Let me introduce you to our Romanian nourishing and delicious duck noodle soup (borş) with lovage leaves (leuştean). You can use any kind of meat for this soup. I used duck because we’ve had enough chicken soups over the past months and we prefer vegetable-meat soups. Lovage leaves are used as a herb for flavouring the Romanian sour soups of any kind. Nothing can beat the unique flavour of lovage and you can use it much like you would celery and parsley.  It’s fairly difficult to find it here and for this reason I tried growing my own plant in a pot. It grew nicely during the summer but died every winter when I moved it indoors… will try again next year but this time in the back yard, not a pot :).

Time: 65 min, Prep: 20 min.  Cook: 45 min.
Servings: 10-12                 

Ingredients:

• 5 l water
• 1 kg duck – I used the carcass, wings, neck
• 1 onion
• 1/4 celery root
• 2 carrots
• 1  pepper
• 2 potatoes
• 300 g diced tomatoes
• 1 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp Delikat Borş Magic
• salt and pepper
• chopped lovage leaves (Romanian leuştean)
• Egg noodles – fresh or dry, homemade or store-bought. Which one do you think I recommend :)?

Directions:

Here’s the (now very) famous lovage plant.

Place duck pieces in a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. With a strainer or slotted spoon remove foam that forms on top of the soup and discard.

Peel the onions, carrots, potatoes and celery root. Chop the vegetables into small cubes.

When the duck is almost cooked, add the chopped vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.

When the vegetables are tender, add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste and borş and let it simmer for 5 more minutes. Add the egg noodles and cook until pasta is al-dente (5 minutes for fresh noodles, and 7-10 minutes for dry noodles).

Lastly, slowly drizzle the beaten egg  into the gently simmering soup while stirring. Remove from heat and add thinly chopped lovage leaves to the soup. Season with more salt and pepper if necessary.