Zeama, the hangover soup from Moldova

Zeama, the typical Moldovan chicken soup that cures hangovers.

We already gave you some tips and tricks to get rid of your hangover. But every country has its own traditional dishes to make the process go faster. We like to give you a taste of the international anti-hangover cuisine. In this episode a dish from Moldova: zeama.

Last time we suggested you the Polish dish żurek. For this episode we stay in the soup division. Moldovan zeama has chicken and egg noodles as most important ingredients. Of course also mixed with some vegetables to gain some vitamins. As many Eastern Europeans Moldovans are known to be skillful drinkers. While being caught between the Balkans and Ukraine they get the best of both worlds, which means they Moldova has a culture of both spirits distilled from fruits and vodka. But the country itself is most famous for it’s great wines. In fact Moldova has the biggest wine cellar in the world. With all those temptations around it’s hard not to drink. So a solid breakfast to start the day can be extremely useful.

The ingredients:
1 small chicken
12 cups of water
1 onion
1 carrot
1 big tomato
2 cups of egg noodles
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped leaves of the lovage herb (lavas) or chop a celery stalk
half a cup of fresh parsley
half a cup of dill weed
some salt, pepper and thyme (how much depends on your own flavor)

Preparation:
Start off by cutting up the chicken and wash it well. Than boil it softly until the froth comes up. Remove this froth from the top. Do not throw all the water away, cause you will miss the flavor the chicken already gave to the soup.
Than add the chopped onion, tomato, carrot and celery (or lovage herb) with salt and pepper. Let it boil for three minutes, before adding the egg noodles and the lemon juice.
After another four minutes of cooking, you can add the parsley, the dill weed and the thyme. After this cover up the pan and remove the pan from the heat. Let it stand for some time and let the flavors mix.
Zeama is best mixed with traditional corn bread.

Micky Bumbar

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