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Mucenici

Unless you are Romanian, chances are you have no idea what mucenici are. And it's not even something all Romanians know and/or eat! 

Basically, every March 9th, we are celebrating the Forty Martyrs, and the way we do it is by eating 8-shaped pasta in a sugary soup with crushed walnuts on top. Oh, and the men drink 40 glasses of țuică (traditional Romanian spirit). In the Moldova region of the country (not the country Moldova, although they celebrate this too as far as I know) they have a dough pastry shaped like an 8, brushed with honey and topped with walnuts. But in Muntenia (the region where I am originally from), we make this sweet soup. The other regions of the country may or may not celebrate - actually, most people I asked in my current city, Cluj-Napoca (located in Transylvania as region), are not familiar with any of the mucenici.

I was not a big fan of mucenici growing up. But for some reason this year I decided to try to make them - and surprise, surprise, I love them!

Ingredients (for 200g of mucenici):

  • a bag of 200g mucenici pasta
  • 2L water (1L per 100g mucenici)
  • 90g demerara sugar
  • 90g brown sugar
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 100g walnuts (or more)

Method:

Mix the sugar with the vanilla extract, salt, and cinnamon stick in a pot. Cover with the water and bring to boil.

When it boils, add the mucenici and cook them for 10-12 minutes.

Meanwhile, toast the walnuts in a pan, then chop them (I use a food processor).

When the mucenici are cooked, leave them covered with the lid for 40-60 minutes.

Then serve them in a bowl, topped with walnuts. Enjoy!

🥣 Source: grandma gave me the original recipes, but I added my touch to it


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