Mămăligă

Ingredients

• Medium cornmeal300 g
• Water1.2 l
• Butter60 g
• Brined cheese — crumbled200 g
• Soured creamto taste
• Salt2 tsp

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Bring the salted water to the boil. Set aside a handful of the meal; it is wanted at the end.

   6 min

2. 2

   Pour the meal in as a thin stream, whisking without stopping. Do not pause until all of it is in.

   5 min

3. 3

   Drop to the lowest heat and cook thirty minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon every three or four minutes. The mass pulls away from the sides.

   30 min

4. 4

   Add the reserved handful of meal and work it in: it gives the light graininess mămăligă is valued for.

   4 min

5. 5

   Stir in the butter, turn it out onto a board and let it stand five minutes. Cut it into slabs with thread and serve with the cheese and soured cream.

   8 min

About the dish

The meal goes into boiling salted water in a thin stream with constant stirring. Tipped in at once it seizes into lumps that never break up.

Mămăligă cooks for at least thirty minutes, which is what the starch needs to gelatinise fully. A fifteen-minute one tastes of raw corn.

The finished porridge is turned out onto a board and cut with thread. A knife smears the hot mass; a taut thread goes through cleanly — the same trick used on soft cheese.

Worth knowing

• — One to four by volume gives a firm mămăligă that can be sliced. For a soft porridge use one to five.
• — The pot needs a heavy base: mămăligă catches quickly and quietly, and a burnt note never comes out.
• — Cooled mămăligă is cut into slabs and fried in butter until crusted. Plenty of people prefer it to the fresh version.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

380 kcal

Protein

12 g

Fat

16 g

Carbs

48 g

More from Romania

• Sarmale — Cabbage rolls in soured leaves with pork and rice, braised three hours under a layer of shredded cabbage.