Romanian Dinner

Recently, a Romanian winemaker named Georgetta Dane who has worked for Kendall-Jackson and Big House and other California brands posted a link on Facebook about Romanian food. And I realized that 1) I haven't been doing a lot of cooking recently due to a busy day job and 2) I really needed to taste something different. Dinner at the Benito table for one was going to be ciorbă de fasole cu afumătură and ardei umpluţi.

Both required long cooking but not a lot of effort. The dishes were basically a bean and bacon soup accompanied by a trio of stuffed peppers. My soup incorporated the following ingredients: cannellini beans, salt pork, Vidalia onions, Swiss chard, carrots, parsnips, and chicken broth. For the stuffed peppers, I used little yellow Hungarian peppers and filled them with a combination of pork sausage, onion, rice, and paprika. The sauce was made from sour cream and tomato paste thinned out with water. The peppers were roasted for a good hour and I was able to scoop up the sauce to spread over them.

I was very happy with the results, and think that the soup in particular will be useful to anyone bringing home winter vegetables from the farmer's market. The salt pork was delicious, but in the future I'd probably use a smoked ham hock or similar pork product, and I'd probably cook it longer to allow for the bones to provide an increased depth of flavor.