Moldovan Placinte cu Branza with Flaky Cheese-Filled Pastry Turnovers

Make the dough: dissolve the sugar and salt in the warm water. Mound the flour in a bowl, add the water and the 3 tablespoons of oil, and bring together into a shaggy dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 8-10 minutes until very smooth, soft and elastic.

Ingredients

• For the dough (makes 8 placinte):
• 400g (3 cups) all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
• 240ml (1 cup) warm water
• 3 tbsp sunflower oil, plus more for stretching
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• For the cheese filling:
• 300g (10 oz) fresh cow's milk cheese (Moldovan branza de vaci) — substitute a mix of 200g farmer's cheese + 100g feta
• 100g (3.5 oz) crumbled salty sheep's cheese or feta
• 1 large egg
• 1 small bunch fresh dill, finely chopped
• 2 spring onions, finely sliced (optional, traditional)
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of salt (taste first — feta is salty)
• For frying and serving:
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil, for pan-frying
• 30g (2 tbsp) unsalted butter
• 200ml cultured sour cream (smantana), to serve
• Extra dill sprigs, to garnish

Instructions

1. Make the dough: dissolve the sugar and salt in the warm water. Mound the flour in a bowl, add the water and the 3 tablespoons of oil, and bring together into a shaggy dough. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 8-10 minutes until very smooth, soft and elastic.
2. Divide the dough into 8 equal balls. Coat each lightly with oil, place on a tray, cover with a cloth and rest for at least 40 minutes — this rest is what allows the dough to be stretched paper-thin later.
3. Make the filling: in a bowl, mash the fresh cheese with a fork, then mix in the crumbled feta, egg, chopped dill, spring onions and black pepper. Taste and add a pinch of salt only if needed. The filling should be soft, herby and well seasoned.
4. Stretch the first dough ball: rub a clean work surface with a film of oil. Place a ball on it and, using oiled hands, press and gently stretch it outward from the centre into a very thin round, roughly 28-30cm wide — thin enough to almost see through. Small tears are fine.
5. Fill and fold: spoon an eighth of the cheese filling into the centre of the thin round. Fold the sides over the filling envelope-style — bottom up, top down, then the two sides in — to make a neat sealed parcel about 12cm across. Press the seams gently.
6. Repeat with the remaining dough balls and filling, keeping the finished parcels seam-side down under a cloth so they don't dry out.
7. Heat 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil with half the butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until shimmering.
8. Fry the placinte seam-side down first, in batches, for 3-4 minutes until deeply golden and blistered, then flip and fry the second side another 3 minutes. The pastry should be crisp and bubbled, the cheese hot through. Add fresh oil and butter for each batch.
9. Drain the placinte briefly on a wire rack — never paper towels stacked, or the crisp bottoms steam soft.
10. Serve hot, whole or cut on the diagonal so the steam and soft cheese spill out, with a generous bowl of cold sour cream for dipping and a scatter of fresh dill.
11. Placinte are the most beloved everyday pastry of Moldova, a small landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine with one of the most generous home-cooking traditions in Eastern Europe. The word comes from the Latin 'placenta', meaning a flat cake — a reminder that this style of thin, filled, pan-baked pastry traces all the way back to Roman Dacia. Every Moldovan grandmother has her own placinte, and the fillings shift with the seasons and the household: fresh branza cheese with dill in spring, sweet cherries or apples in summer, pumpkin (placinte cu dovleac) in autumn, salty cabbage in winter. They are made for guests, for holidays, for school lunchboxes and for no reason at all — the smell of placinte frying is, for Moldovans at home and across the wide diaspora, the smell of childhood and of being looked after. Served warm with a bowl of tangy smantana sour cream, they are the perfect generous appetizer to set in the middle of a table, and the surest sign that a Moldovan host considers you family.