🥞 A pie you can bake right on the stove top — with just skimmed milk, baking soda and flour. That is the pie of Dragomirești, a town on the Iza Valley, and the recipe belongs to Pop Domnita, who learned it in her mother’s kitchen and still makes it exactly the same way.
🧪 The recipe, as told by Pop Domnita
The dough is wonderfully simple: samatita — the skimmed milk left after the cream is taken off — mixed with a little baking soda, which makes it rise and turn airy, and enough flour to knead a soft, elastic dough. A pinch of salt, a short rest, and the pie is rolled out and filled, then baked on the plită, the flat iron plate of the traditional stove. The result is a golden, slightly crisp crust with a tender, fluffy interior — the unmistakable taste of a kitchen where nothing was wasted, not even the milk after skimming.
🔥 The tradition of stove-baked pies
Baking on the plită is one of the oldest techniques of Maramureș households. While the oven was reserved for bread and bigger feasts, everyday pies were baked directly on the stove plate, flipped once, and served warm with buttermilk or sour cream. Every village had its own filling — cheese, potatoes, cabbage or greens — but the leavening trick with baking soda and sour milk was common across the Iza Valley, giving the dough its lightness without yeast.
🏔️ Dragomirești, the newest town in Maramureș
Dragomirești sits at the northeastern foot of the Țibleș Mountains, on the Iza River, about 100 km from Baia Mare and 45 km from Sighetu Marmației. First attested in 1373, it became the newest town in the county in 2004. The town is home to the Muzeul Țărăncii Române — a museum dedicated to the Romanian peasant woman, housed in a 19th-century traditional house — and to wooden churches that keep the spirit of Țara Maramureșului alive.
🥛 Samatita, the milk that was never thrown away
In the old Maramureș household, cream was skimmed for butter and sour cream, but the remaining samatita was too precious to discard. Soured naturally, it became the secret of soft doughs: combined with baking soda, it bubbles and leavens the pie without any yeast. Pop Domnita says the pie tastes best eaten warm, straight from the plită, with a glass of cold buttermilk — the humble, honest dessert of the Iza Valley.
🔍 Ce urmează: more stories and recipes from Maramureș towns and villages — follow maramurespesurse.ro for the taste of tradition, one pie at a time.
