Soup with meatballs and buckwheat

The main secret of the beauty of this soup lies in the preparation of buckwheat. It is cooked separately, so that the broth does not get cloudy, but remains clean and transparent. Wash the buckwheat to clear water, remove the unpeeled grains, put them in a saucepan and pour some of the water. Cook for 5 minutes from the moment of boiling until the groats are half cooked.

While the buckwheat is cooking, you can do meatballs. In a deep bowl, combine the minced meat (you can use any kind of meat), egg and breadcrumbs. Add thyme and salt, stir until smooth and leave for a quarter of an hour to combine the products and swell the breadcrumbs. In principle, thyme can be replaced with any other fragrant herb or favorite spices. If desired, you can even add some finely grated vegetables to the meatballs: zucchini or carrots, onions, garlic.

Peel carrots and potatoes, wash and cut into small cubes. Celery and leek are cut into strips, and finely chop the parsley. Pour water into the soup pot, add all the vegetables at once, season with bay leaf, ground and allspice and salt. Put on high heat, bring to a boil. As soon as the vegetable broth boils, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 15 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, we form meatballs. From the specified amount of minced meat, about 24 pieces should be obtained. Do not make them too big: take a teaspoon of minced meat and form a ball with wet hands.

Once the broth has boiled for 15 minutes, add the meatballs to the soup. Stir so that they do not stick to the bottom and cook for another 10 minutes on low heat until the meatballs are ready.

When the meatballs are ready, add the almost ready buckwheat, cook the soup for another 5 minutes and turn it off. We leave the finished soup under a closed lid for 10 minutes to soak in the aromas of spices and bring the buckwheat to readiness. After the bay leaf and allspice can be removed from the pan.

We serve the soup hot, sprinkling each plate with chopped parsley.

Bon appetit!