Romanian Beef Sour Soup

How to prepare romanian beef sour soup

1. Place the beef shank with bone in a baking pan and roast in the oven for 35 minutes at 240C (465F). Cut the boneless beef into cubes, place next to the bone-in beef and roast for another 15 minutes.
2. Put the roasted meat in a large pot and cover with 4 liters of cold water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer gently for 2.5 hours. Skim the soup. Roasting the meat ensures a more intense flavor and the soup will produce very little foam while cooking. Simmering on low heat will give you a clear, transparent soup. After about 2 hours of cooking, add 2 teaspoons of salt.
3. Meanwhile, dice the vegetables (onion, carrots, parsley root, and celery) into small cubes. Sauté them in hot oil until the onion softens.
   * if you prefer to skip frying, you can omit this step - it's mostly for the soup's appearance
4. When the meat is well cooked, remove the bone-in beef, take the meat off the bone and cut into cubes. Add the meat back to the soup.
   * I usually don't put all the meat back in the soup - I keep one piece with bone and serve it separately
5. Add the sautéed vegetables to the pot with meat.
6. Break the cauliflower into florets, dice the potatoes and cut the cabbage into squares. Add them to the pot along with 1 more teaspoon of salt and simmer for about 30 minutes on medium heat without boiling, until the cauliflower and potatoes are cooked (but not mushy!).
8. Add the diced tomatoes (you can peel them if you wish; canned tomatoes work too), peas, and tomato paste. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
9. Turn off the heat and taste the soup for salt (I added 1 more teaspoon). Then add sourness with lemon juice (citric acid, pickled hot pepper juice, or bors) to taste. I used 3 tablespoons of lemon juice.
10. Add finely chopped herbs to the beef soup. This time I used lovage.
11. Serve the beef sour soup plain, with sour cream, or with pickled hot peppers.

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