Goat Drob - A Romanian Easter Dish

Drob is a traditional Romanian dish served at Easter. It is often made of lamb, but also can be made with goat, and is similar in some respects to Scottish haggis. According to Wikipedia, the main ingredients in drob are the offal of a lamb or goat (liver, lungs, spleen, heart and kidney), green onions, herbs (dill, parsley, garlic and lovage), eggs and bread soaked in water or milk. The offal is boiled and chopped and then mixed with the other ingredients and seasoned with salt and pepper. The caul of a lamb or goat is stretched out and filled with the mixture. Caul, sometimes called fat netting, is a lacy membrane of fat that surrounds the stomach and other digestive organs. Its construction makes it great for wrapping sausages and other mixtures of meat, fat and seasonings, such as pate and terrines. 

C. c. Claudia, a friend and the wife of Anshu Pathak, the owner of Exotic Meat Market, is an amazing cook and she has access to unusual ingredients from all over the world. She is from Romania and recently made goat drob for Easter and shared some with us and shared with me the ingredients and links I've given above.

Goat drob encased in caul from a goat. 

The outside shell is goat caul. The inside offal is the heart, kidney and liver of a goat. The boiled and cut-up offal was mixed with sauteed green onions, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper and a hard-boiled partridge egg was placed in the center. Once stuffed inside the caul it was baked in an oven. 

The drob cut in half. The egg is from a partridge.

Claudia suggested we eat it with mustard or pickles. We ate it plain and with mustard. It was surprisingly mild and did not have a significant livery or other offal taste. The hard boiled egg added a wonderful texture and taste to the mix and made it a very unusual and fun dish. 

I had haggis in Edinburgh years ago when the thought of offal sounded awful and I remember being shocked that I really liked it. As with haggis, this drob is not difficult to eat at all, except perhaps for someone whose mind is doing somersaults because of the ingredient list.