Sarmale cu Smantana

I remember eating sarmale as a little girl in Romania. After all these years, I still craved their delicious flavor. I told my husband all about it, and how much he would like it. When I returned home for the first time last October, I was so excited to {1} eat sarmale again and {2} have my husband try it. I just knew he would love it.

The first time we ate sarmale was at Saveta’s house on Saturday night. I wish that we would have taken a picture of it. But to give you guys a visual, here is a picture I found.

{photo credit: danagrad.blogspot.com}

Sarmale {stuffed cabbage} is a traditional Romanian food. {Actually, I think it’s a pretty traditional European meal with different variations found throughout Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, etc}. It’s made by taking pickled cabbage leaves and stuffing them with different types of meat {usually pork or lamb}, rice, onions and different seasonings. It simmers in a pot for a long time, usually in some red sauce. It is traditionally served at weddings or for Christmas dinner. {Maybe someday if I ever master the art of cooking sarmale, we will eat it for Christmas}. To me, this is true comfort food. I could eat a whole pot by myself. I kid you not. It is so good. And I think that’s due in part to the fact that for me, it has many memories attached to it.

In Romania, we had something called smantana which is similar to sour cream, only the consistency is thinner. I had to google the correct definition, but it is basically a dairy product that is made by souring heavy cream. And for some reason it just tastes better than sour cream. Albina made a lot of soup for us, which I loved, and we always put smantana in it. We also poured it over stuffed bell peppers and of course, sarmale. The combination of the delicious sarmale with smantana drizzled over it was so good.

I hope that I can learn how to make this dish in the traditional Romanian style. I want to have my kids grow up eating sarmale. It just seems right.

And when we return to Romania this fall, I’ll get to eat it again.