Romanian Boiled Mucenici

Elena Butuc

Today we are making boiled 'Mucenici', traditional Romanian dessert with eight-shaped pasta. But our favorites are still the fluffy, baked Mucenici. I've been meaning to post the recipe for a very long time. I just didn't make it because my husband told me he didn't like it, so I thought it was better not to complicate my life. The thing is that now he liked the mucenici a lot and he ate them with so much pleasure, especially cold, when they were filled with juice, flavours and sweetness. The difference lies in the fact that the mucenici he previously tried weren't homemade.

If you have the time, I recommend making this recipe from beginning to end and create an opportunity to work as a team together with all your family members. When you shape them yourselves, the mucenici will be even tastier, especially for the little ones :) If you don't have time, of course you can buy ready-made mucenici, and then let your imagination free.

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Ingredients

Metric US

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White flour

250 g

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Warm water

150 ml

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Salt

0.5 tsp

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Sugar

0.5 cups

adjust to taste

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Lemon zest

1 tbsp

optionally, you can also add orange or lemon juice, to taste

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Chopped walnuts

1 cup

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Food flavours

1 tsp

cinnamon, vanilla, rum - if you like them, to taste

Step by step

Weigh the flour. Mix with the salt.

Add warm water. Knead with your hands or mix with a spoon until dough starts to come together.

The dough is supposed to be denser, so do not add more water than what the recipe says.

You have two options. Knead for about ten minutes until smooth.

Or let sit for ten minutes, then knead it for a bit. Notice it softens and it's much easier to work if the dough is rested.

Shape into a ball and let rest for ten minutes.

Spread out with the rolling pin into a thin sheet, about 2mm thick.

If you have cookie cutters in the shape of number eight, you are saved (or watch the video recipe to see other shapes you could make). If not, see below how I did it:

- cut the sheet into slices about 3cm wide.

- Then take each slice and cut into strips about 0.5cm wide.

Bring together the ends of each straw into a circle.

Then twist the circle and shape into a number 8.

With skillful hands, patience and help, it is possible to make them all in an hour. For the little ones, patience ends faster, so just encourage them and tell them "how good the mucenici will be" etc. :)

Arrange nicely in an oven sheet, lined with baking paper. We had two sheets.

You can let them dry until the next day, but if you or your chef assistants don't have patience, keep them in the preheated oven at 200 degrees C for 5 minutes.

These are our oven-dried mucenici. I noticed that the more browned ones also had a slight aroma of baked cookies. Let them brown a bit, but be very careful not to burn them!

In a saucepan, pour 1-1.5 liters of water and start working your magic flavors.

Add sugar, vanilla, then, optionally, orange and lemon juice/zest (we really liked it), rum, cinnamon etc.

When this aromatic mixture starts to boil, add the dried mucenici, turn the heat to low and let simmer until they are done.

I thought they would be done in 3-4 minutes, but because they were a bit dried, from the oven, they needed to boil for about 15. So, make sure you cook them until they are done. They shouldn't be mushy, but they shouldn't be dried either - about the same as pasta al dente. Taste them so that you know when they're done.