You say mici, I say mititei
This article was first published in Ferment Issue 116.
The best thing about living in Leicester for 15 years was the vast range of family-run eateries available, representing cuisines from all over the world. In the mid-2010s, a flurry of Romanian restaurants began popping up around town. Although the Romanian population in the UK had been growing steadily for a number of years, I knew absolutely nothing about Romanian food and culture. I made it my business to visit as many as possible.
My favourite only lasted for a year or so, on Abbey Street opposite St Margaret’s bus station. The Tigre was a simple cafe, decked out like your mother-in-law’s living room. When he saw me taking photos of my lunch, the owner excitedly invited me backstage to see the kitchen. He showed me the Sarnale bubbling away in stock – cabbage rolls stuffed with seasoned minced meat and rice. But the thing he was most proud of was the mititei (pronounced “me-tee-tay”).
Also known as mici (pronounced “meech”) these ‘little ones’ are grilled skinless sausages made with a blend of pork and beef along with garlic, spices, bone broth and beer. They are ubiquitous across Romania. Every part of the country, nay, every household, claims that their recipe is the best. The chap at the Tigre was pretty sure that theirs was as good as it gets too.
I’m not surprised. The best mititei have deep char lines from the grill and a crusty bite that gives way to a moist, soft interior. The pungent garlic and relatively heavy spicing gives them a robust, slightly sweet flavour and makes them incredibly addictive. One is never enough!
Their popularity cannot be underestimated – even McDonald’s has attempted to cash in on the traditional staple in previous years by releasing a limited edition McMiti. However, the round minced meat and mustard pattie served in a regular hamburger bun, does not seem to have captured the Romanian imagination as much as the global fast food giant had hoped. The McMiti has been missing in action since 2016.
These grilled minced meat rolls are a well established part of Balkan cuisine, but the Romanian choice of seasoning makes them unique. “They are the soul of Romanian street food culture,” says Irina Janakievska, the Macedonian author of The Balkan Kitchen. “Their roots trace back to the same Ottoman legacy which gave the rest of the Balkans the beloved čevapi – proving that great culinary ideas and flavours know no borders.”
The name čevap is derived from the Arabic word “kebab.” Unlike the mici, it is usually made without garlic, although some recipes allow for the inclusion of a dash of garlic powder and garlic and onions are often served raw on the side. It may be considered the national dish of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the humble mititei outflanks it with an impressive collection of origin myths.
In the Bucureştii de altă dată, a book on Bucharest by the 19th-century author Constantin Bacalbașa, it is claimed that the owner of La Idee restaurant ran out of sheep intestines for sausage making and so put the uncased sausage directly on a charcoal grill. Another story arises from a letter sent in 1920 and now held in the Bucharest Academy Library. In it, the chef of the Caru’ cu Bere pub sends instructions for making mici to one of his regular customers, an officer, so that they could make the dish while away with the military. Some claim that this demonstrates the skinless sausage was a Caru’ cu Bereinvention.
Mititei have earned their place in the gastronomic calendar of Romania. It is traditional to fire up the grill on May 1st, the national May Labour Day holiday, and enjoy mici with friends and family. It is estimated that the country consumes around 30 million mititei around the holiday each year.
What makes this little sausage so delicious? Although everyone’s house recipe differs slightly, there are a number of key characteristics that make the grilled delicacies lipsmackingly delicious.
- The meat – lean beef minced together with a fattier pork cut gives a full flavour and a moist texture.
- The liquid – adding liquid stops the mix from drying out on the grill. The addition of unsalted bone broth and beer adds depth to the overall taste.
- Garlic – this is a non-negotiable part of the mici profile. A healthy quantity is added, minced, into the sausage mix.
- Bicarbonate of soda – another essential ingredient, the bicarb gives a unique fluffy, almost springy, texture to the finished delicacy.
- Seasoning – Salt and thyme are ubiquitous in authentic recipes, but extras like allspice or sweet paprika can also be added. The Caru’ cu Bere recipe from 1920 also suggests coriander, cumin and star anise, for example.
- The most common plating is with sweet mustard and chips, and a glass of beer.
It may be a surprise to see bicarbonate of soda on the ingredient list. In fact, this addition put the dish under threat for a time. In 2013, an EU directive restricted the use of sodium carbonates and other additives in food.
While Romania was still allowed to produce mici for domestic consumption, the legislation prevented them from being exported. The Romanian government had to submit a request to the European Commission to allow mititei to be added to the list of traditional products exempt from the directive. This permission was finally granted in June 2014, much to the relief of producers who have hungry markets in places with large Romanian diasporas, like Spain and Italy.
Good article (catching up with some of your recent work here). You may be interested in my own recollection of these sausages, the mititei, from my Montreal youth, Jewish section. These sausages were a specialty of what we called “Romanian” steakhouses. These were not kosher, or not the ones we knew, middle class resorts, though far from regular indulgences as good meat was costly then for a middle class not long out of artisan and worker roots, as my people were.
One branch of our family was Romanian, from outside Bucharest, which arrived before World War I in Montreal. It must have been people of this background who set up these steakhouses. They were somewhat Balkan-flavoured but essentially, or by the 1960s, American-type steak restaurants.
The Romanian sausage, we called it karnatzelach, Yiddish which means I think sausage. The best I had in Montreal were at one place only, in taste much as you described except I think apart the heavy fresh garlic, only salt and maybe white pepper went in. No cayenne or that type, no exotic spices. The meat used was very good, probably chopped brisket, which defined much of the flavour.
But here is the key part. To get the right exterior, the sausages were left out for hours. The outside would dry out, forming a kind of skin, to replace I suppose the “missing” casing. And they were always charcoal-broiled, never fried or grilled, or at least I never experienced that.
One could have them as a main dish with french fries or other potato. The pickles (pickled cucumbers) and coleslaw and good rye bread on the table completed the picture. More typically, if one had the means, it was part of a mixed grill, with a piece of liver, steak, and a lamb chop alongside.
I never drank alcohol with it, was too young. These are actually easy to make at home, and if one has a barbeque I’m sure you can get close to the kind of professional results I remember. Cevapi are broadly similar yet different really. I agree no garlic, not the ones I have encountered into Toronto, and the ones I’ve seen here are always fried. Served with a kind of rich cream and raw onion alongside.
In the Jewish steakhouses, kosher or non-, no pork or bacon was used. The mititei were all-beef but of course in the general Romanian community the meats varied as you noted.
Sounds delicious Gary, what a great memory you have!