Hey guys!

  I thought you might enjoy this dish even if it sounds a bit weird, do not the name of this dish or the content of it to fool you, this is actually a really delicious soup!

To start with, I should introduce you a bit with the Romanian cuisine especially with   the part I live in. I live in Romania and the region where my city is located is called Dobrogea, this part of the country has a big influence in its food from the Turkish, Aromanian, Greek and Tatar cuisine, also because of its geographic position we are opened to many dishes that contain fish because we have the Black Sea and the Danube which is the second longest river in Europe. Even if the region where I live has more dishes that are based on fish and our specialities contain many varieties of fish cuisine, I am going to talk about this tripe soup (ciorba de burta) because it is one of my personal favourite and I think that the way my mother makes it has a really good and unique taste!

Furthermore, let us talk about the dish itself, this is tripe soup, the name might scare some people because the ingredients are a bit of a mystery for some people, they do not know what it actually is or how is made, but do not be scared! The dish is amazing and the taste as well. To explain what it actually is let us talk about the cow itself, you know that the cow has four stomachs, or to more precise it has four chambers of one large digestive system. The tripe is the stomach lining of the first three of these stomachs. Even if some people might think that this part of the cow is not eatable or to be unpleasant, do not worry! The tripe is carefully washed to remove all undesired matter that they may contain, this part of the cow makes the soup have an unique taste that is absolutely delicious! We consider this part of the cow to be the same as all other parts. Also, this soup is a direct descendent of a similar Turkish soup, the reason is that it is absolutely delicious. We call this dish “ciorba de burta”, ciorba meaning “thin” soup mostly broth. Even if it has a balanced sour component the dish contains a high fat content. We serve this dish hot with a dollop of cold sour cream and some special garlic sauce.

With all these said let’s talk about the ingredients and how you will make it!

 

Ingredients:

Some beef meat – parts from the leg would be good

1 kg of tripe

2 onions

3 carrots

2 parsnips

200 g of sour cream 3 eggs (only the yolks)

300 g of yogurt

salt and pepper

garlic

 

Now the hard part! The first think you have to do is to carefully wash the tripe and the beef meat. after that you have to cut them into cubes or small parts, the tripe has to be cut in smaller bits. Add the tripe and the meat to a big pot and let it boil for 5 minutes, after that you have to replace the water, throw away the one in the pot and add some fresh one, add the vegetables ( onions, carrots, parsnips), salt and pepper. Leave them to boil until the meat is soft and tender! When the meat and tripe is cooked take all the vegetables out, separately take 3 egg yolks and mix them with the yogurt and the sour cream, mix them well. After you mixed the cream and yolks add some soup (the one that you boiled the vegetables and the meat in) to the content of the yolks and creams ( it has to be hot) and mix them really well and gently add them to the main pot, stir it while you add the content. Leave it to boil for another 3 minutes. In another boll you will have to take some garlic and crush it until you get something like piure of garlic, add some vinegar ( apple vinegar would be nice) and some salt. That’s about all you have to do, the dish is served with this garlic sauce and some extra sour cream, add as much as you want when you eat it!

Enjoy!