Eggplant salad , “oriental” salad with potatoes, eggs and olives and cabbage salad are three of my favorite Romanian salads and in this world. They are perfect for summer days and, even if they don’t look the most fancy, they would surprise anybody with their flavors. The first two are even low carb.
So I need to spread the world about them so that everybody can have a taste from the best side of the Romanian cuisine.
1. Eggplant salad with onion
For this salad you will need just 3 ingredients:
- 2 big eggplants
- 1 medium onion
- 50 ml of sunflower oil
- optional – home-made mayonnaise (I did not use it for this recipe)
- optional – drizzle of lemon
The biggest secret of this recipe is how you bake the eggplants. They can be baked very fast and clean in the oven (don’t forget to poke them with a fork, otherwise they will explode… trust me!) or you can do it the harder way: bake them in an old pan on high fire. They will acquire a smoky taste… and will also make all your house smell like that and the pan very dirty. But this taste is the most important flavor about this recipe.
Let the eggplants cool down, cut them and let them drain. Peel them off as soon as you can and let them drain for few hours or squeeze them in your hand for removing the excess liquid. Cut them on a board until they are very fine, add salt to taste and start adding the oil bit by bit. At the end, add the cut onion, after you washed it with cold water and let it drain (like that it won’t get bitter). Eat it as a spread, with salty cheese and tomatoes. There is no way you can’t love this food! And it is truly the most known among Romanian salads.
2. Cabbage salad
This salad can be eaten as is or as a side dish next to meat, either way it is very delicious and a health bomb. Cabbage is a cruciferous and eaten raw can act as a anti-carcinogenic vegetable. For this salad you will need:
- cabbage
- sunflower oil
- apple vinegar
- salt
The key aspects for this salad are: how you cut the cabbage and … lots of oil. The cabbage needs to be cut in very fine and long pieces. And the sunflower oil need to be a lot to make it very soft. Mix very well the two and only at the end add apple vinegar and salt to taste.
This salad goes very well with grated carrot or with dill, in case you need a twist after the simple salad addiction wears off. 🙂
3. Oriental salad
Yes, the name doesn’t shout “Romanian”. Honestly I don’t know why this is considered Oriental, but it is certainly very typical in Romania. I would say that the secret of this salad is vinegar and onion, at least this is what makes it special for me. For this salad you will need:
- 4 potatoes (really optional and only for esthetics to use purple ones)
- onion (spring onion, normal, shallots or red)
- 2 boiled eggs
- 100 g of black olives
- pickles
- olive oil or sunflower oil, both work
- apple vinegar
- salt and pepper
- optional – chives or sprouts for decorating
Boil the potatoes and peel them off with some gloves while they are hot. Cut them in round pieces and immediately put the olive oil (as much as you consider you need in the salad), salt and pepper. The reason for doing it when they are hot is that they act as a sponge and will absorb the seasoning faster. Potatoes usually need a lot more salt than any other vegetable. Now that you have the potatoes ready, add the olives (preferably pitted), onion cut julienne and kept 10 min in marinate (salt, olive oil and vinegar) and pickles. Mix it a bit and only at the end add the cut eggs, so that they won’t break and sprinkle with chives or sprouts.
So these are only some of my favorite Romanian salads. If you would want to have more inspiration from the Romanian cuisine, you can check my blog here.