Luscos (ciorba de varza cu afumatura)

"Ardeal cabbage soup with smoked pork"

This hearty soup, pronounced ‘looshcosh’ in Romanian, hails from Ardeal (a region of Transylvanian Romania) and therefore almost certain originates from the Hungarian soup called lucskos kaposzta, which translates something like ‘sloppy cabbage’. I don’t know if that means that it should be closer in texture to a wet stew rather than a soup, but if so, that wouldn’t be so bad, especially on those cold autumn evenings. I found various recipes for luscos, but most of them seemed to have certain common elements, namely the cabbage (obviously), the onion, the tomato and the smoked meats. Other recipes also contained carrots and parsnips (to make the stock), or just used stock cubes, but I felt in this case it was better to use some carrots, as I had them to hand, and let the veg and meat flavour the stock. Radu Anton Roman’s version also contained a glass of white wine.

Time: 90 minutes

Servings: 4 bowls

Ingredients:

200-300g of smoked pork of some variety

½ a medium white cabbage

2 medium onions

1 carrot

2-3 serving spoons of tomato bullion/thick passata (or a smaller amount of concentrate)

About 2 tablespoons of oil, porkfat or butter

700ml of water

Two large pinches of dried thyme (or a chopped up sprig of fresh if you have it)

Dill or parsley for garnish

Salt and pepper for seasoning

Method:

1. Peel the onions, cut them in half, and slice them thinly. Melt or heat the oil/fat/butter in a large saucepan and add the onions and sauté them gently over a medium heat for a minute or two.

2. Cut the pork into largish chunks and add them to the onions. Continue to cook over a medium heat for about 5-6 minutes, stirring regularly.

3. Grate or finely chop the carrot and add it to the pan, stir it in, give it another couple of minutes.

4. Meanwhile, shred the cabbage and put it on top of the mixture already in the pan, put on the lid, turn the temperature down, and leave to stew for about half an hour. At first, it might seem like a lot of cabbage, but it will wilt down to about half its size. From time to time give it all a good mix and make sure nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan (it shouldn’t if the temperature is low).

5. Once the cabbage has wilted down and has turned a slightly translucent yellowy colour, pour in the water (I usually pre-boil it), add the bullion, the thyme, stir well, bring it to the boil, turn the heat right down, and leave on a low heat uncovered for at least 30-40 minutes, an hour if you can.

6. If the soup looks watery, or you prefer it thicker and more ‘sloppy’, you can add a ‘rentas’, which is basically a kind of roux made from flour and pork fat, sometimes with finely chopped onion or garlic added.

7. When done, season it to taste, dish it out, sprinkle with green stuff (dill or parsley seem most popular), and serve with some nice crusty bread, smantana (sour cream), and/or hot peppers.

Ciorba de urzici

“Sour stinging nettle soup”

I was making a dish of nettles (urzici in Romanian) cooked in the oven and I had a good few handfuls of nettles left over, so I thought I’d make a quick and easy soup for lunch based on a few Romanian nettle recipes I had read on the net. A lot of them also added rice, but I’m putting rice in the other dish so I left them out. Add about 50g of rice per portion at the beginning when you boil the nettles and garlic together if you want to use it. Notice that I only made enough for one bowl as it was only for me, so just multiply the quantities by the number of portions you want to make. It turned out quite tasty and surprisingly filling. The smell of cooking nettles somehow reminds me of the smell of those sheets of seaweed you use for making sushi.

Time: 30 minutes

Servings: 1

Ingredients:

About 150-200g of nettles (I didn’t weight them, but it was enough to loosely fill a medium mixing bowl

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons of sour cream (smantana)

3 green garlic stems (or two cloves of regular garlic and a small onion)

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. Wash the nettles thoroughly in 3 or 4 changes of cold water.

2. Bring some water to the boil and blanch the nettles for about one minute and drain.

3. Bring another pan of about 600ml of water to the boil. When it boils, add the drained nettles and the chopped garlic (and onion, if using). Leave to gentle boil for about 15-20 minutes until everything is soft.

4. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolk and the sour cream together.

5. When the soup has finished boiling, blend it into a cream with a hand blender and stir in the yolk/cream mixture.

6. Simmer for another minute, stirring constantly.

7. Season to taste.

8. Serve with fresh cream and crusty bread.

Ciorba ardeleneasca de loboda

“Ardeal style Red Orach or Mountain Spinach Soup”

Every spring in Romania I see these brightly-coloured bunches of spinach-like leaves appearing in the market. I have even known the Romanian name for them for years. I have not, however, ever had the slightest idea what they are used for or how they taste. Writing a blog on Romanian food as I am, I thought it only correct that I change this and have a go at cooking them. As with many other spring leaves, it seems the most common way of cooking them, aside from using them in salads, is to make soup out of them so this is what I decided to do. Loboda, as they are called here in Romanian, are known as orach in English (not that I knew this before today). Other common names for this plant (atriplex hortensis) are mountain spinach, red orach and French spinach. Apparently it was more commonly used in southern Europe until the appearance of spinach. It is red and green in colour and (to me at least) the raw leaves taste a little of rhubarb.

I found there were two basic recipe types for red orach soup in Romania. The first, I would think, originates more in the eastern and southern regions of Moldovia and Muntenia. These use bors as a souring agent (a ciorba is generally a sour-tasting soup, whereas a supa is more like a broth) and often contain rice or sometimes noodles. The version I chose to make (mostly because I had the majority of the ingredients to hand) is the version from Ardeal, where sour milk is sometimes used instead of bors.  The Ardeal versions sometimes have a kind of egg omelette served in them to give it more consistency just as I used in the ciorba de salata verde. I’ve started the soup off with some boiled smoked pork (actually it was scarita – smoked ribs) but you could use smoky bacon or whatever you have around. If you want to make a ‘post’ (vegan) version of this soup, then just make a simple vegetable stock at the beginning instead of boiling the smoked meat by replacing the meat with some chopped onion, carrot, celeriac and parsley, and then straining them out and reserving the resultant stock.

Servings: 2-3

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

6-7 bunches of red orach (about 150g once trimmed of stems)

200g of smoked pork on the bone (or about 100g of smoky bacon)

4 spring onions

4 green garlic stems (or 2-3 cloves of regular garlic)

100ml of fresh milk

100ml of sour milk (or milk soured with lemon)

1 tablespoon of flour

Fresh parlsey

Fresh dill

Salt to taste

Method:

1. If you don’t have any sour milk (called lapte batut in Romania) then you can just sour some regular milk by squeezing some lemon into it. To make this a ‘ciorba’ it needs to have a sour component. If you are souring fresh milk, do this first to give it time to curdle a little.

2. Pour about 800ml of water into a pot and put on a high heat. If you are using smoked meat on the bone, put this in the water, bring it to the boil, and cook for about 10 minutes until the water takes on a little smokiness and the meat is tender enough to cut easily. Remove the meat when it’s done, cut it off the bone, cut it into small chunks, and put it back in the water. If you’re using bacon or smoked ham, cut it into chunks first and only boil it for about 5 minutes.

3. While the meat is boiling, pick the orach leaves off the stems and wash the mud off them. Then trim and cut the onion and garlic into small rounds and chop the dill and parsley reasonably finely.

4. Blend the tablespoon of flour with the fresh milk (not the soured one) and add the chopped onions, garlic, dill and parsley and put to one side.

5. Once the meat is cook, trimmed off the bone, and returned to the water, add the orach leaves and simmer for about 10 minutes.

6. After the 10 minutes is up, add the fresh milk containing the greenery and continue to cook on a low simmer for a minute or two.

7. Add the soured milk and mix and then season with salt to taste.

8. Serve hot.

Supa de pui cu galuste de gris

"Chicken soup with semolina dumplings"

Chicken soup is a worldwide cure-all for cold days, stuffy noses, and general under-the-weather moments. If you are a regular cook, then you should try making your own broth. It’s a good economical way to use a whole chicken and the remaining meat can be stripped from the carcass and made into a salad to follow the soup or saved for another day. Making 3 litres of stock is no more difficult than make 1 litre, so it’s worth making up a big batch and refrigerating or freezing the rest to save time at a later date, if you don't need to use it all fo the soup.

If you don’t fancy making such a huge quantity of stock, you can cut down on the ingredients listed below and make a smaller batch using a couple of chicken legs, about 150g of celeriac, 50g of parsley root, 1 carrot, 1 teaspoon of salt, and about 2 litres of water. The stock won’t be quite as rich as it would be if you used the entire carcass, but it’ll do very well. These quantities will result in enough soup for 2 as a lunch-sized portion, or maybe 3 bowls for a smaller starter-sized portion. You might want to cut down on the dumpling mix too if making it for two.

If you can’t find parsley root where you are (it’s not so common in western Europe and North America) then you can substitute it with a parsnip or even some celery. If you’ve never seen a parsley root, it looks just like a parsnip and is called radicina patronjel in Romanian.

Of course, if you are really lazy or short of time, you can use a shop bought broth or stock, or even just make up the required amount of liquid with hot water and a stock cube, but where’s the fun (and cooking) in that?

Servings: 4-6 portions (depending on size)
Time: 30 minutes (plus 3 hours for homemade broth)

Ingredients:

For the chicken broth (makes about 2-3 litres after reducing):
1 whole chicken
300g of celeriac
100g of parsley root
2 carrots
Salt

For the dumplings (makes about 16 dumplings):
2 eggs
7-8 tablespoons of semolina flour
1 teaspoon of oil
A couple of pinches of salt

For garnish:
Salt and pepper
Parsley for garnish

Method:

To make the chicken broth:
1. Wash the chicken inside and out and put it, whole, into a deep stock pot and cover with water, probably about 4-5 litres. Put the pot on a low heat.
2. Peel and roughly chop up the celeriac, parsley root, and carrots and add to the broth along with two teaspoons of salt. Leave in on a low heat until the broth starts to simmer. The theory is that if you bring it rapidly to the boil, you won’t end up with a nice clear broth.
3. Skim the top of the broth with a slotted spoon to remove the froth and scum that rises. Do this regularly until it produces no more froth (maybe an hour) and then wipe any scum off the inside edge of the pot with a damp piece of kitchen roll.
4. Once it has finished producing scum, pop the lid on to stop it reducing too much and leave for about another two hours.
5. When the time is up, strain the soup through a fine sieve into a clean pot.

For the chicken dumpling soup we only need the broth, but obviously it would be wasteful not to make use of the lovely tender chicken meat. The whole chicken can be stripped of its meat, which can then be added to a salad, or reserved to be put into a stew or a soup. I used mine to make some clatite Brasovene (Brasov-style savoury pancakes).

If you make this broth using a whole chicken, you should end up with about 2-3 litres of liquid. For the dumpling soup you might only want half of that (depending how many you're cooking for) so any leftover broth can be reserved for a couple of days in the fridge to be used as stock for other recipes, or frozen in a plastic tub and stored in the freezer for a couple of months.

The vegetables used in the stock can also be eaten, put into a soup (perhaps with the remaining stock and chicken pieces to make a basic chicken soup), or even mashed up as a side dish for something else.

To make the dumpling soup:
1. Beat the eggs in a bowl with the oil and the salt.
2. One tablespoon at a time, sprinkle the semolina flour into the beaten egg mixture, stirring constantly, until you reach the desired consistency. After adding each tablespoon, drag a fork through the mixture: it’s good to go when the fork marks remain visible. Too soft, and the dumplings will fall apart when added to the soup, too thick, and they’ll end up like cannonballs. It should be thicker than pancake batter, but not quite as thick as a dough.
3. Put the broth on a low heat – don’t allow it to boil or it’ll break the dumplings up when you add them.
4. Once the broth is up to temperature (hot, but not boiling), you can start to making dumplings. Put a teaspoon into the hot broth for a few seconds to moisten it and make it hot, then take a spoonful of the dumpling mixture and lower it into the broth (don’t drop it from height) and allow it to slide off. Repeat this until you have used up all the dumpling mixture.
5. Put the lid on the pot and leave on a low heat for another 5-10 minutes until the dumplings are cooked through and have expanded (they'll double in size).
6. Taste and adjust the seasoning, give it a twist of pepper, and garnish with chopped fresh parsley.

Supa de cartofi cu carnati

"Potato soup with sausages"

This recipe was sent to me by a friend from Arad, a city in the west of Romania very close to the Hungarian border. This winter potato soup makes good use of the peppers and paprika that are so fundamental to the Hungarian cuisine which influences Romanian food in the Transylvanian regions. If you can't find Hungarian paprika where you live (try to find out if there is an Eastern European store in the neighbourhood) you can use regularly paprika. Personally, I really like the slightly smokey Hungarian paprika. The sausages turn this soup into a hearty lunch or even a welcome dinner after being out in the cold but of course, the sausages could be left out or served separately to cater for vegetarian guests.

Servings: 3-4 bowls

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 large or two medium onions, chopped medium-fine

1 tablespoon of salted minced red pepper (or 1 teaspoon of mild Hungarian paprika powder, or 1 tablespoon of Hungarian paprika paste)

1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns

1 to 1½ bay leaves, torn into smaller pieces

2-3 potatoes (depending on size), peeled and cut into small cubes

1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into rounds (or half-rounds if too thick)

Sunflower oil

1 tablespoon of flour

Salt

Water

1 or 2 sausages (depending on size) - either fresh ones or smoked ones like polonez, cransky, cabanos, whichever you prefer

Sour cream (optional)

Red onions (optional, side dish)

Method:

1. Pour the sunflower oil into a large pan, enough oil to just coat the base of the pan. Add the chopped onions (there should be enough to amply cover the base of the pan). Fry the onions gently until they become translucent.

2. Once the onions have softened (around 5 minutes) add the paprika, peppercorns, and bay leaves. Let them stew with the onions for a couple of minutes. It should already be starting to smell wonderful. Keep stirring so as not to burn or brown the onions otherwise they will taste bitter.

3. After a few minutes,  take off the heat, add the flour and stir it into the onion mixture to form a thick paste with the juices.

4. Return to the heat and bit by bit, add the water (the water can be warmed up first) and stir it into the paste until the paste has fully dissolved. Add approximately a litre to a litre and a half of water, according to how thick you like your soup.

5. Bring this stock to the boil and add the potato cubes and carrot and boil until they are soft, but still holding their shape. Keep the soup simmering, almost to a rolling boil. If it gets too thick, you can add a little more water.

6. About five minutes before the potatoes and carrots are cooked, add the sausage, thinly sliced.

7. Check the seasoning and add salt if necessary, then serve.

Serving:

This gorgeous winter-warmer of a soup can be served with a big dollop of sour cream (smantana) and some crusty bread. It is also commonly served with a red onion salad, which complements the soup perfectly. To make the salad, simply finely slice a medium red onion, salt well, mixing together with your fingers so that the onion releases some of its juices, then dress with a tablespoon or two of good olive oil or sunflower oil.

Ciorba de salata verde

"Lettuce soup"

In Romanian cuisine there are two types of soup, supa and ciorba. Supa is generally a clear broth whereas ciorba mostly refers to a sour soup. Lettuce soup is of the latter variety and its sourness comes from the addition of sour cream, sour milk, and also whey. Whey is not such a commonly-found ingredient in most supermarkets these days, even in Romania, and I couldn't find any when I went shopping for the ingredients for this soup, but I compensated by adding a little more of the sour cream. Similarly, in these days of UHT milk you are unlikely to have soured milk, so just use regular milk instead - the end result might be a little sweeter than is traditional, but the taste is still good all the same.

This dish can be cooked as a vegetarian dish. Sometimes sliced pieces of smoked sausage are added to it at the beginning, and smoked slanina (pork fat) is also frequently added, but these can be omitted if you don't eat meat. I added some crispy bacon as a garnish instead.

Time: About an hour and a quarter
Servings: 3-4 bowls

Ingredients:
3 heads of lettuce (regular lettuce, not the crisp iceberg lettuce)
2 small onions
1 small carrot (or half a bigger one)
1 litre of water
2 tablespoons of flour
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
3 eggs
3-4 cloves of garlic
50ml of sour cream (smantana)
100ml of sour milk (or regular milk, failing that)
250ml of whey (zer) (optional)
1 bunch of lovage (leustean)
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Wash the lettuce to remove any soil and chop it up into ribbons.
2. Grate (or blitz) the two onions and grate the carrot.
3. Put 1 litre of water in a saucepan and add the lettuce, the carrot, and half the onion. Bring this gently to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for about 45 minutes.
4. While the soup base is simmering, warm the flour in a saucepan being careful not to burn it. It should start to take on a little colour, but keep stirring and shaking it to make sure it doesn't burn. Take it off the heat and mix in the rest of the onion and the oil to make a stiff paste. Add a little more oil if it looks to dry and crumbly. Keep to one side.
5. If you are going to add the pork fat lardons or the crispy bacon, cook these in a pan until the fat renders out, then remove to a plate with some kitchen paper on it to absorb the excess fat.
6. In the same pan as you cooked the bacon/pork fat in (or in a pan with a little vegetable oil if you are making the vegetarian version), add two well-beaten eggs and make an omelette. When the omelette is cooked, cut it into squares (you choose the size) and put to one side.
7. Chop the garlic finely and put to one side.
8. When the 45 minutes is up, stir in the onion/flour/oil paste, pressing it against the sides with a spoon to remove any lumps, and mix it well into the soup. Then add the garlic and the omelette and stir.
9. Let the soup simmer for another 10-15 minutes during which time you can beat the remaining egg with the sour cream, milk, and whey (if using).
10. Take the soup off the heat and leave for a minute until it stops bubbling and simmering, then, stirring constantly, gradually add the egg/milk mixture. If the soup is still boiling it'll end up curdling so make sure it's off the simmer before you add it.
11. Season the soup to taste with salt and sprinkle on the chopped lovage.
12. Serve with the crispy bacon, pork fat lardons, and some crusty bread.

Enjoy!

Ciorba de perisoare

"Meatball soup"

This popular soup can be found all over Romania. The recipe below is the southern version, although it is also quite similar to the Transylvanian version. A friend from the Moldovian region of Romania once cooked it for me and I was surprised to find it didn't include the tomatoes and lacked the red colour I had come to associate with the soup, having spent a lot of time in Transylvania. It was also a lot more bitter than I was used to. To my shame, once she'd turned her back, I had to add a squirt of ketchup!

Here's my favourite version of the soup. It is usually served hot with freshly chopped lovage (leustean) on top and some crusty bread. Also, if you like, you can add a spoonful of sour cream (smantana) to your dish in the Transylvanian style. And, of course, it often comes with a hot pepper.

Time: About an hour and a half
Servings: Enough for 3 or 4 bowls, depending on size

Ingredients

For the meatballs:
250g of veal or pork or a mixture of the two according to preference (and budget)
30g of plain flour
30g of rice
1 or 2 egg whites (save the yolks for the soup below)
1 teaspoon of finely chopped or grated onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped dill
Ground black pepper for seasoning

For the soup:
Veal stock (made from veal bone, carrot, parsnip, and celeriac) or a stock cube if you're not into making stock
1 onion
1 litre of 'bors'* (a kind of fermented wheat bran)
2 tomatoes (peeled and chopped, or out of a tin if you like)
1 bell pepper
1 or 2 egg yolks
100ml of sour cream (smantana)
2 litres of water
A bunch of lovage (lustean)

*Bors isn't readily available in the UK - you might find it if you have a local Eastern European grocery store near you - otherwise you can get a similar sourness by using some natural sour yoghurt dilutes in water.
Method

1. If you want to make your own stock, then grate the carrot, parsnip, and celeriac.
2. Bring the water to the boil and add the onion, tomatoes and bell pepper (all grated or very finely chopped) and also the stock vegetables and broken up bones (if making stock) or a stock cube (if not). Add a teaspoon of salt. Leave to simmer for half an hour.
3. Mince up the meat (if you haven't bought ready-minced meat).
4. Rinse the rice and drain.
5. Mix together the minced meat with the teaspoon of chopped or grated onion, the rice, the flour, the egg whites, ground black pepper (to taste), a teaspoon of salt, and the dill.
6. After the half hour is up, remove the bones (if you used them).
7. With your hands moistened with cold water, take chunks of the meat mixture and form them into small balls (something just a little smaller than a golf ball) and put them into the simmering soup.
8. Cover the pan and leave it to gently simmer for another half an hour.
9. Add the bors and boil for 2-3 minutes.
10. Taste it and check the seasoning.
11. Finally, before serving, sprinkle on a generous amount of the chopped lovage, and, if you like, mix together the sour cream and egg yolks and stir it into the soup (or serve in a separate bowl for people to add to taste).

I've seen several variations of this recipe on the internet and some people have cooked it with minced chicken or turkey - an option if you don't eat veal or pork. This soup is definitely my one of favourites, especially the slightly redder Transylvanian version. It's quite refreshing in the summer and also a good winter warmer. Pofta mare!