Mamaliga is a special sacral traditional dish in Moldovan and Romanian cuisine. Some people think that hominy is porridge, which is fundamentally wrong: both Moldovans and Romanians position hominy as "boiled bread". The ready hominy is served on a table in the form of a single piece (just like bread) and cut into slices with a stiff string or a special wooden or horn knife.
Usually hominych is made from corn flour, using a cauldron and a special wooden mixer. The classic process of making hominy from flour is a complex ritual family dance for two people.
A new approach
Recently, in Moldova, hominy is often cooked from corn grits, which is understandable: quickly and conveniently. It turns out such a simplified hominy little rougher, but in general, it is also very good (and with a dietary point and, in general, very good). That is, cooking hominych from corn groats is much easier, we'll tell you how to cook it.
Choice of cereals
When choosing corn groats in the store, pay attention not only to grinding, but also for the shelf life, as well as the tightness of the package (in corn flour or small croup, a cereal mole is very quickly and famously started). Do not buy corn flour for future use or store in glass 1-liter jars tightly ukuporennyh.
Hominy from corn groats with cracklings - recipe
Ingredients:
- corn croup fine - 1 part (for example, 500 g);
- water - about 3 parts (that is, 1.5-2 liters);
- unrefined sunflower oil - 5-8 tbsp. spoons;
- lard fresh pork raw - 300 g;
- salt.
Preparation
We put a kettle of water on the fire.
Mamaligu cook in a cauldron or saucepan.
First slightly heat the cauldron and grease it with a slice of fat from the inside (this is done in order to then easily extract the prepared hominych from the working utensils with a single whole product). Pour the croup, pour in the oil and mix, it should look like wet sand. On idea to this moment water in a teapot just begins to boil. Fill the groats in the cauldron with the right amount of boiling water, while continuously stirring the spatula. Prisalivaem. We cook for about 15 minutes. If it turns out faster, pour more boiling water and actively mix. At the end, when the mamaliga thickens the surface with a spatula, and quickly grabbing the cauldron by the ears (with a towel or potholes), first turn it along the central vertical axis in different directions, then turn it over a clean wooden board, our "boiled bread" should be on it . If necessary, level-flatten the surface. Cover mamalygu with a clean linen napkin and let stand for about 10 minutes. Cut into slices with a tight, stringy thread.
Cooking cracklings: fat is cut into small cubes (approximate size in cm 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5) and we put it in a heated frying pan. We heat the fat by half on medium heat. We serve mamalyga with cracklings, watering with fat. To mamalyga it is also good to serve sour cream, cottage cheese, brynza, mititia (a product made from beef and / or lamb meat like kebab), bones (pork chops on bone), pieces of marinated or baked carp , fresh vegetables, givec, eggplant from eggplant.
Of course, under mamalig should be and incomparable Moldovan wine, fruit rakiya or divin (a local analogue of cognac).