Beef soup (with beans, like mom's)

About 17 years ago, during one of my vacations in Harghita, I ate the best beef soup with beans of my life (if you don't know what beans are, see here)

Without exaggeration, I can still taste it now, it was that good. At that time, I didn't cook very often, and when I was on vacation, I didn't cook at all.

One evening, back from the mountains and obviously starving, we sent Cristi to Borsec to buy stomach soup. I don't remember why I didn't go to eat at the restaurant, I was probably really tired. About 2 hours later he came back with soup, but not stomach soup but… cow soup.

I was very disappointed, initially I didn't even want to taste it, I didn't get along well with beef soup at all, but hunger pushed me to the plate in the end. It was so good, so good that I ate 3 plates alone. Three! And I tell you that for a man who doesn't usually eat soup, it's a record.

Well, to this day I have never eaten such good beef soup and I have little hope of ever eating it again.

My beef soup, made according to my mother's recipe, is delicious, and on a day as cold as today, it went down wonderfully.

Beef Soup – Ingredients

• 700 g diced beef leg
• 4 liters of cold water
• 2 suitable carrots
• 2 slices of celery
• 1 parsley root
• 1 parsnip root
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 medium red potatoes
• 100 g fresh grain
• 100 -125 ml tomato juice
• about 200 ml pepper
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh lovage
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
• high
• sour cream + chili pepper (for serving)

Beef soup – How to prepare

• Fill a pot with cold water, add 2 teaspoons of salt and the beef pieces. Place the pot on low to medium heat and boil the meat for about 1h30m. While it is boiling, remove the foam that forms on the surface.
• When the meat can be pierced with a fork, add the finely chopped onion, carrots, celery and parsnips cut into small cubes.
• Partially cover the pot, reduce the heat slightly (the soup should not boil) and simmer for another 15 minutes or until the root vegetables are half cooked. Add the potatoes and chopped peppers and simmer for another 10 minutes.
• Add the beans, peeled and de-seeded, tomato juice and previously boiled borscht.
• Boil the beef soup for another 10 minutes, then turn off the heat, add the lovage and parsley, and cover the pot with a lid.
• We serve hot beef soup, with sour cream and chili peppers. It's delicious!

If you don't have beans available, you can replace them with the same amount of green beans or peas.

Enjoy your meal!