Vărzare, vertută și învârtită

Origins and history

The names tell you what they are. Vărzare comes from varză, cabbage. Învârtită comes from a învârti, to turn or roll up. Vertută is the name for the version coiled like a snail in a round tin. Behind all three lies the same skill: stretching dough so thin that it becomes almost translucent. How old that technique is in the region is shown by the twelve-layer Christmas Eve pie from Moldavia that Irina Georgescu describes in her baking book Tava, made with hand-stretched sheets of dough. The food writer Radu Anton Roman called învârtită a versatile plăcintă, which can be either a savoury starter or a dessert.

How it is made

The dough of flour, egg, butter or oil, salt and warm water is kneaded well, left to rest briefly and then rolled out and stretched over the backs of the hands or on a floured tablecloth. Housewives rolled up the filled sheet with the help of that tablecloth so that it would not tear. The sheet is brushed with butter and topped with apple with sugar and cinnamon, walnuts, brânză, pumpkin or cherries, or with sauerkraut braised with onion. The roll then goes straight into a greased tin or is twisted into a spiral, and is baked golden brown in the oven. Vărzare are also made as small folded cabbage pies fried in a pan.

Where and how to try it

In bakeries and patisseries in Chișinău you will often find vertută sold by the piece, sweet or with cheese, to go with a coffee. Restaurants serving traditional food serve them hot, often with smântână. Made with oil instead of butter and with a cabbage filling, vărzare suit the fasting days before Christmas and Easter.