cook.

Zeamă

Name: Zeamă
Total time: 100 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Moldovan
Ingredients: 1200 g chicken pieces on the bone, preferably a boiling fowl; 3 l cold water; 1 onion, whole; 2 carrots, in rounds; 1 parsnip or parsley root; 1 red pepper, diced; 1 potato, diced; salt and black pepper, to taste; 150 g plain flour; 1 egg, for the noodles; 300 ml borș acru (fermented bran sour), or 3 tbsp lemon juice; 20 g lovage, chopped; 10 g flat-leaf parsley and dill, chopped

Moldovan chicken soup soured with fermented bran water, with hand-pulled noodles and a lot of lovage...

Ingredients

1200 g chicken pieces on the bone, preferably a boiling fowl

3 l cold water

1 onion, whole

2 carrots, in rounds

1 parsnip or parsley root

1 red pepper, diced

1 potato, diced

salt and black pepper, to taste

150 g plain flour

1 egg, for the noodles

300 ml borș acru (fermented bran sour), or 3 tbsp lemon juice

20 g lovage, chopped

10 g flat-leaf parsley and dill, chopped

Method

Start the broth cold: the chicken in a large pot under the cold water, brought slowly to the boil, with the grey foam skimmed off as it rises. A clear zeamă is skimmed, not strained.

Add the whole onion, the carrots and the parsnip, and simmer gently, uncovered, for an hour - longer if you found a boiling fowl, which is what this soup is really for.

Make the noodles while it cooks: work the flour and the egg into a stiff dough with no water at all, knead it for 5 minutes, and rest it under a bowl for 20.

Roll the dough out as thin as you can, let it dry for 10 minutes, then roll it up and cut it into the thinnest ribbons you can manage.

Lift out the chicken, strip the meat from the bones in large pieces and return it. Take out the whole onion and throw it away; it has done its work.

Add the potato and red pepper and cook for 10 minutes, then drop the noodles straight into the soup and give them 4-5 minutes. They thicken the broth slightly, which is intended.

Take the pot off the heat before the sour goes in. Stir in the borș acru off the boil and taste as you go - it should be clearly sour, not merely tangy. Boiling it afterwards flattens it.

Stir in the lovage, parsley and dill, put the lid on and leave it for 5 minutes before serving. The lovage is the whole smell of the dish and it does not survive being boiled either.