🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina · Ottoman-era governors' table
Begova čorbaBosnian chicken and okra soup
Bosnian chicken soup built on okra, with carrots and celery, thickened with a butter-and-flour roux or egg yolks and finished with sour cream and lemon.
Origin and history
Begova čorba, 'bey's soup', takes its name from the bey, an Ottoman provincial governor, and the Balkan Lunch Box says okra soup reached the Balkans from the Ottomans. A Radio Free Europe report calls it a Bosnian national dish, though Bosnia and Herzegovina has not protected it. In Sarajevo a batch of more than 4,120 kg was cooked as a record.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 40 min
Ingredients
- 500 g1.1 lb okra, trimmed, cut into 1 cm (1/2 in) rounds
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 800 g1.75 lb chicken legs and thighs, bone-in
- 2.5 l2 1/2 quarts water
- 4 carrots, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tsp salt, adjust at the end
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 100 g7 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 2 egg yolks
- 30 g2 tbsp sour cream, plus more for serving
- 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Method
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1. Put the okra in a pot with the lemon juice and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat for 30 to 45 minutes. Drain, discarding the liquid, which takes out most of the sliminess.
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2. Meanwhile put the chicken, carrots, celery, bay leaves, salt, pepper and 2.5 l of water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 1 hour, skimming the foam.
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3. Lift out the chicken, remove the skin and bones and chop the meat roughly. Return the meat to the pot and simmer 10 minutes more.
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4. Make a roux: melt the butter in a small pan, stir in the flour and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, until pale gold and smelling nutty.
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5. Whisk the roux into the simmering soup a little at a time and keep simmering for 5 minutes, until lightly thickened.
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6. Whisk the egg yolks with the sour cream and a ladle of hot soup. Remove the soup from the heat, then stir this mixture in slowly.
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7. Add the drained okra and most of the parsley. Taste and adjust the salt, and add a little lemon juice if you like it sharper.
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8. Serve hot, with more parsley, a spoon of sour cream and bread.
Notes
- Okra is the defining element. Simmering or soaking it in lemon juice or vinegar water is the way to take out its sliminess. Frozen okra also works; dried okra takes longer to cook and stays slightly gritty, so use less of it.
- Sources differ on the thickener: a butter-and-flour roux finished with egg yolks and sour cream (Saltshaker), or a flour-and-yolk mixture with potato, celery root and carrot puréed into the soup (Balkan Lunch Box). Either gives the creamy finish; add the egg off the heat so it does not curdle.
- The Balkan Lunch Box version also cooks potatoes in the broth. Dishes called 'bey-worthy' were meant for the upper class.
- Serve with lepinja (the soft Bosnian flatbread) or other bread. Keeps 2 days in the fridge; reheat gently.
Adapted from Balkan Lunch Box, Bey's Soup (traditional version), Saltshaker, Begova čorba, and Radio Slobodna Evropa, Begova čorba za Ginisa.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.