Log Book for January 20, 2011

Cook's Report

Haritina Mogosanu Reporting

1a) Today was
- a cooking day 1b) Was today a special day celebrated at the main meal with special food or activity?

Today we talked about home and how much we miss bread, which is a very important part of our Romanian dietary intake. Darius, the Persian emperor wished to invade Dacia (our ancient country name) about 2000 years ago and he could not move his armies through the wheat fields he encountered. More than that, Romania was considered the granary of Europe in between the two word wars. We do eat bread! 

I said that if they wish, I know how to make bread. Everyone was very excited and I came up with the better option, to make scovergi. (They are very much like pita-bread). They are made of the same dough we use for bread but fried in the frying pan with or without butter.

2) List the foods served at today's main meal (usually the evening meal), giving full names of each.

Carrot sautee,
“French” fries (only that they had a round shape),
scovergi
peas and sweetcorn with chicken and mushrooms all from freeze dried.
No special beverage

3) Foods left over or discarded:
Leftover peas/corn/chicken dish that we stored for tomorrow.

4) Recipes for anything more complicated than following package directions exactly, or rehydrating.

Carrot sauté:
Martian garlic dust fried until golden in oil. Add the carrots, water, and a dust of salt and leave to simmer. Towards the end add one or two teaspoons of sugar. Enjoy

Peas and corn and chicken with mushrooms
Add boiling water to peas, corn and mushrooms in a pot. Add three spoons of olive oil (or any oil) and let them simmer. For the last half hour we added the dehydrated chicken and let it simmer for the excess water to evaporate. Added a little salt and stirred. The quantities are not relevant as you can add the ingredients in any quantity.

Scovergi (Romanian flatbread)
500g flour  (about 4.5 cups) 
1 sachet (1 tbsp) dry yeast
½ t. sugar, to feed the yeast
1 t. salt
300 mL water (about 1 and 1/6 cups) warm but not hot 
vegetable oil and/or butter for frying (optional)
 
Add yeast, salt, sugar and 1 tablespoon flour to 100 mL warm water, mix well and allow yeast to activate for 10-15 minutes
Mix yeast solution with the remaining flour and water. Knead until dough is no longer sticky. Cover and allow to rise 1 hour or until doubled in volume.  (Or make dough in the bread maker on the dough setting) 
Cut the dough into 6 to 10 equal pieces.  Stretch each piece into a circle about 1/4" thick  (6-7 mm).  If a filling is desired, put the filling in the middle of the round piece, fold it in half, and press hard all around the edges with the tines of a fork to make a strong seal and an attractive pattern.  The traditional filling is a crumbly cheese. Meat or fish fillings can also be used.
Bake dough rounds in an ungreased non-stick frying pan until puffed and browned in spots, turning over to cook both sides (for pita-like scovergi).  Or fry dough rounds or filled scovergi in 1/4" of oil or mixed oil and butter  until golden brown, turning over to cook both sides.
Notes: Scovergi are best eaten right away. Plain ones are good with jam or honey. One internet recipe has fresh or freeze dried herbs (dill, chives) incorporated into the dough. Try to eat your scovergi the same day they are made because they get hard or stale within 24 hours.

5) Comments/questions

I love this oasis soap it takes out the most difficult spots.

I don’t really cook, the only thing that I ever successfully made is tripe soup.