Lamb meatloaf ("drob de miel"),
made with lamb organs, is a traditional Romanian dish served on
Easter... My mother in law makes it every year. Occasionally my mother
would prepare it too, though she uses it as a stuffing for roast lamb
more often (which seems to be more of a Hungarian way of preparing lamb
in Transylvania.)
I
thought I should finally try the chicken version, since it would be
quite a challenge to find lamb organs here is the States, and I prefer
to cook with chicken, anyway. The basic recipe is fairly simple, and
although it is quite time-consuming, the result is well worth the
effort: for the lamb version, you cook all the organs of the poor
animal, chop or mince it along with 1-2 bunches of scallions, 1 bunch
each of dill and parsley, some hard boiled eggs, wrap the mixture in the
animal's stomach (sounds appalling, I know, but it really is good, and
my version skips this step anyway, so please stick with me), then bake
it.
There
are plenty of recipes out there for the chicken version, too, mine is a
little different, in that I used a smaller number of eggs, and covered
the meatloaf in a butter pie shell, which actually makes it a pie, I
guess, not a meatloaf. The modifications were due to necessity: I ran
low on eggs on Easter, of all days, when every grocery store is closed,
so I had to make a butter pie crust, instead of one with eggs, while
hoping that the two raw eggs I put in the liver/gizzard mixture would
hold the whole thing together. They did, but next time I think I'll
increase the number of raw eggs for the recipe, to at least 3, or even
4. I should also say that the hard boiled eggs are optional: this time I
added them to the recipe, because that's the way my mother and mother
in law (both Romanians) do it.
The recipe I'm posting serves 8, but it can easily be halved.
 |
| Before baking |
Ingredients:
2 lb chicken liver, cleaned
1 lb chicken gizzard, thoroughly cleaned
(If you can find some chicken hearts, please use some - I couldn't find any)
2 bunches scallions, chopped
1 bunch dill, chopped
1 bunch Italian parley, chopped
3 hard boiled eggs (optional)
3 raw eggs (maybe even 4)
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
2 pie shells
 |
| After baking, on first serving |
Ingredients for the pie shells:
2 and a half cups all purpose flour, more for dusting.
1 cup cold butter cubed
1/2 teaspoon salt
4-6 tablespoons ice cold water.
*Preparing the pie shell:
Cube the butter, and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes -1 h. In a large bowl combine flour and salt, cut in butter until the mixture has the appearance of coarse
crumbs (I'm always using my hands, you can use a food processor, it needs only a few pulses), drizzle with 4 tablespoon waters and start working the dough
together, adding more water as you go. Don't overwork the dough, work it only until it just comes together. Also, be careful with he water: too much water
will make the dough tough and not flaky. When the dough comes together,
shape it in a ball, cut it in half, flatten each half lightly with the ball of your hand. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 30 minutes before rolling. When you're ready to make the pie, remove from the fridge, and let rest 5-10 minutes before actually rolling.
Preparing the meatloaf:
Put
the gizzards and the liver in two separate pots with cold water, add
some salt to the gizzards' water (don't add salt to the liver),
bring to boil and cook until done (15-20 minutes for the liver, about an
hour for the gizzards). Hard boil 3 eggs. While meat and eggs are cooking,
heat 1 tablespoon of butter in a frying pan, add scallions and saute
them on medium for 5 minutes.
 |
| Second serving |
When the liver, eggs and gizzards are
ready, finely chop everything in a food processor or meat grinder: liver,
gizzards, scallions, dill, parsley and boiled eggs. Season with salt
and pepper, mix in the raw eggs. Butter a 9 inch round, or 8x8 inch
square glass baking dish with the remaining 1 tablespoon butter, line the dish with
one pastry shell, prick all over with a fork, add the meat mixture and
cover with the second shell, prick with a fork (if you have some eggs
left, brush the pastry with an egg wash). Bake in the preheated oven for
about 1 hour at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, or until the pie crust is nice
and golden. Serve with mashed potatoes and a green leaf salad (or
tomato salad), and a glass of full bodied red wine.
Leftovers are great in sandwiches, it also freezes well.
I saw this recipe for glazed vegetables (pearl onions) on Food Network's website, and I just couldn't resist the temptation to try it. So this last weekend I bought some multicolored pearl onions at CM, some boneless, skinless chicken breast, and last night I tried it... let me first say, don't ever try this with fresh, unskinned onions! Use frozen pearl onions instead, which will save you a huge amount of preparation time! I didn't realize what a pain it could be to clean 50 tiny onions - well, Peter was the designated victim for the task, but after he managed to skin only 5 onions in about 10 minutes, I went to the web for help, and luckily I found some instructions on how to skin them in almost no time at all. But it was still a little messy, so next time I'll just use frozen onions for this (this says a lot about what a great cook I am, right?).
