| Chorba | |
| Alternate Name: | Ciorbă, shurbah, shorwa, čorba, çorba |
| Region: | Balkans, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, Arabia |
| Type: | Soup or stew |
| Main Ingredient: | Water, meat, beans، vegetables and legumes |
Chorba or shorba (from Ottoman Turkish Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: چوربا or Persian Persian: شوربا) is a broad class of stews or rich soups found in national cuisines across the Middle East, Maghreb, Iran, Turkey, Southeast Europe, Central Asia, East Africa and South Asia. It is often prepared with added ingredients but served alone[1] as a broth or with bread.[2]
The word chorba in English and in many Balkan languages is a loan from the Ottoman Turkish Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928);: چوربا, which itself is a loan from Persian Persian: شوربا . The spelling shorba could be a direct loan into English from Persian or through a Central or South Asian intermediary.
The word is ultimately a compound of Persian: شور meaning 'salty, brackish' and Persian: با meaning 'stew, gruel, spoon-meat'.[3] The former is from Parthian meaning 'salty', and the latter from Middle Persian Pahlavi: *-bāg meaning 'gruel, spoon-meat'.
The etymology can be definitively tied to Persian through the cognate Persian: شورباج ; in modern Persian, while Persian: شوربا evolved to mean 'broth, stew', Persian: شورباج simply means 'soup'.[4] It is typical for Middle Persian word-final Pahlavi: to either change to Persian: ج or to be dropped altogether in Modern Persian.
The dialectal Arabic word Arabic: شوربة or Arabic: شربة is also a loan from Persian and cannot be etymologically tied to Arabic: شرب meaning 'to drink'. That said, it is highly likely that phono-semantic matching occurred during the loaning of the word into Arabic, which would explain the orthographical difference.
Chorba is also called (Amharic: ሾርባ), (Uzbek: шўрва), (Pushto; Pashto: شوروا), (Bulgarian: чорба), čorba (чорба), (Somali), Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan: ciorbă (Romanian), (Russian: шурпа), (Uighur; Uyghur: شورپا / Uighur; Uyghur: шорпа), Turkish: çorba (Turkish), (Kirghiz; Kyrgyz: шорпо) and (Kazakh: сорпа). In the Indian subcontinent, the term in Urdu-Hindi (Urdu: {{nq|شوربہ / Hindi: शोरबा) simply means gravy. It is a Mughlai dish and it has vegetarian forms such as tomato shorba.
Shorwa is a traditional Afghan dish which is a simple dish which is usually mixed with bread on the dastarkhān.[5] It is a long process and a pressure-cooker is usually used, as it reduces the process to 2 hours. The main ingredients for shorwa are potatoes, beans and meat.[6] It is commonly served with Afghan bread.[7]
Ciorbă, as called in Moldova and Romania, consists of various vegetables, meat and herbs. Borș is a sour soup that is used in the Moldova region.[8] It is served hot to stimulate digestion and be effective against colds.[9] There are several types of this dish, such as ciorbă de perișoare, leek soup, Romanian borscht, and borș de burechiușe.