Zeama recipe

Moldovan chicken noodle soup, soured with fermented borș and scented with lovage.

2 hours and 45 minutesmedium11 ingredients

Ingredients

• 1 chicken
• 400 ml borș
• 200 g egg noodles
• 1 bunch lovage
• 2 carrots
• 1 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 stick celery
• 1 bunch parsley
• 1 bunch dill
• 1 tbsp salt

How to make Zeama

1. Put a whole chicken in a large pot with 4 litres of water and bring it slowly to a boil.
2. Skim the foam carefully — a clear broth is half the dish.
3. Add 1 onion, 2 carrots, a stick of celery and 1 red bell pepper, with a bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Simmer gently for two hours.
4. Lift out the chicken, strip the meat from the bones and cut it into pieces. Strain the broth and return it to the pot.
5. Make the noodles: work 200 g of flour with 2 eggs into a firm dough, roll it thin, let it dry a little and cut it into fine strips.
6. Cook the noodles in the broth for a few minutes, then return the chicken meat.
7. Pour in 300 to 400 ml of borș — the fermented wheat or barley liquid — and let it come back to a simmer. This is what gives zeama its sourness; taste as you go.
8. Finish off the heat with the chopped bunch of lovage, 1 chopped bunch of parsley and 1 chopped bunch of dill.

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