This soup usually divides the masses. Some feel inspired - at times so much that they vow to reproduce it at their own kitchen. The others view it as a pure exoticism and will never relate to the action involved in its making. I am about to present arguably the most laborious Turkish soup and still.. if you want to treat yourself (and your near and dear) on a cold and dull weekend then do spare an hour and a half to make the soup with Turkish bulgur gnocchi (topalak çorbası).
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Recipes: Soups
Tarhana, sourdough turned into an “instant” soup has boggled my mind since the very first time I saw it. Mother of my then Turkish boyfriend bought some from a store of home-made foods during our visit to Beypazarı, a little town with its center set up to give dwellers of the nearby places (such as Ankara where we came from) a feel of visiting an idyllic village where locals have nothing else to do but interacting with the visitors and feeding them with assorted fruits of their varied labors. Home made jams, dried vegetables, longest and thinnest stuffed wine leaves I have ever seen, double-baked Beypazarı kurusu - Turkish take on biscotti, dry type of baklava, homemade dried pasta and then tarhana.
We bought some of those delights including a bag of fine coral color grains which - as I was explained - was kind of a dry tomato soup and was meant to travel with me to Moscow. With the recipe from one of those websites that adapt Turkish recipes for foreigners so thoroughly that most the of time I don’t recognize the original any more I got the directions which I followed. I combined water and that ground tomato soup and was stirring it and stirring as it simmered. Eventually I served a rather uninspiring muddy soup.
Little I knew about the real tarhana and a proper way to cook it. Things clearned when I met my prospective mother-in-law who became my guide into the depths of Turkish home cooking including its heights such as making tarhana. Tarhana is often translated as “sour dough soup” which kind of gives you a hint of the process - the dough is left to ferment for a while. But then how the dought is made, what goes inside and what happens after were a miracle to me. Until a rather epic process of the making was staged at our countryside kitchen in Sapanca.
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?
My first encounter with nettle soup took place in my childhood when my grandma made it one fine spring. But my grandma (my dad’s mom) was always a bit of an exotic woman to me.
I am little nervous every time I am cooking something new for somebody new. Which happens all the time. Because I think it is boring to cook the same thing over and over again. And I always find new hungry people to feed. My nervousness grows as I cook in different settings too: what works at the professional kitchen of Zeliha Hanım in Sapanca may not suit my home kitchen in Istanbul. So every time I keep thinking: Will the recipe (that I tested five times in other settings) work? Will people (who approved on many other occasions) like the dish?
When I am in Sapanca I assume the duty of a lunch cook so I can test drive the professional kitchen of Zeliha Hanım, master new Turkish dishes and as a pure side effect feed six hungry diners of assorted appetites. No wonder I cook hearty, seasonal and cheap meals. “Few simple inexpensive ingredients always result in delicious food”, says Zeliha Hanım. This tomato soup is a proof.
Here in Sapanca I am learning to appreciate the beauty of humble food cooked to perfection. I am grateful for that opportunity as otherwise I am hungry for complications at the kitchen: recipes that take hours to make, ingredients that are many, tastes that are not so straightforward.
