Romanian

This bread—loaded with a rum-spiked walnut filling—is the traditional Romanian celebration bread for Christmas.

These crispy, golden brown crepes get slathered with an aromatic mushroom spread, then rolled and dredged in breadcrumbs before pan-frying.

If you think Eastern European cuisine is boring, this will change your mind. It’s probably the most famous dish from Romania and something that may become a part of your summer grilling repertoire. Flank steak is classic for this, but I like it best with sirloin or ribeye. Omit the butter if you’re feeling health-conscious, but it adds a wonderful richness. Garnish with the parsley and serve.

Almost every country has a sausage or two. These skinless Romanian ones are among the easiest, essentially well-seasoned hamburgers that were undoubtedly created in a pinch and are known as “the little sausages without skin” and remain popular today. Note that these contain caraway seeds, one of the distinctive flavorings of Eastern Europe—the Italian variation uses fennel instead. Other cuts of meat you can use here: Ground beef, veal, or a combination.

Caraway seeds have too long been relegated to the tops of rye bread; their bitter, nutty flavor is distinctive and easy to like.Here they dominate a simple Romanian sauce used for fish. To crush the seeds, put them in a plastic bag and press on it with the bottom of a pot—really lean into it, rock back and forth a bit, and you’ll get it. If you can lay your hands on crusty rye or pumpernickel bread, this is the place for it. Salad or any simple vegetable dish, along with rice if you don’t have or want bread, would also be good.

Topfenknodel A distant relative of mine, originally from the Polish-German-Czechoslovakian border area (previously part of the Austrian Empire), was an exceptional cook but refused to share her recipes, claiming that either the dish would not turn out as good as hers did, in which case she would be blamed, or it would be as good or better, in which case her own cooking skills would be diminished. Among her repertoire were light, slightly tangy cheese dumplings. No one, however, ever wrangled the real recipe from her. Fortunately, I found a number of cooperative cooks who were more than willing to share their recipes with me. These popular dumplings are called topfenknodel in Austria and Germany, turos gomboc in Hungary, syrove knedliky in Czech, and kluski in Poland. Topfen, also called quark in German, is a thick, slightly tangy central European curd cheese popular for making dumplings, spreads, and toppings. Since topfen is generally unavailable in America, a little cream cheese is added to the pot cheese to approximate the original texture and flavor. You can substitute farmer cheese for the pot cheese, but first wrap it in several layers of paper towels, then let it drain for about 10 minutes to extract some of the excess moisture. Do not use cottage cheese, which contains too much liquid and is too firm. My grandmother served savory cheese dumplings on Shavuot as an appetizer, accompanied with sour cream or browned bread crumbs (2 cups fresh bread crumbs sautéed in 6 tablespoons butter until golden), or a sweetened version as dessert.