Comfort food at its best! A traditional recipe handed down to me by my Mum and her Mum before her……it was my favourite after school tea time meal & is still a firm family favourite even now! I serve mine with lashings of onion gravy and piles of fluffy & buttery mashed potatoes. I used to make mini versions of this recipe for my daughter when she was little – they make great appetizers before a Halloween/Bonfire night supper or a children’s Party! For the mini version, just use a small cake/pie tins or a small muffin tray and split your sausages into quarters OR use cocktail sausages. The following recipe is for 4 people served with potatoes & gravy – the recipe can easily be doubled for more people or if served by itself.
This recipe is typical for the Strandja Mountain region in Bulgaria. Once again, I took it from the Bulgarian National Cuisine cookbook of Zemizdat.
Description: Bulgarian Tripe Soup (Shkembe Chorba) was first sampled a while ago in Yambol at 2:00 in the morning after a very busy evening with Bulgarian friends eating, drinking, dancing followed by more drinking dancing and talking in a local nightclub. Just as I thought the nightclub scene was over it was time to go home we zig-zagged out way to a non stop bar and presented with another round of beer and in addition the order went out for a round of tripe soup! It was a real mystery as to why soup was ordered at the time until it was explained that this soup was a perfect remedy for heavy heads after drinking sessions usually drunk in the morning for the morning after the night before! Here is the original recipe given by my Bulgarian partner Galia.
Once again one of my boyfriend’s favourites. He never gets tired of these meatballs or of my cutlets and he often requests both at the same time. Grilling is also a nice option although you might want to put more beef or more bread so that the mixture gets thicker.
This is a recipe I have not tried yet but I found it in an old book about traditional Bulgarian cooking and it sounded great. I decided to share it so here it is. If you happen to try it, please share how it came out and what kind of cheese you used. By the way, I’m guessing at preparation and cooking times.
