And so we make a soup every day. Ramadan continues and we cook with the stronger sense of purpose — to feed those who have been fasting during the day. And soups are excellent ways to break the fast and start ftar, the evening meal shared at the sunset, and then we keep leftovers for sahur, pre-dawn meal. Turkish soups are nutritious and nourishing and I love watching happy faces of my eaters as they go through their bowls of piping hot deliciousness. But then 30 soups (one for each day of Ramadan) is quite a challenge. But are we so easily scared?
I started with my favorites — red lentil soup (ezogelin corbası) and tomato soup with vermicelli (domates corbası). Another Turkish classic, creamy red lentil soup (mercimek çorbası) also made its way on our table. Then I cooked tarhana soup made of fermented dough, always a saver. Chicken soup with noodles and a highly nourishing soup with miniature meat balls and Turkish tortellini (mantı) were created by anne who — still recovering from the surgery — got up from the bed to feed those exhausted by abnormal heat, hunger and thirst.
For long time though I have stayed clear from making hot yogurt soups my mother-in-law has been fixing every now and then in different variations. White soup (ak corbası), yogurt soup (yoğhurt corbası), meadow soup (yayla corbası) — all the different names refer to essentially the same Ottoman recipe 500 hundred year old which still enjoys immense popularity among Turks.
The idea behind it as uncomplicated as its ingredients: you give body to a meat/chicken stock by adding yogurt to whiten it, flour to thicken and egg to give it substance. Sophisticated is the making. By no means you want to end up with yogurt that breaks, flour that limps and egg that makes stripes and this us why you should fold the yogurt-flour-egg mixture into the soup so carefully that the soup becomes silky smooth.
Once I exhausted my non-yogurt Turkish soup repertoire I decided to venture for this yoghurt soup. Without a recipe, drawing upon my recollections of how my mother-in-law was making it I started. I did not have chicken stock often times used for this soup and I am not a fan of the commercial bouillon cubes so I recovered a chunk of frozen tandır suyu from the freezer — delicious juices of the lamb anne cooked in our stone over a while ago. High-quality stock surely adds a lot of flavor to this soup.
The trick was to thicken the stock with egg, flour and yogurt. Part of the reason I do not fancy yoghurt soups so much is that all of them are thickened by flour, a cooking trick popular in crowded Turkish households letting you feed many with little. Flour puffed up in hot water or stock has zero nutrition and that is why I am not so keen on it. Yet 1.5 tbsp flour needed to thicken this yoghurt soup appeared a little damage. And along with the egg carefully folded in it definitely produced a silky sultan table-worthy yogurt soup.
Silky Smooth Turkish Yogurt Soup
If you like yogurt, you would love the tart flavor and creamy texture of this comforting Turkish yogurt soup.
Cook Time: 50 Min
Total Time: 50 Min
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup short grain rice
- 2 cups water
- 4 cups chicken or meat stock
- 1 cup plain thick yogurt
- 1 egg
- 1.5 tbsp all-purpose flour
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp butter for serving
- 2 tbsp dry mint for serving
- 1 tbsp red pepper flakes for serving
Directions
- In a large bowl, transfer the water, stock and rice. Bring to boil and let simmer on low heat until the rice is cooked and starts falling apart, or about 20 min.
- In a mixing bowl whisk the eggs and stir in the flour. Then add yoghurt and whisk the mixture until completely homogenous. Once the rice is cooked, slowly pour in the egg and yoghurt mixture into the soup whisking the soup energetically all the time: this is the single most critical part of the cooking and you want to make sure your soup is absolutely smooth. Add salt — more that specified amount, if you like. Let the soup simmer on very low heat for 10-15 minutes more, stir now and then to make sure the soup does not stick to the bottom.
- Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small pan, stir in the dry mint (some also add red pepper flakes at this point, some reserve them for service) and get the butter sizzle. Then pour the herb butter into the soup and whisk well. Serve hot.
