Cârnați de casă
Pork sausage with garlic and cimbru (savoury), prepared at the Ignat, the pig slaughter practised on 20 December on Romanian farms. Every family defends its own recipe; the quantity of garlic is the most frequent point of contention.
| Lean pork shoulder | 500 g |
| Pork belly | 300 g |
| Back fat (slănină) | 200 g |
| Fine salt | 20 g |
| Fresh garlic, crushed | 20 g |
| Ground black pepper | 4 g |
| Cimbru (dried savoury) | 3 g |
| Sweet paprika (boia dulce) | 8 g |
| Hot chilli (boia iute, optional) | 2 g |
| Cold pork broth | 60 ml |
| Hog casing (Ø 32–36 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Cut the meat and the fat into 3 cm cubes. Refrigerate at 0 °C for 2 hours.
- Mincing: Mince through the 8 to 10 mm plate. The mincing is coarse: the pieces of meat and fat must remain visible at the cut. Some family traditions are cut with a knife rather than a mincer, for an even more irregular grain.
- Seasoning: Crush the garlic with the salt to form a paste. Work this paste into the meats with the pepper, the cimbru, the paprika and the cold broth. Knead for 4 to 5 minutes.
- Resting: Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours. This rest lets the garlic and the cimbru penetrate the meat.
- Stuffing: Stuff into the hog casings. Form sausages of 15 to 20 cm, twisted or tied at the ends.
- Drying (fresh version): Hang for 6 to 12 hours in a cool place to let the skin dry. Cook within days: pan-fry, grill or fry.
- Smoking (smoked version): Cold-smoke over beech or apple wood for 2 to 4 days. Continue drying for 1 to 2 weeks in a cool larder (10–15 °C).
- Storage: The smoked version is kept in rendered lard (untură) in a jar for several weeks.
- Serving: Pan-fry or grill until golden. Serve with mămăligă (maize polenta), pickles (murături), mustard and sour cream (smântână).
The word cârnați (plural of cârnat) designates in Romanian any sausage of minced meat stuffed into a natural casing. The qualifier de casă (of the house) distinguishes the artisanal, family-made version from industrial production. There is no official recipe: each family hands down its own, and the proportions vary from region to region. What remains constant is the base: pork, garlic in generous quantity, cimbru (savoury), paprika, natural casing.
The cimbru (Satureja hortensis) is the herb that separates the Romanian cârnați from those of their neighbours. Savoury is used in Romanian charcuterie far more often than in the bordering countries. The Hungarian sausages favour marjoram and paprika; the Serbs, paprika alone; the Bulgarians, cumin. The cimbru gives the cârnați a peppery, faintly mentholated note that identifies them.
Their making is inseparable from the Ignat, the pig slaughter practised on 20 December, Saint Ignatius’s day. The tradition is pre-Christian in its roots, folded into the Orthodox calendar by superposition. The animal is killed at dawn; family and neighbours work together all day to cut up, transform and preserve the whole carcass. The cârnați are among the first preparations, with the caltaboș (an offal sausage with rice), the tobă (head cheese stuffed into the stomach), the sângerete (blood sausage) and the slănină (salted fatback). The collective meal that closes the day, the pomana porcului (literally the pig’s alms), brings all the participants together around grilled meats, polenta, and țuică (plum brandy).
The regional variants affect the proportion of fat (higher in Moldavia, lower in Transylvania), the presence or absence of hot paprika, and the mode of keeping. In Transylvania and the Banat, beech smoking is systematic and prolonged, which gives firm, dry sausages. In Moldavia and Muntenia, the fresh version, eaten in the days after the slaughter, is more common. Keeping in lard (cârnați în untură), practised in every region, preserves the sausages all winter in a larder without refrigeration. The cârnați de Pleșcoi, produced in the village of Pleșcoi (Buzău county) from mutton and chilli, hold a European PGI registered in 2019.
The cârnați are eaten pan-fried or grilled with mămăligă (maize polenta), pickled gherkins and sour cream, or worked into the Moldavian tochitură, a pork stew in which fresh and smoked sausages cook together in lard with garlic.
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