and put the bay leaves on top. If you have some stuffing left, you can also add it on top. Add some water to ensure the cabbage rolls are immersed in some liquid and cook on low for 8 hours.

Serve with mashed potatoes. Be careful when serving as when coked the cabbage rolls are very delicate.

Poftă bună!