Ciorbă și borș
Sour soups
Sour soups of meat, fish or vegetables, soured with fermented bran
Photo: Mngck, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Mngck, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ciorbă is the umbrella term for the sour soups of Moldova and Romania, made with meat, fish, meatballs or just vegetables. The sourness traditionally comes from borș: wheat or barley bran fermented in water into a slightly sour, yellowish liquid. In Moldova such a soup is often simply called borș, which is something different from the Ukrainian beetroot soup.
Origins and history
The word ciorbă is related to the Turkish çorba and the Persian shorba; soups with that name are found from the Balkans to Central Asia. What makes Moldovan and Romanian ciorbă distinctive is its sour edge. In the past this did not come from lemons, which did not grow here, but from borș: wheat or barley bran fermented in water, sometimes with a piece of sugar beet or a slice of bread added. The result is a slightly sour, yellowish liquid containing lactic acid, which people also drink on its own. In everyday speech borș is also the name of the soup itself.
Confusion is easy. Ukrainian and Russian borscht is a beetroot soup, eaten mainly by the Ukrainian communities in the east of the country. A Moldovan borș does not need to contain any beetroot.
What goes into it
A ciorbă starts with a stock of meat, fish or vegetables, with carrot, onion, pepper, celeriac or parsnip and tomato added. The sour element goes in at the end: borș, sauerkraut juice, unripe fruit or, these days, often lemon juice. By tradition lovage (leuștean) always goes in. Well-known versions are ciorbă de perișoare with meatballs, ciorbă de legume with vegetables, and fish soup from the areas along the Prut and the Nistru.
Where and how to try it
In Moldova soup is a fixed first course, on weekdays too, and every canteen or restaurant serving local food has at least one. It comes with a spoonful of smântână, sometimes a hot chilli and a piece of bread. Look through an overview of Moldovan cuisine and you will see that the minorities have their own soups too, such as shorpa, the Gagauz mutton soup.
Ciorbă și borș
Ingredients
Method
- Mix the minced meat, rice, egg, half the onion, salt and pepper. Shape into walnut-sized balls.
- Bring the water to the boil with the rest of the onion, the carrot, parsnip and pepper and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
- Slide the meatballs one by one into the gently simmering soup and cook for 25 minutes without stirring.
- Add the passata and borș (or lemon juice) and bring briefly back to the boil. Taste and season with salt.
- Take off the heat and stir in the lovage and parsley.
- Serve with a spoonful of soured cream.
