Lamb dishes

Lamb is a staple dish around Easter, and today's segment brings you two favorite recipes

Ștefan Baciu, 17.04.2023, 14:00

At this time of the year Romanian Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter, the week beginning with the Christian feasts of Easter and culminating with Easter Sunday. On this occasion households are filled with the smell of painted eggs, freshly baked pound cake and most of all lamb-based dishes.

Alongside lamb dishes and pound cake, the “Pasca”, a sweet cheese Easter cake is a ubiquitous dessert at the Easter table, once Eastern Lent is broken and eating cheese and eggs is once again allowed by the faithful. For most Romanians it is the smell and taste of Easter.

There are various traditional recipes for cooking lamb, whether with tarragon and lemon in the Caransebes region, with rosemary and tomato sauce in Bihor, seasoned with thyme in Cluj, baked with cheese gravy like in Mehedinti county, or wrapped in pastry as in Cisnadie. Other Romanian householders choose to cook sour lamb soup with vegetables, spring onion lamb stew or minced lamb pie and entrails.

For our lamb recipe today, we picked, however, a dish from Eastern Romania: lamb in yogurt sauce. Aside from lamb, you will need half a kilo of full-fat yogurt, one tablespoon of flour, 80 g of butter, one bunch of fresh cut dill, salt and pepper. Wash the lamb chops or fillets and portion them. Brown them in butter until they gain a deep golden brown crust. Add hot water or meat stock and let it simmer over low heat until the meat is nearly cooked. Meanwhile, expand the flour in yogurt and stir briskly, adding some of the melted fat from the pot and an extra two tablespoons of stock as an option. Add the dill, season with salt and pepper and pour the resulting mix over the lamb chops. Leave it to boil until the sauce reduces to the desired thickness. Serve with homemade bread, lettuce, radishes, spring onion or spring garlic. Enjoy! Poftă bună!