Spring soup with orache, wild garlic and borș

About this recipe

A soup that exists for only 4-5 weeks a year, when markets fill up with bunches of wild garlic, orache, fresh spinach and spring onions. It's tart, fragrant and light, with root vegetables sweated at the base for depth and the greens added at the end to keep their flavour and colour.

Borș acru — Romanian fermented wheat bran liquid — is the traditional souring agent, but if you can't find it, lemon juice works just as well. The aim is a clearly tart soup, not just a fragrant one.

A note on the greens: orache (also called mountain spinach) and wild garlic (ramps, in North America) are the spring foragers' staples in Romania. Substitute young spinach and a few extra cloves of garlic if you can't find them — the soup loses some character but stays delicious.

Ingredients

• 2 large white or yellow onions, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, diced
• ¼ celeriac root, diced
• 1 medium parsley root, diced
• Stems from 2 bunches of orache, cleaned and finely chopped
• Stems from 2 bunches of wild garlic, cleaned and finely chopped
• 1 bunch spring onions, white parts finely chopped (keep the green tops for finishing)
• 1 bunch green garlic, finely chopped, or 6 large garlic cloves, crushed
• 1½ l water
• 6 medium red potatoes, peeled, washed and cubed
• 1 tbsp salt (or 1 tbsp salt + 1 tbsp soup seasoning blend)
• Leaves from 2 bunches of orache, cleaned
• Leaves from 2 bunches of wild garlic, cleaned
• 500 g spinach or baby spinach
• 1 tin good-quality tomato purée (~400 g) or 3 skinned tomatoes, chopped
• 2 bunches of dill, chopped
• 2 bunches of lovage, chopped
• 1 l borș acru (or the juice of 2-3 lemons, to taste)
• Green tops from the spring onions, chopped — for finishing

To serve

• Sour cream — original: regular sour cream / vegan: soy yoghurt
• Good bread

Method

1. Sweat the onions and root vegetables (10-12 min)

Put a large pot over medium heat with a slick of oil. Add the chopped onions and sweat for 5-6 minutes, stirring often, until soft and translucent.

Add the carrot, celeriac, parsley root, and the chopped orache and wild garlic stems. Cook for another 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they start to catch slightly on the bottom of the pan — that means they've begun to caramelise and concentrate their flavour.

2. Add the aromatics (1-2 min)

Add the white parts of the spring onions and the chopped green garlic (or crushed garlic cloves). Stir for 1-2 minutes, taking care not to burn the garlic.

3. Add water and simmer the base (30 min)

Pour the 1½ litres of water over the vegetables. Bring to the boil, then lower to low heat, cover halfway and simmer for 30 minutes. The root vegetables should be completely tender.

4. Boil the potatoes separately (10-15 min, in parallel)

While the base simmers, put the cubed potatoes in a separate pot with cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 10-15 minutes, until tender when pierced with a fork. Don't drain — keep the cooking water.

5. Prepare the greens

If using mature spinach (not baby), blanch it for 5 minutes in hot water and rinse well in several changes of water to remove any grit. Baby spinach just needs a single rinse. Wash the orache and wild garlic leaves thoroughly in cold water.

6. Add the greens and tomato (5 min)

Add the wild garlic, orache and spinach leaves to the soup. Add the tomato purée (or chopped skinned tomatoes). Stir and simmer for 5 minutes, until the leaves are completely wilted.

7. Add the potatoes, herbs and borș

Pour the potatoes with all their cooking water into the soup. Add the chopped dill and lovage. Pour in the borș and bring back to the boil. If using lemon instead of borș, add it gradually to taste — you want a clearly tart soup.

Check the salt — if you used borș, less salt is needed because borș is already salty. Rule of thumb: 1 tbsp salt per 1½ l total volume (or 1 tbsp salt + 1 tbsp soup seasoning blend).

As soon as it returns to the boil, take off the heat.

8. Serve

Ladle into deep bowls. Garnish with chopped spring onion greens. Add a spoonful of sour cream or soy yoghurt directly into the bowl and serve with good bread.

Notes & tips

The tartness is everything

A spring soup without enough acidity falls flat. Traditional borș acru, made from fermented wheat bran, gives a complex, slightly lactic acidity plus a specific aroma you can't replicate any other way. If using lemon, add more than you think — taste, add another spoonful, taste again.

When and where to find the ingredients

Wild garlic appears in March-April, fresh orache in April-May, spring onions and green garlic from late March. Outside the season, the soup loses its character — a winter version with frozen spinach and dry onions is a different recipe, not a substitute.

Don't throw the stems away

Orache and wild garlic stems have more concentrated flavour than the leaves and need longer cooking — that's why we sweat them with the root vegetables, not add them at the end with the leaves. It's a step that adds depth and reduces waste.

Wild garlic — handle with care

Wild garlic loses its flavour quickly under high heat. That's why the leaves go in at the end, just 5 minutes, enough to wilt. If you simmer it for 20 minutes, it goes flat and loses its characteristic wild-garlic punch.

Blended variation

If you want it creamier for kids or a quick lunch, scoop out half the soup before adding the borș, blend it smooth with a stick blender and return it to the pot. The result is a soup with dual texture — whole pieces in a creamy matrix.