Bulgarian Meatball Soup

This is the third week of making lots of soup to take with me as lunch to work. I must say it's great. The story behind this soup is that it's the only meat soup that I would eat as a child. And Lundulph can eat it without having to go hungry an hour afterwards.



Ingredients

Meatballs

300 g minced meat
1 egg white
salt, pepper (finely ground!)
plain flour for rolling

Soup

1 medium sized onion
1 - 2 carrots
1 segment stem celery
4 tbsp oil
1 l water
3 - 4 potatoes or
2 - 3 tbsp pudding rice or
1 dl noodles
salt, pepper, fresh chopped parsley

Method

1. Peel and finely dice the vegetables. If you are using potatoes, please keep them separate.
   
2. Blend the minced meat with the egg white, salt and pepper. Then take a grease proof sheet of paper and cover well with plain flour. Now make small balls (small enough for a child to eat in one bite) and place on the floured paper. When all the mince has been rolled , gather up the four corners of the paper and shake carefully around, so the balls get covered.
   
3. Fry the onion, carrots and celery in the oil for a few minutes.
4. Add 1 l of water, and bring to the boil. If you can boil it in a kettle beforehand and add immediately, this will speed things up a bit.
5. When the water boils, add the meatballs and let simmer for 5 - 6 minutes.
6. Now add the fried onion and carrots and potatoes/rice and leave to simmer for another 20 or so minutes to make sure everything is cooked. If using noodles, add these after 10 - 15 minutes.
   
7. Finally add salt, pepper and parsley, stir in well and take off the heat. Ready.

Additional to be done after the soup is off the heat.

Variant 1

1 egg yolk (from before)
1 egg

1. Whisk these together in a cup, then carefully add some of the soup into the cup, a little at a time stirring constantly. Then pour everything back into the soup dish and stir through.

Variant 2

1.5 dl cold water
1 tbsp plain flour

1. Whisk the water and the flour together to completely dissolve it, then pour into the soup and stir in well.

Since I don't like any form of celery, I never buy it, but I had some Jerusalem artichokes and I put one big one in instead.

Also, I had 500 g of minced meat, so I used 2 egg whites and used both yolks in the additional first variant.