Passport & Plate - An offering to the Gods
Moldova | Tuesday, March 11, 2014 | 2 photos
Ingredients
Ingredients for the dough:
250 mg water
4 table spoons sun flower
1 tea spoon salt
1 tea spoon dry instant yeast
700 grams flour
Ingredients for the cherry filling:
stoneless fresh or tinned cherries sugar to taste
Ingredients for the cheese filling:
500 grams farmer cheese
1 large egg
salt to taste
How to prepare this recipeHow to make placinta:
1. Place all liquid ingredients in bowl, then add flour and lastly yeast. Start kneading energetically the dough till it forms.
2. Cover the bowl with dough with a kitchen towel, place it in a warm place and let it rise for 25 minutes, then go over the dough kneading it gently.
3. While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Often, following the traditional way, placintas are made with brinza filling. Brinza is a kind of salty cheese, which is popular throughout Eastern Europe and is made from sheep’s milk. It is similar to feta which is used extensively in Moldovan / Romanian cuisine. But you can use variety of fillings for placintas – even fruits!
4. Once the dough is ready, take it out of the bowl and knead it into a large ball.
5. Divide the ball of dough into 12 equal parts and form little patties.
6. Using the dough roller go over the patties then stretch them. Along one side of each patty place a generous amount of filling. Spread it a bit. Roll every patty with filling and then twist it in the form of a snail making placinta.
7. Place every placinta in the baking tray and bake them at 150 degrees for 20 minutes.
8. After each placinta is ready, transfer on a large plate.
Bon appétit!
The story behind this recipeI would like to share an exclusive recipe of a traditional dish which is considered a “visiting card” to Moldova. Placinta is a Romanian and also Moldovan pastry which has Roman roots. “Placenta” in Roman Empire resembled a small cake made of fine flour covered with cheese and used as an offering to the gods.
In Moldova placinta is as a “many-sided personality” which represents not only a delicious simple cake with different types of stuffing. During some celebrations you can find placinta on the table instead of bread or on a contrary as one of main dishes. Although everything depends on the stuffing of it, if it is with mashed potatoes or cottage-cheese it is served with main course but if it is filled with apples, cherries or even pumpkin it can be served as a desert covered with sugar powder. But anyway it is not so easy with this traditional placinta in Moldova. In every part of the country and even every cook has its own recipe. Surely in every restaurant or in every family in Moldova when you will taste it you will understand that the taste really differs. It’s like with Ukrainian borsh that it’s like a masterpiece of its cook, all the time different but good. The word placinta is very often used by Moldovans as name for every cake or pastry in general, for example the film “American pie” was translated in Moldovan as “Placinta Americana” (American placinta).
For example I was born in the northern part of Moldova and my mother is baking placinta in the oven and it looks more like a roll which was twisted in the form of a snail. It is so similar with Bulgarian banitsa, I understood it when I received a cooking book from my Bulgarian friend and tried to prepare banitsa. On the photo you can see Northen kind of placinta’s. But placinta in the south of the country represents thin, small round or square-shaped cake which was fried and that’s why it’s a bit oily and more juicy than in the north of the country.
