Plachinda (плачинда in Ukrainian; plăcintă in Romanian) is a ubiquitous pastry with sweet or savory fillings, prepared in countries along the western coast of the Black Sea. Before current country borders were established after World War II, Bessarabia (Romanian: Basarabia; Ukrainian: Бессарабія; romanized: Bessarabia), as this region was known, served as a trade route between the east and west. Over 2,000 years, Bessarabia was inhabited by various nomadic tribes and ethnic groups (Greeks, Romans, Turks, Jews and Ukrainians) and was ruled by a succession of Tartars, Turks, the Ottoman Empires, Romanian, Russian, German and Soviet occupiers. Each of these inhabitants left a culinary legacy, enriching Ukraine’s cuisine. Today’s villages along Ukraine’s Black Sea coast follow traditions and foodways of their ethnic ancestors.
Historically, Bessarabia was a region bounded by the Dniester River on the east, Prut River and the Carpathian Mountains on the west, two-thirds of which now lies within modern Moldova. Present day Ukrainian Bessarabia lies in the southwest corner of Ukraine and, since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, is part of Odesa Oblast, bordering on Romania, the Black Sea, Moldova and the Carpathian Mountains in Chernivtsi Oblast. Ukrainian Bessarabia with many villages having Moldovan roots is celebrated for its rich soil and high-quality fruit and vegetables which are supplied to markets throughout Ukraine. In fact, Kyiv’s main fruit and vegetable market is named “Bessarabskiy.”
Plachinda is Bessarabia’s traditional pastry and reflects the region’s multi-ethnic history and even has ancient Greek and Roman roots. Long before parts of Romania and Bessarabia became parts of the Roman Empire, Greeks established trade settlements on the Black Sea, connecting the Middle East with Europe through the Balkans. The Greeks were exceptional bakers and brought with them to Bessarabia the art of making numerous varieties of breads including a layered flour, cheese and honey cake called plakount (flat cake).
Romans acquired the Greek plakount recipe more than 2200 years ago, and renamed it placenta, a Latin translation of its Greek counterpart, the same word as the placenta birth organ because of its similar shape. Cato the Elder, a Roman soldier, senator and historian, provided a recipe for placenta in his “De Agri Cultura” written in 160 BCE. Thus, the Moldovan and Romanian word plăcintă (singular, plăcinte, plural) was derived from Latin placenta, which means cake and originates from the Greek “plakount” or “flat cake”. In Ukraine, plachinda became the local derivative, reflecting this pastry’s Greek origins, Latin name and intertwined history of migration, trade and colonialism.
Plachinda is an everyday dish of various shapes and sizes. It is prepared with various savory fillings such as local sheep cheese brynza (similar to feta), farmer’s cheese or dry-curd cottage cheese with green herbs, fresh or sour cabbage, potatoes with fried onions and herbs, hard-boiled egg with greens, mashed potatoes with black pepper, salted pumpkin, meat and liver. Also popular are sweet fillings: apples, plums, cherries, apricots, peaches, pumpkin and sweetened cheese. Sweet plachinda is usually dusted with powdered sugar.
Today’s plachinda is comfort food in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine, often made on the spur of the moment for a snack or for birthdays and other life passage events. No particular recipe is traditional.
Some cooks consider plachinda bread, others say it’s pastry. It is made from a stretched dough that can be leavened with baking soda or baking powder or prepared without leavening as a laminated dough like puff pastry. Depending on the filling, the same dough can be fried or baked.
This Plachinda recipe, just a handful of ingredients, produces tasty results. I experimented with often-used plachinda shapes, but any shape may be used. Here, the baked plachinda filled with a pumpkin, raisin and orange zest, is formed into a snail shape called a vertuta in Ukrainian and Romanian — a coil of thin dough with a fragrant, subtly sweet, citrusy center with a crisp outer layer which shatters when eaten. Fried plachinda filled with herbed dry-curd cheese produces a savory, delicately salty, rich center and is folded over several times to seal in the filling. Both fried and baked plachinda soften upon cooling and can be crisped up in the oven.
Although we polished off both the sweet and savory placindas for breakfast and as snacks, the placinda with pumpkin is a great afternoon treat with tea or coffee. The placinda with herbed cheese is a nice addition to a dinner of warming soup or a lunchtime salad. But there are many other filling combinations I want to try to further explore the versatility of this simple, stretchy dough with ancient roots.
Plachinda
For the dough
18 ounces (500 g) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces (200 ml) very hot water
3 ¾ ounces (100 g) sunflower or other vegetable oil
For pumpkin filling:
14 ounces (400 g) pumpkin or winter squash such as butternut
3.5 ounces (100 g) sugar
Zest of 1 orange
4 tablespoons golden raisins, cut into small pieces
1,75 ounces (50 g) unsalted butter
For cheese and herb filling:
18 ounces (500g) farmer’s cheese, squeezed through a clean dishcloth (or dry-curd cottage cheese or tvoroh*)
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons sour cream
Bunch fresh dill, fronds only, finely chopped
3-4 sprigs parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
2 scallions, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
¼ cup (60 ml) sunflower or vegetable oil for rolling dough and for frying
Preparing the dough: Sift flour into the bowl of a stand mixer. Combine and whisk water, salt and oil in a measuring cup. Attach the dough hook to the mixer, and with the mixer running at low speed, pour in half of the water. Knead dough at medium speed, adding more water to get a smooth dough, about 10 minutes. (You may not use all the water or may have to add a few more drops at a time to achieve a smooth, non-sticky dough.)
Transfer dough to a lightly greased surface and knead until the dough is no longer sticky. Divide the dough into 8 equal parts (about 3.5 ounces or 98 g each) and roll into balls. Cover in plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes. (Use this time to prepare the pumpkin or cheese fillings.)
When ready to assemble pastry, lightly grease the work surface with vegetable oil. Remove one ball of dough, keeping the others covered to prevent drying out, and flatten by hand into a disk. Then roll with a rolling pin into a round circle about 8-9 inches in diameter.
Lift dough off the work surface and gently stretch around the edges until the dough round is a few inches larger in diameter.
Place dough on the work surface and roll with a rolling pin until dough is stretched by a few more inches, coating the surface of the dough with a few drops of oil to ease stretching. Continue stretching by hand around the edges of the dough until almost transparent. (Don’t worry if small tears develop. They will be covered as pastry is formed.)
With a sharp knife, trim the thick edges of the dough disk and discard the trimmings.
The dough is now ready for filling.
Preparing pumpkin filling: Cut pumpkin in wedges. Remove seeds and peel. With a hand-held grater or a food processor attachment, grate pumpkin into coarse shreds and place into a bowl. Zest orange directly on the pumpkin shreds. Add sugar and raisins and set aside, at least 30 minutes, until ready to use. Before spooning the filling on the dough, drain the juice accumulated in the bowl and squeeze the pumpkin shreds to extract more juice.
Assembling pumpkin spirals: Preheat oven to 350˚F (180˚C).
Each ball of dough should be divided in half (about 1.75 ounces or 49 g each) to form the snail-shaped plachinda. Once the dough is stretched to transparency, with a pastry brush, paint the stretched dough surface with melted butter.
Scatter 2 ½ tablespoons of pumpkin filling evenly but not thickly over one half of the dough sheet closest to you. Start rolling the dough in jelly roll fashion over the filling and the unfilled section of the dough until a long roll is formed.
Trim off ends of the roll. Gently stretch the roll lengthwise, twist and roll into loose snail shape, tucking in the end.
Place spirals on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.
This dough recipe will make 16 small pumpkin pastries or 8 large pastries if each ball of dough is not halved.
Bake for 50-60 minutes. Transfer pastries with spatula to a rack to cool, brush with melted butter. Serve warm or cooled sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Serves 16
Preparing cheese filling: Rub cheese through a sieve into a bowl to break up curds. Add egg yolks, sour cream, salt and pepper and stir to until smooth. Add dill, parsley and scallions and blend well. Set aside until ready to use.
Assembling cheese squares: Use one ball of dough for each savory pastry. Prepare dough sheets as before. Once the dough sheet is transparent, coat the surface lightly with butter. Trim dough to form an even 9 x 9-inch (23 x 23 cm) square.
Spoon the filling in a level shape in the center of the dough square. Connect the opposite corners of the dough together to form an envelope.
Gently stretch each of the formed corners to the side so that the dough does not tear, and again connect corners in the center. (It is important that the edges of the dough overlap each other so filling does not leak out.)
Repeat for each ball of dough, keeping fried pastries warm on rack in a 200˚F(93˚C) oven. This dough recipe will make 8 large pastries.
Heat a large frying pan on medium heat and coat the pan bottom with ¼ inch (0.6 cm) of vegetable oil. Fry the pastries over medium heat, uncovered, for about 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Serves 8
*In Ukraine and Moldova tvoroh (or tvorog), a very dry farmer’s cheese, is used in plachinda. A North American dry curd farmers’ cheese is a good substitute, provided all liquid is squeezed out.
Photo credits: Map from www.nationsonline.org
All other photos: Slava Johnson
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