Potato pie
Specific to the entire Jiu Valley, the proof being that it has been approved as a traditional product in the Jiu Valley, the potato pie is simple, but very delicious. The recipe is simple and easy to prepare. Clean and peel the potatoes, wash them and then grate them in a larger vessel. Add the flour into the vessel (3-4 tablespoons or more, depending on the quantity of potatoes), 1-2 eggs and salty sheep cheese (crushed beforehand). Over all this, pour the milk and mix until the entire composition gains consistency. In a pan with hot oil pour from the composition (as much as you would pour for a pancake) and fry on both sides. Serve warm, but you can feel the real taste when it is consumed cold, with a glass of milk.
Balmoş
To prepare the balmoş you will need the following:
- Ingredients:
- 2 liters of jintuială (this is the whey resulted after separating the fresh cheese from the sheep’s milk);
- 2 teaspoons of salt;
- 600 g corn flour;
- Preparation:
Put the jintuială with the salt into a pot and heat it until it boils.
When the foam begins to rise above, pour the corn flour, all at once. Do not stir.
Allow it to boil on very low heat (or adding wood to the fire only one at a time if you cook at a fire stove). Let it boil like this for about 4-5 minutes. After this period of time stir in the pot vigorously to remove any lumps.
Once it thickened slightly, allow it to boil, stirring occasionally so that it doesn’t stick to the pot. Le it boil like this for about 20 to 25 minutes. Towards the
end this kind of polenta will have a greasy aspect. This is a sign that we bought a good quality jintuială. The balmoş is served hot, as it is or with a green salad soup.
The Sloi
- The Sloi (or a sheep’s meat aspic) is a product prepared from ewe mutton. It is usually prepared only from mutton or the meet of a barren sheep, in the autumn, after the sheeps have descended from the mountain.
After the animal is sacrificed, the meat is cut into medium sized pieces and it is boiled in a big pot filled with water. After a few boiling hours on a low heat (usually 4-5 hours or more), when all the water has evaporated and in the pot in which the meat has boiled remains only the mutton tallow, the housewife picks up the bones from which the meat has dropped and it supervises the meat until it goes brown, on all sides.
Now it is being salted and seasoned after taste.
When the tallow starts to caramelize, the housewife takes the pot away from the fire and pours the composition into wooden or metal vessels, so that the fat covers the meat.
Those vessels are kept cool in the pantry or in the basement, making sure that the fat covers the meat entirely. The layer of fat on top, after the tallow coagulates, it prevents the meat from altering.
We described here a heavy food, but with a special taste, that must be cut with a knife, then heated and served with pickles and warm polenta and most importantly, eaten only after you’ve tried a glass of last year’s pălinca. For your delight, when you serve this hot meal, you can add some crushed sheep cheese.
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