Tarhana soup

It’s definitely soup weather in London today! Dark, rainy and cold. All I want to do is crawl under a blanket and read a book. This soup I made & shared in my instagram stories yesterday is called Tarhana soup. Lucky that there were left overs for lunch today.

Tarhana is made from a dough made with tomato, chillies, onions and yogurt (or milk) fermented in a bowl around 10 days until it starts to crumble. When it’s fermented and has a crumbly texture it’s processed to a fine powder in a food processor then left to dry. Once dried it can be stored in a jar for a very long time and made into warming soup. My aunts still make their own tarhana and I brought over a jar back from Turkey.

It’s also available in Middle Eastern super markets, there are two types spicy and mild. I usually go for the spicy type when I get the shop bought tarhana. I also add chickpeas in my soup to make it more satisfying. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

100 gr tarhana (soaked in boiling water that just covers the tarhana for 15 minutes)

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 sivri biber chillies. sliced

1 tablespoon aci biber salçası (hot red pepper paste)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1.5 lt water

2 tespoons Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder

1 tinned chickpeas

Method

1. Soak tarhana in a latge bowl in enough boiling water to cover it.

2. Heat the olive oil in a pan, add the chilles and fry for 3 minutes.

3. Add the tomato and red pepper paste to the pan and continue to stir and cook for a minute.

4. Little by little add the water and stir until the tomato paste dissolved in water. Add rest of the water and vegetable boullion powder and bring to boil.

5. Add a ladlefull of the soup to the soaked tarhana and whisk. Add 2-3 more laddlefuls and continue to whisk until tarhana is dissolved and no chunky bits left.

6. Add the tarhana to the pan and bring to boil.

7. Once simmering add the drained chickpeas and bring to boil again.

8. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve.