Mămăligă
Romania's golden cornmeal porridge, stiff enough to slice, enriched with butter and served with soured cream and salty cheese.
Photo : Unknown · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Prep
- 5 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 35 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Easy
Method
- Bring the salted water to the boil in a heavy-based pan, ideally a deep one, as the mixture will bubble and spit.
- Rain the cornmeal in with one hand while whisking hard with the other, so that no lumps have a chance to form.
- Turn the heat to its lowest setting and cook for 25 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon every couple of minutes and scraping the base well.
- The mămăligă is ready when it pulls away from the sides of the pan in one mass and pushes back firmly against the spoon.
- Off the heat, beat in the butter, taste for salt, then cover and rest for 5 minutes so it firms up.
- Turn it out onto a board and cut it with a taut length of kitchen string, or simply spoon it out, topping each portion with soured cream and crumbled cheese.
Mămăligă stands in for bread on Romanian country tables. It is traditionally cut not with a knife but with a stretched thread, which gives a clean slice without smearing it.
