Porc cu sos de mustar cu mamaliga

My issue with trying to find Romanian recipes is that it's hard to weed out the traditional recipes from recipes that just happen to be written in Romanian.  I have given up on pre-translated recipes; I have thus far found them all to be either (a) poorly translated or (b) Americanized, or both.  With the exception of Roxy's Kitchen - hers is the one English language Romanian blog that I go back to.  Now, it's easy to weed through some of the recipes, like when I find recipes on a "Traditional Romanian Foods" blog for things like "Pui Kung Pao" ... um, no.  Not traditional Romanian food.  Or recipes that call for margarine or prepackaged things, because back in the day (or even now), I know A's mother would NEVER be using those ingredients (and they're not something I would be using either).

So it's a consistent problem for me.  I look through recipes and see what I can find that *looks* like it would be a traditional recipe, and then I make it and A has never had it or even heard of it.  But at least we're trying some good new foods!

Last night's recipe was for porc cu sos de mustar cu mamaliga.  I finally got the mamaliga part down pat - you'd think that boiling water, corn meal and salt would be easy.  Apparently not - it would either be too runny, it would burn, etc.  A told me his trick the last time we had it and I tried that this time and viola! Now I can cook mamaliga like a pro :P

I made the pork first and separated some out for the kids.  They don't like sour cream, so I made K some honey mustard (which she deemed just as good as the honey mustard from TGIFridays, lol) and H dipped his in ranch dressing (one of the only things I still buy premade; note to self: need to start making ranch dressing for the kids asap!).  And every time we have mamaliga, I put a teeny tiny dab of it on each of their plates and they look at it sideways and leave it there, but this time, H ate his and said his mouth must not be working because he really couldn't taste anything.

The recipe I used is here - Porc cu sos de mustar 

Up next, I'm trying my hand at zacusca - now, THAT I know is traditional!

Snitel

If I ever want my kids to eat Romanian food, all I have to do is make snitel.  2 weekends ago, a made it for us for the first time and I barely got any dinner - he and the kids ate it quicker than the kids could pronounce it.  Tonight was my turn; I made twice as much, just in case. 

Possibly the easiest meal I will ever make, but also one of the most time consuming.  I don't fry anything ever, so this is something I wont' make frequently (much to everyone else's dismay!), but it is definitely one i will make again.


Snitel de porc

Ingredients:
Pork cutlets
Breadcrumbs
2 eggs
salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika
oil (I use sunflower)

Directions:
Using a mallet, pound pork cutlets as thin as possible, without them falling apart. Set aside
In a bowl, beat eggs with a little water; set aside.
In a shallow bowl or tray, mix breadcrumbs with the spices (to taste).  Set aside.


Assembly line fashion, dip each pork piece in the egg/water mixture, then dredge in breadcrumb mixture.  Set aside on a plate.  I like to have all of mine dredged before frying.

Heat oil over medium heat.  Fry each piece  for 1-2 minutes per side, or until the pork is cooked through.   Drain on paper towels.

Serve with mashed potatoes.