Country-Style Pork Soup (Ciorba Taraneasca)

We’re back from our three-week vacation in Romania… we had a super busy schedule but can’t complain. We spent some quality time with our family & friends and visited many beautiful places – Danube Delta surpassed all! I have truly missed cooking and blogging but I’m ready to come back :). I have so many delicious recipes I want to share with you, starting with this delicious country-style pork soup.  The Country-Style (or Peasant) Soup is a traditional Romanian dish usually made with pork or beef and various vegetables.                         

Ingredients:

• 500 g smoked pork meat; I used some double-smoked pork bacon as this is what I had handy
• ½ celery root
• 1 onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 3 potatoes
• 100 g tomato paste
• 500 ml sour soup base (borscht/bors) or, if you don’t have this, you can use 2-3 Tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice
• 200 g sour cream
• 2 eggs
• fresh parsley and lovage leaves
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper
• 3 Tbsp oil

Directions:

Cut the smoked pork into bite-sized slices. Heat 2-3 Tbsp oil in a pan, add the pork slices and cook for 5 minutes.

Chop the onion and place in a pot with water over medium-high heat. Cut the celery root into small pieces and add it to the soup. Add the smoked pork as well.

Chop pepper and potatoes and add to the pot. Let everything boil until the vegetables are almost cooked (about 15 minutes).

Season with salt and pepper and add the tomato paste.

Let the soup simmer for 5 more minutes and add the sour soup base (bors) that was previously boiled.

In the meantime, whisk the eggs in a bowl and add the sour cream. Add a few ladles of soup, one at a time, to bring the mixture to about the same temperature as the soup.  Remove the pot from heat and pour the composition making sure the soup is not boiling anymore. Mix until it’s homogenous.

Add the thyme as well as the chopped parsley and lovage leaves.

I love this soup with pickled peppers that are a little bit hot.

Enjoy!