Culinary delights at Hotel Alpin
Forest Lounge, the new restaurant opened in the Alpin Hotel in Poiana Brașov, is a restaurant with Romanian specifics that awaits you to delight your senses with extraordinary traditional Romanian dishes, including tasty sheep salt meat/pemmican (“pastramă” in romanian).
Initially, before modern refrigeration methods, the pemmican was a way to preserve meat. The raw meat was marinated, then partially dried, seasoned with various herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed.
If we analyze the word “pastramă” etymologically, its root is the Romanian verb “a păstra” = to keep”. But it is possible to go much further in history, to the Latin “pastor”, meaning shepherd. Thus, “pastramă” is “shepherd’s meat”, i.e., lamb or mutton. At the beginning, pemmican was a speciality made from ram meat.
“Pastrama” reached various places in the world, even in the United States, where it was introduced in the second half of the 19th century by means of a wave of Romanian Jewish immigrants. Initially, in English it was pronounced “pastrama”, a term close to the Romanian one, but then it came to “pastrami”, probably to resemble the Italian “salami”.
Today, this Romanian delicacy can be lamb, but also pork or sheep, and together with cheese, it even has its own festival. Every September, on the “Inima Reginei” plain near Bran Castle, a cheese and pastrami festival takes place, called “Răvășitul oilor.” As part of this event, a gastronomic exhibition takes place where visitors can taste various types of pastrami, as well as cheese, presented by the producers themselves.
Because you will probably think that you would like to know how to make such goodness, below you will find a recipe for sheep pastrami and some recommendations.
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Mutton pastrama recipe
For 5 portions of pastrama you will need the following ingredients: boneless mutton back and leg, 2 large cloves of garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and 1-2 glasses of red wine.
First, unfold the meat so that you have a layer of approximately 1 cm to prepare it perfectly (neither raw nor burnt).
Separately, you will prepare the sauce with which the meat will be marinated.
Peel the garlic and smash it, add salt, pepper, thyme and red wine.
Cover the meat with this sauce, place it in a covered dish and keep it cold for 4-5 days. The pieces of meat will be turned daily, to be evenly penetrated by the aroma of wine and garlic.
After that, it is smoked for 12 hours in beech smoke and, after smoking, it is kept in the freezer. You can prepare it on the grill, but also in a pan or cauldron.
Below there are some recommendations to get a delicious pastrama:
- It is recommended to choose young mutton (the meat is fattier and tastier).
- Be careful not to remove all the fat, because this prevents the pastrama from being dry.
- Do not leave the pastrama in the smoke for too long so that it does not dry out.
- Be generous with the garlic and thyme because they give the pastrama a special flavor
If you want to have a special traditional experience, we are waiting for you at the Forest Lounge restaurant. You have the opportunity to watch how the chefs prepare the food right in front of you. In addition, when you order à la carte, you receive mulled wine or mulled tuica from the house.
