Urdă

Urdă is a sort of whey cheese variously claimed to be originally from Romania, but now commonly produced in the Balkans, namely in Serbia, North Macedonia and Hungary.

The Romanian term 'urdă' might derive from albanian Urdhë, Alternative variant of hurdhë. From Proto-Albanian *wurdā, from an earlier *urdā or *uordā, from Proto-Indo-European *uer- (“to boil, to burn”). Cognate to Old Armenian վառիմ (vaṙim, “to burn”), Lithuanian vìrti (“to cook, to boil”). the Romanian term has been borrowed into Bulgarian, Hungarian, Serbian, Slovak, Rusyn, Polish, Czech, and Russian languages.

Urda is made from whey of sheep, goat or cow milk. Urdă is produced by heating the whey resulting from the draining of any type of cheese. It is often made into molds to the shape of a half sphere. The paste is finely grained, silky and palatable. It contains 18 grams of protein per 100 grams.

In Romania, urdă is traditionally used in the preparation of several desserts, such as clătită and plăcintă. Urda is also traditionally prepared in Serbia, notably in the southern region of Pirot.

Urdă is similar to ricotta in the way it is produced.