When I visited Moldova, I had just one day to sample some of the local cuisine. I dined at La Placinte, which is a small chain restaurant in the capital of Chisinau. For starter, I had the ramson salad, which is a combination of radish, egg, herbs and soured cream. It was fresh and delicious. For my main course, I tried the potato pies and meat dumplings. The servings were huge and lasted me for the next day too. This recipe for ramson salad comes from Eat Like Moldovans and from reading a few other recipes on the internet.
My aim was to get something as close as possible to the version I had tried and enjoyed. Since ramson is difficult to find in the UK, I used a combination of spring onion, chives and spinach. Ramson is a type of wild garlic, so the spring onion and chives add a similar type of flavour. The spinach is more for the appearance, since ramson is leafy. The original recipe adds the eggs into the mixture but I prefer to put them on top. Cucumber is optional and was not in the one I had in Moldova, but it adds a nice extra crunch. Also, the restaurant added dill for garnish, and I think that would add a nice fresh flavour so I’ve added it to the recipe for next time.
Ingredients
1 bunch of ramson
2 hard boiled eggs
2 small cucumbers (optional)
1 bunch of radish
100 g sheep cheese, semi-soft white
8 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp mustard
½ lemon
2 pinches salt and pepper
Dill for garnish (optional)
Instructions
First, wash, drain and roughly chop the ramson or a mix of chives, spring onion and fresh spinach leaves. Place them in a bowl. Next, peel the cucumbers and remove the ends of the radish. Slice both into rounds and add to the bowl.
Dice or crumble the fresh cheese. Spread evenly over the salad.
For the dressing, mix the sour cream, olive oil, mustard, the juice of ½ a lemon, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Arrange the eggs on top of the salad. Then drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve right away.
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