Ciorbă — the sour soup that forms the heart of the Romanian meal, served piping hot before the main course
Ciorbă de perișoare (sour meatball soup)
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A soup-meal where small meatballs of pork and beef with rice cook in a vegetable broth made sour by borș. Finished with parsley and lovage, the signature herb of ciorbe. Nourishing, lively in the mouth, it is the everyday dish par excellence.
Ciorbă — the sour soup that forms the heart of the Romanian meal, served piping hot before the main course
A soup-meal where small meatballs of pork and beef with rice cook in a vegetable broth made sour by borș. Finished with parsley and lovage, the signature herb of ciorbe. Nourishing, lively in the mouth, it is the everyday dish par excellence.
You see, I spent my childhood between two languages and two cuisines, and it is this sour soup that always takes me back to Slatina. We would drop in small meatballs, barely larger than a walnut, and the secret was not in the meat but in that fermented sourness added at the end — certainly not before, or everything would turn. My mother used to say that a ciorbă without lovage is like a line without its punchline: technically complete, but it does nothing. I ate whole bowls of it watching the rain fall, and I assure you that no absurdity in the world can resist a still-steaming soup.
Ingredients
- •Beef and pork mince — a good portion (meatballs)
- •Rice — a handful (binder for meatballs)
- •Carrot, onion, celeriac, parsnip — according to the market (aromatic base)
- •Borș (fermented wheat bran) — to taste, until desired sourness (acidifying agent — the signature)
- •Lovage and fresh parsley — a bunch (finishing herbs)
How it was made : In Romanian households, borș was prepared at home by fermenting wheat bran in warm water for a few days, sometimes with a cherry branch or a bread crust to start fermentation. Each family had its ongoing pot of borș, like a sourdough starter. The acidity thus came from a living fermentation, not vinegar.
Sources : Sanda Marin, Carte de bucate (classic of Romanian cuisine)