Soups

Tarhana

Ingredients: Mix yeast with water and make it into a paste. Peel and strain tomatoes. Chop the peppers thinly. Grate the onions. Mix the yeast, yoghurt, tomatoes, peppers and onions in a bowl until they turn into a thick liquid. Start kneading the mixture by adding flour gradually. Knead the dough until it becomes very thick.

Flour a tray, put the thick dough on the tray and cover it with a piece of cloth. If the dough is in a warm place it will puff up in 1 hour, if it is in a cool place it will puff up in 5-6 hours. When the dough has puffed up, remove it from the tray and knead well. Then put it on the tray as before and cover it. Go on with the same procedure until the dough no longer puffs up. Now that your tarhana is ready, you can take a piece of the dough and see that it breaks without skretching. Form the dough into small pieces, place pieces on a cloth and let them dry. Check the pieces as often as possible for drying. Crumble the dried pieces. (It is necessary to check the dough often, because if the dough dries too much, crumbling gets more difficult.)

When crumbling is over, put the crumbles in a fine sieve and sieve then, put tarhana in dry jars and cover with lids. Your tarhana is now ready for cooking.

Tarhana soup

Ingredients: Put the margarine and the ground meat in a saucepan and fry the meat well. Add the tomato paste and salt and miz until the tomato paste blends in well. Pour in 4 glasses of meat broth and bring to the boil. In the meantime, put 1 glass of meat broth into a bowl with the tarhana and melt tarhana by mixing. Pour this mizture into the saucepan slowly and stir constantly. After 10 minutes of stirring, the soup will get thicker.

Fry small bread cubes in a knub of butter, sprinkle with red pepper(optional), and serve with the soup(also add the butter).

Rice soup with tomatoes

Ingredients: 105 cal (6 servings)

Wash the rice and put it into a saucepan with the margarine, salt and the meat broth. Place the saucepan on heat. Put one of the tomatoes aside and grate the rest. Add the grated tomatoes to the saucepan. Peel the remaining tomato and cube. Put the tomato in a saucepan and let the soup cook for 15 more minutes until the rice softens. Remove saucepan from heat and serve the soup after topping it with chopped parsley.

Fish soup

Ingredients: 500 cal (5 servings)

Cut the fins off the fish and scrape off the scales. Remove the gills and the gut. Wash the fish thorougly under running water. Grate the onion. Chop the parsley. Scrape and grate the carrots. Cut the peeled celeriac and potatoes into small pieces. Wash the rice.

Put the fish in a wide saucepan, put the grated onion and chopped parsley on top of it, and add salt as desired. Pour the water into the saucepan and place it over a moderate heat. Boil the fish until it becomes tender. Take fish out of the saucepan with a skimmer and put aside. Put the carrots and potatoes into the saucepan. Add the rice to the saucepan and let it boil until the soup becomes somewhat jelly-like. In the meantime take the skin and bones off the cooked fish and cut the fish into big pieces. When the vegetables and rice are thorougly cooked, strain them and put them in a seperate saucepan. Heat the saucepan containing the soup and add salt if necessary. When the jelly-like soup begins to boil, put the fish into the saucepan and let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Just before removing saucepan from heat, whip the lemon juice and eggs in a bowl. Take spoonfuls of the soup and add it to this sauce while stirring constantly. When the bowl is full, pour it back into the saucepan while stirring the soup. Remove saucepan from heat, pour it into a serving bowl, add some black pepper according to taste and serve.

Another way of cooking fish soup: Dice the vegetables into pieces of about 1/2 cm., grate two peeled and cleaned tomatoes, chop some celery and boil them all with the fish. So that the fish and the vegetables will not be broken into pieces, this should not be strained.

If you would prefer a more original and personal recipe, you can prepare one of your own by adding shrimps, mussels, mushrooms, different herbs and spices as desired.

Wedding soup

(vegetable soup with broth)

Ingredients: (6 servings)

Sauce: Dressing: Cut the meat into small pieces. Scrape the carrot and peel the onion. Put the meat, the bones, the carrot and the onion into a saucepan with the meat broth and let it cook for 3 hours. The meat will get tender and split into pieces while cooking. Remove the bubbles occasionally with a skimmer. When the meat is cooked, strain the broth and strain into another saucepan. Cut the meat into very small pieces and put it in the broth.

Put the flour and margarine in a saucepan and saute. Stir the flour and margarine with a wooden spoon until they blend well. Pour the meat broth into this saucepan graduallly, add the salt, stir it, and bring to the boil.

Sauce:

Whip the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a chine bowl. Take some soup from the saucepan, mix it with the egg yolk and lemon juice, stir rapidly and pour it back into the saucepan.

Dressing:

Saute the red pepper with margarine in a pan. Pour soup into a serving bowl, put the dressing on top of and serve.

Red lentil soup

Ingredients: (6 servings)

Chop the onion, put into a saucepan with 1 tablespoon of margarine and saute. When onion is semi-sauteed add the flour and mix well. Wash the lentils, chop the carrot and put them in the saucepan. Pour the broth and water into the saucepan, add salt as desired and cook the soup for 30 minutes until the lentils are pasty. Strain the soup and pour it back into the same saucepan. Bring to the boil. Meanwhile blend egg yolks with milk well in a bowl and mix this into the soup. Remove saucepan from heat after 2 minutes. The soup is now ready to be served.

Cut 4 slices of white bread into cubes. Fry bread in a pan with 2 tablespoons of margarine. Drain off the margarine and put the bread cubes (croutons) on the soup.