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Recipes with hot pepper

6 recipes that use hot pepper, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Ciorbă de hribi, takes 45 minutes. It is most often cooked with onion, carrot and parsley root.

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Halászlé

Halászlé is the fiery fisherman's soup of the rivers Tisza and Danube, and on Christmas Eve it is on almost every Hungarian table; the towns of Szeged and Baja each claim the best version. A rich stock is made from fish heads and bones with onions and lots of paprika, sieved until smooth and red, and then thick slices of carp (or catfish) are poached in it at the last moment. Serve with white bread and fresh hot peppers. Chef's tip: poach the fish fillets without stirring; just swirl the pot so the pieces stay whole.

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Ciorbă de hribi

Late summer in the beech and spruce forests of Maramureș sends whole families out with baskets, and the first pot of the season is usually this sour porcini soup. Fresh hribi give it a meaty bite, a handful of dried ones deepen the broth, and a spoon of vinegar plus sour cream turns it into a proper ciorbă: tangy, creamy and smelling of the woods. It is eaten as a first course with a slice of rye bread and a fresh hot pepper on the side, often during the Orthodox fasting weeks in its cream-free form. The usual slip is stirring cold sour cream straight into the pot, where it splits into white flecks; warm it with a ladle of broth first. Chef's tip: keep the soaking water from the dried porcini and pour it in slowly, leaving the last spoonful and its grit behind in the bowl.

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Ciorbă rădăuțeană

Rădăuți, a small town in Bukovina, gave its name to this soup in the 1970s, when a local restaurant cook began treating chicken the way Romanians treat tripe: a clear broth, soured with vinegar and thickened at the end with egg yolks, sour cream and plenty of garlic. The result is pale gold, velvety and tangy, with tender shreds of chicken; many prefer it to the tripe original, and it is a firm favourite at Suceava wedding lunches and the morning after. Serve it with a fresh hot pepper, extra garlic paste and warm bread. The mistake almost everyone makes once is letting the soup boil after the yolks go in, so they scramble; temper them, then keep the pot hot but below a simmer. Chef's tip: add the vinegar a spoon at a time at the very end; it should taste clearly sour but never vinegary.

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Ciorbă de pui cu tarhon

Tarragon grows in almost every garden in Transylvania, from Saxon villages near Sibiu to the Hungarian towns of Harghita, and it is what makes this chicken soup taste of the region. Pieces of chicken simmer with root vegetables and potato, the pot is soured with a splash of vinegar, and at the end sour cream and a big handful of chopped tarragon go in, giving a pale, creamy broth with a gentle aniseed lift. Unlike the egg-thickened soups of Moldavia, this one stays light and brothy. It is eaten as the first course of a Sunday lunch, with fresh bread and a hot pepper. A common mistake is adding the tarragon too early; long cooking turns it bitter and grey, so stir it in just before serving. Chef's tip: a spoon of tarragon pickled in vinegar, as Transylvanian cooks keep it, does the souring and flavouring in one.

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Ciorbă de pește lipovenească

The Lipovans, Russian Old Believers who settled the Danube Delta villages of Jurilovca, Periprava and Mila 23 three centuries ago, cook their fish soup in a cauldron over a fire by the water. A broth is first made from the fish frames and tails with onion and pepper, strained, then the vegetables and thick pieces of several fish go in, usually carp, pike, zander and catfish, so each brings its own texture. The fish is lifted onto a platter and eaten with garlic sauce and mămăligă, while the clear, peppery, tomato-sharp broth is drunk from bowls. Where most cooks go wrong is stirring once the fish is in: it breaks into flakes. Shake the pot instead. Chef's tip: a splash of the cold sauerkraut juice or borș at the end, instead of lemon, gives the sourness Delta cooks prefer.

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Zeamă

In the Republic of Moldova, zeamă is the soup of weddings, christenings and Sunday lunches, and a pot of it is said to cure everything from a cold to a hangover. A homegrown chicken gives a golden broth, thin homemade egg noodles go in, and it is soured with borș, the fermented wheat-bran liquid sold in bottles at every market from Chișinău to Bălți, then scented with a big bunch of lovage. The taste is clean, bright and tangy, with the green, celery-like note of lovage on top. It is eaten piping hot, often with a raw onion or a hot pepper on the side. A common mistake is cooking the noodles in the broth for too long, which clouds it; boil them only until just tender. Chef's tip: if you cannot find borș, use the juice of 1 lemon instead, adding it at the end and tasting as you go.

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Goes well with hot pepper