Tarhana
A homemade soup concentrate that Anatolian households have made for winter for generations. A dough of yogurt, flour and peppers ferments for three days, then is dried and crumbled to a powder that turns into soup in under half an hour all winter long. The fermentation does two things: it preserves the base and builds a sour, yeasty flavour fresh ingredients do not have.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Vegetable base 30 min
- Fermenting 4320 min
- Drying 2880 min
- Cooking the soup 25 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneCook the vegetables to a thick paste
Blend the peppers, tomatoes, onion and chilli, then cook them in the oil with the salt for 30 minutes, until thick and darkened. It must be as thick as tomato paste — excess water would thin the dough and make drying impossible.
Ingredients: 500 g red peppers · 400 g tomatoes · 2 pcs onions · 1 pcs hot chilli · 3 tbsp olive oil · 2 tsp salt
As thick as paste, deep red.Knead the dough with yogurt and flour
Cool the paste, mix in the yogurt, yeast, mint and paprika, then work in the flour until you have a soft, sticky dough. Cooling is essential: hot paste would kill the cultures in the yogurt, and they drive the fermentation.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 400 g natural yogurt · 10 g fresh yeast · 2 tbsp dried mint · 1 tbsp sweet paprika
Ferment three days, kneading daily
Cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature for three days, kneading once a day. The dough rises and begins to smell sour and faintly alcoholic. That is normal — a bread starter smells the same at a similar stage.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 400 g natural yogurt · 10 g fresh yeast · 2 tbsp dried mint · 1 tbsp sweet paprika
A sour, yeasty smell — fermentation is on track.Crumble and dry until bone dry
Break the dough into small crumbs with your fingers and spread them thinly on a cloth. Dry for two days somewhere airy, tossing several times a day, until the crumbs are completely dry and hard. If your home is humid, finish them in the oven at 50 °C with the door ajar. Damp tarhana moulds in the jar.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 400 g natural yogurt · 10 g fresh yeast · 2 tbsp dried mint · 1 tbsp sweet paprika
A thin layer, tossed often — it must dry right through.Grind to a powder and store
Grind the dried crumbs in a mill or push them through a sieve into a coarse powder. In a sealed jar, somewhere dry and dark, it keeps for a year. This batch yields about 700 g of tarhana — enough for 7–8 pots of this soup.
Ingredients: 500 g plain flour · 400 g natural yogurt · 10 g fresh yeast · 2 tbsp dried mint · 1 tbsp sweet paprika
Cook the soup in stock
Whisk 6 heaped tablespoons of tarhana (about 90 g) into cold stock (never hot — it would seize into lumps), add the tomato paste and bring to the boil, stirring. Once boiling, simmer over low heat for another 20 minutes, stirring often — about 25 minutes in all. The soup thickens like a loose porridge. If too thick, add more stock.
Ingredients: 1200 ml stock · 40 g butter · 1 tbsp tomato paste · 1 tsp sweet paprika · 3 pcs bread · 1 tsp dried mint
Finish with pepper butter and croutons
Cut the bread into cubes and toast them in a dry pan. Heat the butter, stir in the paprika off the heat and pour the red butter over each portion. Scatter with mint and serve with the croutons. Many Turkish soups are finished with butter like this — it adds colour, richness and the scent of toasted paprika.
Ingredients: 1200 ml stock · 40 g butter · 1 tbsp tomato paste · 1 tsp sweet paprika · 3 pcs bread · 1 tsp dried mint
Before you start
Shop-bought tarhana
Turkish grocers sell tarhana in bags and it is perfectly good — but it is worth making your own at least once, for the flavour and for understanding the process. The ratio is the same: 6 tablespoons to 1.2 litres of stock.
Lumps are the commonest fault
Tarhana tipped into hot liquid seizes instantly and is hard to rescue. Always whisk it into cold stock and only then heat, stirring constantly for the first five minutes.
Tarhana with milk
In some parts of Anatolia tarhana is cooked in milk instead of stock, without tomato paste, as a breakfast. It comes out milder and thicker — closer to porridge than soup, but still clearly sour from the fermentation.
