I’ve always loved the Romanian Lamb Soup, which is a special sour soup that is usually made for Easter. Lamb soup is a staple of the Easter dinner table, and it is usually only made and eaten on this special occasion.
To celebrate Easter, most families in Romania will usually buy either half or an entire lamb to cook different traditional Romanian dishes that are only made around this time of year. We are used to not wasting anything from the animal, so whilst the offal goes into dishes such as “drob de miel”, the head and the neck go into this soup.
The Romanian Easter lamb soup is what we call a dressed soup. This means that just before the end, we dress it with sour cream, to make it creamier and enhance its taste.
The Ingredients for the Romanian Lamb Soup
The lamb soup has quite a few ingredients, but don’t worry, it is not difficult to make. When it comes to the lamb, it’s best to use different parts of the animal, and plenty of bones. I usually use the head and the neck, the tail, a couple of ribs and some cuts of meat as well.
Each family has their own lamb soup recipe, so the ingredients vary from household to household. There are two ingredients that will always be used though: the bors and the lovage. I like to cook my lamb soup with vegetables such as spring onions, carrots, celery, and sometimes sorrel – it’s not easy to find abroad. I also like to add rice to this lamb soup because it gives it a nice texture. This is a personal preference, and you can leave it out if you don’t like rice in your soup.
How to Make the Romanian Lamb Soup
Making the lamb soup is very easy. I first boil the bones and the meat making sure to skim off all the white foam that forms on top of the water. Once the water is clear and there is no more foam rising to the top, I add the vegetables and let the soup boil until everything is cooked and the meat is tender. I now add the rice, the bors, and the spring onions. Make sure you boil the bors before you add it to the soup, for an enhanced flavour. The bors will make the soup sour, so make sure you add it little by little and not all at once, and keep tasting it.
After adding the bors, I boil the soup for another 15 minutes or so, and then I dress it.
How to Dress the Romanian Lamb Soup
The dressing is a very important step in making this lamb soup. You can enjoy it without the dressing, but I feel that it’s what makes it complete, and what gives it that amazing taste I crave year after year. Dressing can also break your soup, so you have to be careful how you do it, as you don’t want to end up with scrambled eggs in your bowl.
Put the egg yolks and the sour cream in a bowl, and mix them together with a whisk. Take a small amount of soup and pour it over, whilst whisking continuously. The goal is to bring the sour cream mix to the same temperature as the soup, but slowly, so you don’t scramble the eggs. Continue with a few more ladles of soup, added slowly whilst whisking until you have the same liquid temperature in the bowl and in the pot. Then, pour the sour cream mixture into the soup.
Mix well, add plenty of lovage over the soup and serve hot.
How to Serve the Romanian Lamb Soup
The Lamb Soup is usually served after the appetizers, during the Easter lunch. I like to add extra sour cream when I eat, so I make sure there are always small bowls of it on the table. We usually eat this soup with bread, garlic sauce, and pickled green chillies.
Romanian Easter Lamb Soup
Ingredients
- 1 lamb head
- 300 gr lamb pieces with bones
- 3 small carrots chopped
- 1 big onion chopped
- 2 celery sticks chopped
- 2 small red peppers
- 4 spring onions
- 1/2 litre bors boiled
- a handful rice
- 2 egg yolks
- 200 gr sour cream minimum 18% fat
- a handful lovage
Instructions
- Put the head of the lamb in a big pot and bring it to boil. Once it boils, discard the water, wash the pot, put fresh water in and add the lamb head and the other bones in. Boil for about 1.5-2 hours, depending on how big the head is.
- Pick up the foam that forms on top of the pot whilst the bones are boiling. This is so that you get a clear soup in the end.
- After 1.5 hours, add the chopped vegetables, except for the spring onion. Let the pot boil for another 15 minutes or so, until the vegetables are cooked.
- Add salt to taste, the bors, the rice, and the spring onions. Boil for another 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, start making the dressing. Mix the egg yolks with the sour cream. Then start adding small quantities of the soup, slowly, whilst mixing continuously. Do this until the sour cream mixture reaches the same temperature as the soup. It will take quite a bit of soup, so make sure you are using a large enough bowl.
- Turn the heat off, and dress the soup with the sour cream and egg mixture. Add chopped lovage on top. If you don't have fresh lovage, you can always add dried one.
- Serve hot alongside crusty bread, pickled chili peppers and/or garlic sauce.
For more similar articles, check out my recommendations below:
- Romanian roast leg of lamb for Easter recipe
- Traditional Romanian Easter dishes
- Romanian Easter eggs
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Could you please explain why you would boil the bors? You are in fact killing the beneficial bacteria that produced the pleasant sour taste, and is also a healthy natural probiotic. I would probably add the bors once the soup is cooled to eating temperature so as to not kill the bacteria. However, I haven’t made my own bors at home yet, so I have no practical experience with this.
The bors is boiled before adding it to the soup to neutralize the acidity which may hurt some people’s guts. Boiling it also eliminates any bad bacteria in it, and it also helps with harmonising the taste when you add it to the soup, avoiding that harsh sour taste. I personally would never put it in the soup after it’s cooled as you risk eating impurities and bacteria. I’ve learned from the cooks in my family to boil the bors and most of the old cookbooks I read are advising the same thing.
Hi Joanna,
I would love to make this as per your recipe but it’s not easy to come across a lamb’s head anymore in Britain. Strange, as we have old recipes for both sheep’s head and calve’s head broths in our culinary repertoire.
I will try it with Scrag end of neck chops and shoulder on the bone.
Paul:-)
Hi Paul, try the butchers. They usually have lamb heads somewhere in the back. Both my local butchers do, they just don’t “advertise” them as they don’t look very appealing in the fridge and would probably put off a lot of people.
Thanks Joanna, I will.
Paul:-)
Go to halal butchers. They typically cater to lamb == especially with ramadan being so close to Easter.