Sour Pork Soup
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Sour Pork Soup – a traditional Romanian soup with pork, sour cream and made sour with lemon juice.
It was very difficult to come up with a name for this soup because it’s unlike any soup you’ve probably ever tried before. This is a traditional Romanian soup which we call “ciorba” which I’ve talked about before a few times. “Ciorba” is basically a sour soup made with meat and vegetables, which is totally different from what we call soup because soups are usually clear with no added acid. “Ciorba” is usually made sour with the addition of lemon juice or vinegar. If you’ve never had a “ciorba” before, it is unbelievable. It’s a meal on its own. As a matter of fact we usually do eat this as a meal, because it’s hearty, it’s filling, we eat it with lots of bread and hot peppers, it’s one of those foods that once you start eating you can’t stop. It’s fabulous.
This version here is from the Transylvania region and the actual Romanian name is “Ciorba Ardeleneasca” which is a reference to the area where it’s from. I was born in Transylvania so I love these types of soups. They are made with lots of sour cream, lots of veggies and of course lots of pork. You can use any kind of pork here, you can use loin, shoulder, pork chops without bone, whatever you have. If you don’t like pork you could make this with chicken as well.
Romanians may not have a developed or evolved cuisine of their own, but one thing we are good at is making these soups. If you make this I would love to hear from you and tell me what you think of this.
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Sour Pork Soup
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 1 hr 15 mins
Total: 1 hr 30 mins
Serves: 6 – 8
Sour Pork Soup – a traditional Romanian soup with pork, sour cream and made sour with lemon juice.
Ingredients
- 1 lb pork no bones, could be loin, shoulder, chops, anything
- 2/3 cup long grain rice
- 1 large carrot shredded
- 1 large onion chopped
- 1 celery stalk chopped
- 1 parsnip shredded
- 1 celery root cleaned and cut in half
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp dried tarragon
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley chopped
- juice from 1 1/2 lemons
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 8 cups water
Instructions
- Cut the pork into 1 inch cubes. In a soup pot add the 8 cups of water and add the pork and the celery root to the water. Boil on medium heat for 45 minutes. To keep the soup clear, make sure you skim the gray foam that forms at the top of the soup during the first 15 minutes of boiling.
- In a large skillet add olive oil, chopped onion, shredded carrot, celery, shredded parsnip and chopped pepper and cook on low heat for about 10 minutes, just until the vegetables soften up a bit.
- Add the vegetables to the soup , and season with salt and pepper. Simmer for another 15-20 minutes on low heat, so as not to boil the soup again.
- Remove the celery root from the soup.
- Add uncooked rice to the soup and continue cooking.
- In a bowl, whisk the sour cream with the flour together and add a couple ladles of the hot soup to the bowl to thin out the sour cream mixture. Pour the cream slowly into the soup pot, stirring constantly so as not to curdle.
- Add the tarragon and lemon juice and let it cook for another 10 minutes on low heat. You may want to taste for salt and pepper at this time and add more if needed.
- Sprinkle with fresh parsley and serve hot with hot peppers on the side.
