Pan Placinte

I want to share with you a recipe for a dish that I think many of you will hear for the first time, perhaps as well as about the homeland of this recipe. Placinte (in singular Placinta) is a national dish of Moldova (officially the Republic of Moldova). The word placinta comes from Latin placenta, which means "cake", from the Greek plakount - "flat cake". Placinte are really very tasty, especially when they are still warm.

Moldova is a very small country, located at the crossroad between east and west of Europe, on one of the oldest trade routes. In the period from the 10th to the 12th century, a large number of Greek dishes entered the Moldovan cuisine. In those days, pastry dishes were common in the countries of southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Since then, the placinta has been introduced into Moldovan cuisine and remains one of the most popular in Moldova. This dish is also common in Romania and Ukraine, but they often make placinte of a different shape as well, for example, square, semicircle, small rolls.

Placinte can be made in different ways, baked in an oven or fried in a pan, with different doughs (with or without yeast / baking soda, with or without eggs), with different fillings, sweet or salty. Pan-fried placinte are flat, baked placinte are usually rolled up. I want to share with you Moldovan placinte recipe for cooking on a frying pan (with a little oil). I like this recipe as placinte have a thin crust and a lot of filling. For this recipe I chose the most delicious fillings - potatoes, cabbage and pumpkin. Pumpkin placinte are sweet.

Ingredients for 6 placinas:

Dough

• 2 cups flour + 2-3 Tbsp for dusting your work surface
• 6-7 Tbsp vegetable oil (sunflower oil is mainly used in Moldova)
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1.5 pinch salt

Potato Filling

• 4 potatoes
• 2 onions
• 3.5 oz bacon
• salt
• pepper

Cabbage Filling

• 0.6 lb sauerkraut
• 1 onion
• pepper

Pumpkin Filling

• 0.6 lb pumpkin
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Utensils

• bowl
• spoon
• knife
• kitchen towel
• 2 pans
• cutting board
• 3 plates
• rolling pin
• grater
• dough rolling surface

Prep time: 1 Hour

Cook time: 40 Minutes

Total time: 1 Hour 40 Minutes

Combine flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center.

Add eggs, water, vegetable oil into the well.

Gradually stir the flour into the liquid ingredients with a spoon.

Knead a dough that will no longer stick to your hands.

Divide the dough into 6 balls for 6 placinte (2 placinte with each filling). Let the balls of dough rest proof covered with a kitchen towel for 30-40 minutes.

While the dough is resting, peel 1 onion for the cabbage filling and chop finely.

Place the pan over a medium heat, add a bit oil, then add onion and cook it until translucent.

Squeeze the sauerkraut from the juice and add to the onion, stir. Cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes over a low heat until half cooked. Pepper to taste, no need to salt, since there is enough salt in the sauerkraut. Don't worry if the cabbage filling seems a little sour, cooked in a dough, it will be very tasty.

Pour the cabbage filling into a plate and leave to cool.

While the dough is resting, you still have time to prepare the pumpkin for sweet filling: cut 2 not big wedges, remove the seeds, put the wedge on a cutting board and cut off the skin with a knife (this is the fastest and safest way to peel the pumpkin - 6 strokes with a knife and the pumpkin wedge is peeled). That's all for now. You will grate the pumpkin in the process of making placinte, otherwise the pumpkin will let out the juice and you won't be able to form placinte.

Peel 2 onions for potato filling and chop finely. Cut the bacon for potato filling into small slices and fry them. Now it's time to make potato placinta. You will make the potato filling in the process of making potato placinte.

The dough is rested and it will be easy for you to roll it out thinly and pull dough while forming the placinte. Place a ball on a lightly floured surface, use your hands to flatten the ball, then roll out to a thin circle. Do not forget to dust your work surface with flour to prevent the dough from sticking.

Peel 2 potatoes (for one placinta). Do not leave potatoes in water so that there is no excess moisture in the filling. Cut potatoes into thin small slices (see photo).

Mix the cut potatoes with half the chopped onion, season with salt and pepper. The filling for the first potato placinta is ready. There are other ways to prepare potato filling, when potatoes are first boiled, mashed, then mixed with fried onions. But I like, when raw potato filling is cooked in placinte itself. Therefore, be sure to cut the potatoes into thin slices.

Place half of the bacon evenly in the middle of the rolled dough, then the potato filling on top. The edges of the rolled dough must be empty.

Fold and connect two opposite ends of the rolled dough by stretching them. Then connect the other opposite ends of the rolled dough. Then stretch and connect the opposite corners (see photos).

Heat some oil in a frying pan (0.5-1 tbsp). Place the placinta with the joined edges down and fry over low heat until golden. At this time, repeat steps 7-10 and make a second placinta with the second half of the filling. Fry the second placinta in the same way in a second frying pan. Turn the placinte over, cover and fry over low heat until golden on the other sides.

Repeat steps 7-11 with the cooled cabbage filling (divide the filling in half) and make two cabbage placinte. Fry over low heat until golden, do not cover the pans. Do not use a lot of oil when frying.

Repeat step 7. Grate one pumpkin wedge and place it evenly on the rolled dough as in step 9. Sprinkle the pumpkin with sugar and cinnamon. Repeat steps 10, 11, make a second placinta using the second pumpkin wedge in the same way. For sweet placinte, you can fold the dough differently: fold the ends to the center one by one (clockwise or counterclockwise). Fry over med-low heat until golden, little oil is needed for this. Do not cover the placinte.

The placinte with 3 feelings are ready. Cut them into pieces and serve. You can serve pumpkin placinte with sour cream.