Week 49 – 2020

This is another post from the series “I tried something new this week”.

I grew up in Romania, in the region of Transylvania, in a small village with no restaurant or food delivery services. Buying ready meals was not popular at all in the area. And in all honesty, is not popular today either. Everyone cooks at home and I grew up on home-made food, which I crave now from time to time. With Christmas coming, and me not able to see all my family this year, I need to bring some childhood home smells and tastes into my own home.

Today I decided to make sour soup after one of my mum’s and aunt’s recipes. They have been sharing recipes for so many years and I grew up eating food cooked by both of them so it’ hard to separate. For me, all the Romanian recipes I have come from both. They are family recipes!

Sour soups are very popular in Romania so I will share more with you in my future posts, but meatball soup is one of my favourites.

Ingredients

Soup:

• 2 medium sized carrots
• 1 medium sized white onion
• 1 small celeriac
• 1 red pepper
• 2 tbs oil
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 cube of vegetable stock
• a few slices of cabbage | a few cauliflower florets

Meatballs:

• 500g minced meat (turkey|pork|beef)
• 2 eggs
• 50g rice
• 1 tbs oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1/2 cube o vegetable stock
• dry thyme
• fresh parsley

Method:

Meatballs:

I like to start by doing the meatballs mixture first and then leaving it in the fridge until it’s needed. This way the ingredients fuse together and the meat is easier to handle.

Add meat to a bowl (I used minced turkey), then add salt, pepper, the vegetable stock and the eggs (I add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper). Wash and add the rice. (I use basmati rice). Add a sprinkle of dry thyme, 1 tablespoon of oil and fresh finely chopped parsley. Dry parsley works as well if you don’t have fresh one. Mix everything together and put the mixture in the fridge.

Soup:

Before starting the soup make sure you have a pot that holds at least 4 litres of water. You will need about 2.5 litres of water but you also need to account for vegetables and meatballs.

For the soup you need to grate the carrots and the celeriac and dice the pepper. Add all of those to the pot with 2 tablespoons of oil. I like to start the soup from cold oil but many people prefer to heat the oil first. I personally believe that starting with cold oil the colour of the vegetables is better preserved and the taste is a bit more subtle.

Start cooking the vegetables and dice the onion in the meantime. After the vegetables have been cooked for a few minutes add the onion and 2.5 l of water. Then bring the soup to a simmer and add salt, pepper and the vegetable stock. (I start with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper).

While the soup is simmering take the meat mixture out of the fridge and do about 30 meatballs. I like to shape them small so that they absorb some of the soup flavour.

Add the meatballs to the soup and simmer for 30 minutes. 10 minutes before the soup is done mix 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce in a small bowl with a few spoonfuls of the soup mixture until it loosens. Add it to the soup. Optionally add a bit of chopped cabbage or a few cauliflower florets.

After it simmers let the soup stand for another 15-20 minutes and add any salt or pepper after your own taste. Serve warm with some bread. The soup tastes good after one reheating as well. Enjoy!