How to Boost Your Soup Like Locals Do

Chicken or beef broth is also widely used and valuable in many recipes, but when it comes to the first course of a family meal, you need to enhance it with certain additions, give it a little boost. Luckily, we have great options in our culinary tradition. It all boils down to a mixture of flour, water and eggs – different kinds of noodles, pasta and dumplings that complement every kind of clear soup. And give our grandmas a strong feeling that they are truly feeding us well.

“Typical beginning of every decent lunch in Zagreb.” Image credit: Đurina hiža FB

Nice and flavourful broth made from scratch forms the basis for everything. Root vegetables, usually carrots and celery, are left intact; peas can be added if they are in season, possibly even some cauliflower or broccoli if you are really playful. Naturally, Croatian grandmas always worry that everyone around them is hungry and undernourished. Permanently on a rescue mission, they decided that broth and vegetables alone, even if there's also some meat floating around, is not enough to fight hunger. Carbs are called in.

“A world without noodles in beef soup would be a sad one.” Image credit: Taste of Croatia

Egg noodles are the most common ingredient used to enhance a soup. Once made at home by default, now you're lucky if you can get hold of some real homemade stuff. The closest thing is buying soup noodles from the ladies selling their dairy products and eggs at Zagreb's farmers markets. Noodles come in different sizes; from very thin ones similar to vermicelli, to thicker and longer ones, more like tagliatelle. Tiny noodles often come in bundles, looking like angel hair nests. A special subspecies of soup noodles are pancake noodles. It’s literally crêpes sliced into thin strips and boiled in broth. You’ll find it under Flädlesuppe in German-speaking countries. Very rare these days, if you don’t make it at home, like my mum did on special occasions when I was a child.

“Soup dumplings, easier and faster to make at home than noodles.” Image credit: Darko Baretić

A little harder to find as well, and charmingly old-fashioned, is the pasta called zvjezdice, meaning „little stars” – although it looks more like tiny flowers. But it certainly lifts your soup up. It's often found in instant soups that are trying to pass off as traditional. Of course, that's not the version you'd want. However, speaking of instant soups, there's always the one posing as „wedding soup“. The queen of all the clear soups owes its high status to semolina dumplings. When you are really trying hard and want to impress, then you make soup dumplings. The best ones contain liver from the meat used in preparing the stock, though they are usually smaller and more delicate than the Austrian and German Leberknödel.

“Sliced pancakes in beef broth – an old-fashioned soup you don’t meet every day.” Image credit: Darko Baretić

And then, there is something really traditional you can find under an unusual name – tarana. Dictionary explains the origin of the word is Turkish, which only proves that our traditional gastronomy is really a melting pot. Tarana looks like irregular little crumbs, and its alternative name – ribana kašica (grated gruel) – explains a lot. You a big hard lump of dough with flour or semolina and eggs, grate it and leave those tiny worm-like shavings to dry. Afterwards you use them like any other pasta for soup.

“Tarana – homemade grated pasta for soup.” Image credit: Taste of Croatia

Of course, supermarkets are also full of different imported (by which I mean Italian) kinds of pasta to be used in soups, and modern things like alphabet pasta, children's favourite choice. Yet, when it comes to local old-school methods, grandma-approved recipes – nothing beats the combination of flour and fresh farm eggs formed into comforting soup pasta with your own hands. In that case, shape and appearance come second to taste.

Header image credit: Taste of Croatia

Author: Taste of Croatia, Morana Zibar