International Eats-Romania

While Romania was not on our original list of countries whose food we wanted to explore, I came across a recipe while I was browsing for options that looked like one my family might like. Since I’m the boss of my kitchen, I decided to give the Romanian stuffed peppers (ardei umpluti) a try. They were remarkably simple to put together, had a long, slow bake time, and only incurred some silent cursing when the tomato sauce they bake in bubbled out all over my oven. I always hate when that happens and before I even tasted them, I was a little bit biased due to the soiling of my appliance. That’s how much I hate cleaning my oven. I’m willing to judge a dish before I ever taste it based simply on its potential to make a mess. 😂

Hard feelings aside, I decided to give the peppers an honest taste test. The filling was very moist, and the peppers were roasted until sweet and tender, but the overall flavor fell a bit flat. The peppers were served with some Romanian country bread (tara paine) to soak up the creamy tomato sauce. I have never made a yeast bread that uses cornmeal and trying new things is what this whole adventure is about, so I felt like using this more traditional bread rather than one of my tried and true bread recipes would be worth my time. I was very pleased with the texture of the bread, a spongy soft interior with a light crispy crust, but the flavor was definitely a bit different and had a bit less flavor than I expected. This was not a bread that I think I would choose to eat on its own. 

Most of my family agreed with me. The general consensus was that everything was a little bland, the pepper filling, the bread, the sauce. When it was all eaten together, the flavor was a bit better. But even then, we wanted more flavor. Kevin suggested that we just use our normal meatloaf mix and stuff that in the peppers. That actually sounded like a pretty good idea, so I think I’m going to try meshing the two recipes. Daniel (our guest food critic for this meal) and Matthew both agreed with Kevin and I. Malia, on the other hand, didn’t like the peppers at all. First of all, she doesn’t like peppers yet. Second, she doesn’t like dill and that was one of the main flavors in the meat. She did eat the bread dipped in the sauce though. 

Because I feel like the separate elements of this meal really needed each other to make it all work, I’ve opted to rate it as one, rather than two separate recipes. Malia gave only half a fork as she liked the bread but not the stuffed pepper. The rest of us gave the meal about three fourths of a fork apiece, deducting a bit for the overall blandness. But we will likely try it again and if the filling tastes less strongly of dill, I’ll bet Malia would be happier about eating that part.

And as a side note, I'm definitely going to have to clean the oven tomorrow. 😒

Romanian Stuffed Peppers and Country Bread Rating: 3 ½ forks (out of 5)