Lamb Sour Soup

http://www.exploringromania.com/

The lamb sour soup with lamb head and verdures is cooked in Romania only once a year: on Easter. It's spring. So we use lots of verdures.

Well, I have a problem with verdures quantities. I buy them in little heaps (about how much you can hold in a hand) but I think it's more useful for you to translate all this in metric system.

Ingredients:

• lamb head and neck
• 3 l water
• 1 tbs. salt
• 3 carrots
• 1 parsley
• 5 green onions
• 2 green garlic
• 500g spinach
• 500g garden lettuce
• 500g dock
• 300g red pig weed
• 300g sour dock
• 2 tbs. green parsley
• 2 tbs. lovage
• 1 yolk
• 2 tbs. sour cream

Method:

• Put the lamb head and neck, water and salt to boil at medium heat. Use a larger pot (about 5 l). If you love the lamb's taste just clean up the foam from the surface of boiling water. If you want a less powerful lamb taste throw out the water and put the lamb in cold water to boil again. Don't forget to add the salt.
• In the meantime chop the vegetables and verdures. Keep 3 onions and greens separately. After boiling the lamb for 20-30 min add the carrots and parsley to boil. After another half an hour add the verdures (except those mentioned before). Mix all the time. Let them boil for another 10 minutes.
• Mix the yolk with the sour cream. Take the soup off from the heat and add the sour cream while continuously mixing. Add the rest of verdures, mix them and cover the pot. Let it cool for 10-15 minutes.
• Serve it with pieces of lamb (from the head or neck) and sour cream.

Note: You can replace the sour dock with sour bran and water (add 300 ml of sour bran and water before putting the sour cream and let it boil for 10 minutes) or whey (replace the whole water with whey). Don't try with anything else. It won't be the same.

The quantities in this sour soup recipe are for 12 large portions.