Dishes of Comfort

Yoghurt Rice Soup (Yayla Çorbası)


This Turkish soup was already in my list of recipes to post, and fit well with the Dishes of Comfort one-off blog event (hosted by Cream Puffs In Venice).

The literal translation of this yoghurt rice soup is the plateau soup. It is a traditional soup well-known in rural Turkey but also common in the cities. It is a great winter-warming soup. My mother made this soup quite often, which I have always enjoyed. It was a kind of staple in our kitchen, so it goes with my childhood. I now make it myself from time to time, but my mum's soup tastes different for some reason, and I continue to enjoy hers on my return visits to Istanbul. I suspect it's a combination of factors, the difference in the ingredients back at home, and the mother effect.

6 tablespoons rice
6 tablespoons natural yoghurt
2 eggs
3 tablespoons plain four
2 cups of chicken stock (or water with stock powder, if you prefer)
3 cups of water
1 tablespoon of butter (or olive oil)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 teaspoon of dried mint (this is a must)
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
salt to taste

1. Wash the rice until the starch runs off. Boil it in a pot with three cups of boiling water. Cook until the rice is soft, put aside. Do not dispose of the water.

2. In a ceramic bowl, beat the eggs, while adding the flour in small amounts. Then add the yoghurt, and the lemon juice, mix a little more until you have a thick mixture.

3. In a deep pot, heat the two cups of chicken stock. When it has warmed up, add a few spoons of the stock into the thick egg mixture, so that the mixture becomes runny. Then, add the egg mixture back into the chicken stock slowly, and mixing continuously until the soup begins to boil.

4. Add the rice along with its water into the soup. Add salt to taste. Close the lid of the pot, and bring it to boil once, before turning off the stove.

5. In a separate pan, melt the butter together with the mint and the cayenne pepper. When heated, stir a few times, and stir the butter sauce into the soup. Serve in soup bowls.

PS. I often short-cut, and use a day's old leftover rice. Then I boil the 3 cups of water with the stock in stage 3, and add the cooked rice as above in stage 4.