10 Traditional Romanian Meat Dishes

In honour to my motherland, I will make our first culinary stop in Romania , by presenting you a few of my country's signature dishes, which any tourist must indulge themselves into.
Ranging from our traditional sour soups, to stews, salads, varieties of cheese, sweets and of course, national spirits, Romanian cuisine has something to offer to even the pickiest food lover out there.

I will start, therefore, with 10 of our most popular meat dishes, definitely not recommended for anyone being on a diet!

1. Sarmale (Stuffed cabbage or grape leaves)

Consisting in minced pork meat, smoked pork meat, pork fat, rice, greens and vegetables, this culinary delight needs to be part of any Romanian holiday feast, but it is traditionally one of the most important Christmas foods.
Foreigners are normally crazy about it, so for the interested ones, here you can find the recipe. Well, it is honestly quite far from the original, but I couldn't find any better one in English.

2. Ardei umpluţi (Stuffed Peppers)

Practically the same as Sarmale, but with peppers instead of cabbage. According to the original taste of the peppers, this dish can be hot or simply deliciously flavoured. Meat can also be combined.
Here you can find one way of cooking them: Romanian Stuffed Peppers

3. Caltaboşi (Sausages)

Well no, not the sausages you might have in mind. However, English does not have an equivalent to this. Another traditional Christmas dish (yes, in Romania it's all about pork for Christmas), these huge sausages consist in pork organs, which are stuffed in pork bowels. Sounds gross? In reality, they taste delicious. 
However, in order not to completely freak you out, here is the less scary recipe.

4. Mici or Mititei

And because we are in the sausages section, I will present you something which some might consider similar to sausages, but they are certainly not. English has no translation for these grilled babies, however their Romanian name means "smalls", if that makes any sense to you. Romanians cook them at all possible grill parties, and foreigners simply adore them.
This recipe might come in handy.

5. Pârjoale (Meat Balls)

Extremely simple to make and terribly delicious! 
Here you can find a good recipe.

6. Drob

A truly delightful traditional Romanian Easter dish, which is made of lamb meat, vegetables, eggs and greens. Spices play an important role in the success of this recipe, however, there are thousands of combinations that can be made, and the result is most of the time amazing.
Here you can find a detailed recipe of the Romanian Drob.

7. Răcitură (Jelled Pigs Feet)

It probably sounds disgusting to foreigners, but if you enjoy jelly, then why not try meat jelly? Not the easiest to prepare, but the result is definitely worth it. 
With slight differences, this can be found in other national cuisines, however, the taste is different.
Here is an easier recipe for the Romanian Răcitură.

8. Tochitură

This wonderful combination of ingredients differs according to the region of the country where it is being cooked. However, the Moldavian version is one of the most popular and consists of fried meat, cheese, mămăligă (the Romanian polenta) and eggs. It is a true delight for the taste buds.
You can find here one version of this amazing dish: recipe.

9. Mâncare de limbă (Tongue stew)

The most popular way of cooking the beef tongue is by combining it with olives and lemon. However, there are multiple ingredients that can be added to increase the flavour of this dish.
This would be one typical way of cooking the Romanian Tongue Stew.

10. Slănină (Romanian Bacon)

Well, this is literally fat. Pork fat. No dietician would ever recommend you to get close to it. However, once you do there's really no going back.
I strongly doubt any foreigner would be curious of trying to make it at home, but in any case, here you can find the recipe.

These are some of the meat dishes that Romanians traditionally cook and that any tourist should definitely try. However, this list is not complete, since it would be quite a challenge to exhaust this topic, but it certainly contains the most popular foods, especially among foreigners.

In my next post I will try to cover another food category in which Romania holds quite a few national particularities.