Mamalyga – a traditional dish with amazing benefits

Mamalyga is a thick corn porridge in the national cuisines of different countries - Moldova, Romania, Abkhazia, Georgia. Hominy recipes differ not only in the composition of the ingredients, but also in the methods of preparing corn porridge.

The classic mamaliga recipe consists of a simple set of ingredients. But the traditional way to prepare thick corn hominy is to boil it in water in a thick-walled cauldron. The authors of the site “Quick Recipes” have prepared a small selection of recipes for making mamalyga.

Mamalyga – Moldovan classic recipe

Ingredients:

Hominy:

• Water – 1 ⅕ l
• Salt to taste
• butter – 30 g
• corn flour – 1 kg
• Additives:
• sheep cheese – 200 g
• Cracklings:
• Lard –200 g
• Salt to taste

Tokana:

• pork chops – 500 g
• onions – 2 pcs.
• salt – 10 g
• black pepper – 10 g

Husband's sauce:

• Garlic – 5 cloves
• Salt – 20 g
• sunflower oil – 50 ml
• water – 200 ml

General information:

• Cooking time: 60 minutes;
• Number of servings 5.

Cooking method:

1. Prepare all the necessary ingredients. For hominy, you should use only finely ground corn flour. It must first be dried well in the oven and sifted through a sieve. For cooking you need a cast iron cauldron with a thick bottom.
2. Pour the hearth into the cast iron and add salt, leave until the water boils. Then you need to pour the flour into salted water boiling with butter in a thin stream, stirring continuously. To prevent lumps from forming, place a wooden stirrer (spatula, rolling pin) in the center of the cauldron. Hominy is cooked at a low simmer for 25–30 minutes, and it should be stirred all the time, pressing the stirrer to the walls of the cauldron.
3. Then reduce the heat even more and, stirring continuously, cook the hominy for another 10–15 minutes. until completely thickened. To determine the readiness of the hominy, lower a rolling pin vertically into it and quickly rotate it with your palms. If the hominy doesn’t stick to the rolling pin, it’s ready.
4. When the mamalyga thickens, it is separated from the walls of the cauldron with a spoon dipped in water and left for some time on the fire so that it is baked from the bottom and better leaves the cauldron. Then the cauldron is shaken thoroughly several times and the hominy is tipped onto a cutting board or onto a clean tablecloth, but not onto a dish, otherwise the hominy will sweat and become tasteless. Properly cooked hominy should accurately retain the shape and outline of the cauldron and not fall apart when shaken out. Then the hominy is cut into pieces using a harsh thread or a wooden knife.
5. The mujdei sauce is prepared as follows: grind the garlic with salt, add sunflower oil and broth (boiled water) and stir well. You can add a few grams of wine vinegar.
6. To prepare tokana: fry pork chops in small portions and simmer with fried onions and a little water until cooked.
7. To prepare cracklings: cut fresh or salted lard into small cubes and fry it in a frying pan until crispy. If the lard is not salted, add salt.
8. Mamalyga is served separately on a flat wooden dish or board. All additives are served separately. Traditionally, hominy is eaten with hands, dipping it in the additive you like.

Mamalyga: a simple recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups corn flour,
• 4 glasses of water,
• 1/3 tablespoon salt.

General information:

• Cooking time: 65 minutes;
• Number of servings 6.

Cooking method:

1. Sift finely ground corn flour and dry. It is better to cook mamalyga in a cauldron. Pour some of the flour and salt into boiling water, boil for 5 minutes, then add the rest of the flour in a heap, divide with a wooden spatula into four parts (crosswise), boil without disturbing for 15–20 minutes.
2. Then mix well at a low simmer with a paddle so that there are no lumps, stirring from the middle to the edges of the cauldron. Level the kneaded hominy with a spoon and leave it on the edge of the stove for 10–15 minutes with the lid closed.
3. Place the finished mamalyga on a dry wooden board, after shaking the cauldron well and turning it upside down.
4. Mamalyga is traditionally served with melted butter, sour cream, grated cheese or cracklings. In addition, mamalyga is a good side dish for meat and fish dishes, and scrambled eggs.

Mamalyga with milk

There is another way to prepare the dish, a more festive one. The water is supplemented with milk, which will make the porridge taste creamier. But the method of preparing this option is different from the previous one. Let's look at how to cook hominy from corn grits in milk.

1. We put a cup of milk to boil in a thick-walled cauldron.
2. We send 2 cups of fine grains to fry in a dry frying pan.
3. When the milk boils, add 2 cups of boiled water. We wait until foam appears on the surface of the liquid again.
4. Add a little salt and add the cereal in a thin stream. Stir once and reduce heat to low.
5. Now let's wait until the corn chaff swells and turns into one lump. Some amount of liquid will still remain. It's not scary.
6. Remove the saucepan from the heat, take a mashed potato masher and begin to stir the cereal with it so that not a single dry piece remains. Gradually the porridge will absorb all the liquid and become soft and elastic.
7. Add butter to the mamalyga. Place the saucepan under the lid on low heat for a quarter of an hour. The dish is ready.

Mamaliga in Moldavian style

Ingredients:

• Corn flour – 400 g
• Water – 1.25 l
• Onions – 2 heads
• Butter – 2 tablespoons
• Sheep cheese – 300 g

General information:

• Cooking time: 45 minutes;
• Number of servings 5.

Cooking method:

1. Pre-dry the finely ground corn flour in the oven. Place water in a cast iron pot on fire, add salt and bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Carefully add cornmeal, sifting it through a sieve in small portions. Stir all the time with a wooden spoon.
2. Cook at a low simmer for 30 minutes, stirring continuously. Then reduce the heat and simmer the hominy for another 15–20 minutes, until thickened. You must stir continuously, not forgetting either the bottom or the walls of the cauldron.
3. After moistening a spoon in water, separate the hominy from the walls and leave it on the fire for a couple of minutes.
4. Shake the pot several times and dump the hominy onto a cutting board or fancy kitchen towel. Proper hominy should retain the shape of the pot. They cut hominy with thread. Serve with onions fried in butter and grated sheep cheese.

How to cook mamalyga from corn grits in Moldavian style

Mamalyga is the national dish of Moldova, Romania and Western Ukraine. It is a steeply brewed porridge made from corn flour or cereal. It is usually prepared as a side dish and served with delicious sauces and additives.

In Moldova, hominy is mainly prepared from corn flour, not from cereals. Then it turns out dense, but very tender and light. Cornmeal hominy tastes a little bland. But in combination with muzhdey sauce, sour cream, cracklings, vegetables, omelet and other dishes, it changes radically and causes a terrible appetite. It looks very impressive when placed on a flat dish or simply on a cutting board. Real Moldavian-style mamaliga requires dexterity. But with a little patience and effort, you can get a decent dish.

This porridge is nutritious and healthy. It is considered dietary due to its fiber, which absorbs and removes harmful substances from the body, thereby promoting weight loss. To prepare mamaliga, you need simple ingredients.

Ingredients:

• corn flour;
• vegetable oil;
• salt;
• water.

Step-by-step recipe with photos:

1. You need to take a cast iron pot, pour water into it (about 2 liters) and put it on the fire.
2. Bring water to a boil.
3. Add salt (about 0.5 tablespoon of salt).
4. Add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil so that the porridge does not stick to the walls of the pot.
5. When the water boils, corn flour is slowly poured into it, stirring the porridge constantly. They sizzle until it becomes difficult to stir. If you take coarse grains, this will eliminate the possibility of lumps forming.
6. Cook hominy over low heat for about 40 minutes.
7. After the porridge is cooked, it is allowed to cool.
8. After turning the pot over, transfer the porridge onto a flat dish or cutting board.
9. Mamalyga is served with stewed meat, sour cream, sheep cheese, cottage cheese with garlic, fried fish and other dishes.

An excellent addition to porridge is mujdey sauce. To prepare it, take 4-5 cloves of garlic, passed through a press, salt and black pepper on the tip of a knife, a small amount of chopped herbs, a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice, 50 ml of broth or boiling water with the addition of a few tablespoons of sunflower oil. Mix everything, let it brew a little and put it on the table along with the hominy.

With just a little effort, diligence and patience, you can get a very satisfying, healthy and attractive Moldavian-style mamaliga.

Mamaliga in Abkhazian

Ingredients:

• Corn grits - 1 cup
• Water - 3 glasses
• Butter - 30 g
• Suluguni cheese – 150 g
• Salt - to taste
• Greens - for serving

General information:

• Cooking time: 45 minutes;
• Number of servings 4.

Cooking method:

1. Prepare ingredients for mamaliga in Abkhazian style. Pour the corn grits into a cauldron or thick-walled pan. Pour in boiling water, continuously stirring the cereal.
2. Bring the liquid to a boil and cook the porridge over low heat, stirring constantly, until cooked. The cooking time will depend on the cereal; it took me about 20 minutes. If you plan to add cheese when serving, add salt to the porridge during cooking.
3. Add butter to almost finished mamalyga. If you plan to cook porridge with suluguni, cut the cheese into cubes and add now.
4. Stir the porridge and simmer, stirring, for a couple more minutes over low heat. Place the mamalyga into plates, place pieces of suluguni on top and serve the dish.
5. Abkhazian mamalyga will be an excellent side dish for meat. Bon appetit!

Mamaliga with cheese

Ingredients:

• coarse corn grits - 200g.
• water - 1 liter
• feta cheese - 250g.
• butter - 125g.
• salt - to taste.

General information:

• Cooking time: 50 minutes;
• Number of servings 5.

Cooking method:

1. For mamalyga, we will need a heat-resistant dish with a diameter of about 18 cm and a depth of 10 cm. Grease the mold generously with butter, about 15 g. Using a fork, crumble the cheese into small pieces.
2. Throw the grains into boiling salted water, pouring from a height so that the grains can be evenly distributed in the water. The water must be constantly boiling, otherwise a lump will form. As soon as all the cereal is covered, reduce the heat and cook while stirring with a wooden spoon until the porridge is ready.
3. Now we assemble the mamalyga: Place a small layer of porridge, about 1 cm thick, on the bottom of the mold. Sprinkle it with a thick layer of feta cheese and grease it with softened butter. Then add another layer of porridge, then cheese and butter. We continue to alternate layers so that there is a layer of cheese on top.
4. Place the resulting dish in an oven preheated to 200C and bake for 20–30 minutes, until the cheese on the surface is baked and turns golden brown. I drained off the excess oil. But I think that if the cereal were coarsely ground, it would absorb all the oil. Let the mamalyga with cheese brew and turn it over onto a serving plate when serving. Bon appetit! And if you use cracklings, sprinkle them on the hominy just before serving.

Mamaliga or polenta baked with mushrooms and cheese

Ingredients:

• Corn flour (or grits) - 250 gr.
• Water - 300 ml.
• Mushrooms (preferably champignons) - 300 gr.
• Brynza (other hard cheese can be used) - 100 gr.
• Milk - 300 ml.
• Onion - 1 pc.

General information:

• Cooking time: 120 minutes;
• Number of servings 6.

Cooking method:

1. Pour water and milk into a thick-bottomed saucepan, bring to a boil, add pepper and salt to taste, reduce heat and gradually add corn grits or flour, stirring constantly.
2. The contents must be stirred all the time for 15–20 minutes, grate the cheese on a coarse grater, fry the mushrooms with 1 onion (do not salt the mushrooms).
3. Place half a portion of hominy in a mold, put cheese on it, then mushrooms and cover everything with the second half of hominy, put in a hot oven at 180 degrees for 45–50 minutes. Then cover with a towel and let cool slightly.

How to cook hominy from corn flour

Today I decided to cook a simple folk dish, mamaligu. Mamalyga can be used instead of bread or served with different sauces. Mamalyga is considered a dish of Romanian, Moldavian and Georgian cuisine. It can be prepared from either corn grits or corn flour. If it is made from flour, it will look like porridge dough. There are a lot of recipes for such mamaliga. From a simple recipe it turned into a culinary masterpiece. Let's make this mamalyga ourselves.

Ingredients:

• water - 2 liters;
• salt - 1 tsp;
• vegetable oil - 1 tbsp;
• corn flour - 800 gr.

Cooking method step by step:

1. First, let's prepare all the ingredients we need. Sift corn flour through a fine sieve.
2. Place a thick-bottomed pan on the stove. Pour water into it and wait until it boils.
3. Pour salt into boiling water and add vegetable oil. Mix everything well.
4. We take a whisk, preferably an iron plastic one, it may break. We begin to slowly add corn flour to the boiling water. You need to stir constantly to prevent lumps from forming. Add flour until the hominy becomes thick. When stirring, the hominy will stick to the whisk; it needs to be cleaned. I cooked mamalyga not as porridge, but as bread. After the hominy thickens, take a masher and pound the porridge to see if there are any lumps left.

5. Now it needs to be compacted. To do this, take a spoon and a glass of water. We wet a spoon in water and compact our hominy with it. This way it won't stick to the spoon. We level it so that the top is even and beautiful. Take a thin knife and carefully draw it in a circle along the edge of the pan without touching the porridge. We do this so that the steam comes out. Reduce the heat to low and leave it for 15 minutes, lightly covering with a lid.
6. After the allotted time has passed, turn off the fire. Take a board and cover it with baking paper. Cover the pan with a board with paper and turn it over. Lightly tapping so that the hominy moves away from the walls, lift the pan. We still have beautiful hominy on our board.

Let it cool and you can eat it. The dish can be served with meat and salads. Bon Appetit everyone!