This is another recipe I got from one of my good friends, Lili. It is from her dear grandmother, who was Saxon - the German ethnicity in Transylvania.
Enjoy!
transylvanian beef, peas and dumplings soup
Ingredients
1 kg beef, bone in
50-80 ml sunflower oil
2 onions, finely chopped
3 big carrots, diced
½ celeriac, diced
1 small parsnip, diced
½ red bell pepper, diced
1 tbsp sweet paprika
700g frozen or canned peas
250ml tomato passata or 1 can of diced tomatoes
Salt, black pepper
1 big bunch of lovage (1-2 tbsp dry), or fresh parsley
For the dumplings:
2 medium eggs
4 heaped tbsp all purpose flour
salt to taste
To serve: Creme fraiche or sour cream to add in each bowl of soup
Method
Cook the beef in 3.5L of water with 1 tsp salt and ½ tsp black pepper. When it starts boiling, skim off the scum and discard.
When the beef is cooked (around 1.5hr or more depending on the age of the beef), take it out, discard the bone and cut the beef in chunks. Sieve the broth.
In a pan, heat the oil and sauté the onions, carrots, celeriac and parsnip, then add the bell pepper and sweet paprika.
Add the vegetables to the broth with the frozen peas (or, if using the canned peas, add them 2 minutes before the vegetables are cooked), the beef and the passata or tinned tomatoes.
Leave to simmer on a low heat and, in the meantime, make the dumpling batter by mixing the ingredients together. Then, with a teaspoon, half full, add the batter in the soup. Cover and let it simmer for 5 minutes. If the dumplings do not float, take a slotted spoon and delicately unstick them from the bottom of the pot.
Turn off the heat, add the fresh lovage or parsley, cover with a lid and let the soup rest for 10 minutes before eating it.
Add a tablespoon of creme fraiche or sour cream in each bowl of soup before serving. Eat it with fresh, white, sourdough bread!
Tips & cheats
For a vegetarian option, use 1kg of potatoes. Timing and the quantity of water will change. Add the potatoes after you sauté the vegetables, cover with 2L veggie broth and then add the rest of the ingredients as in the recipe above.
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