Tomato Soup with Rice

Domatesli Pirinç Çorbası

Since I last visited my blog, it's been two months and it's now winter in Melbourne. This week, it's been raining heavily, there are floods in the southeast, trees falling down, riverbeds overflowing. The good news is I am still busy but less so. This soup is a great winterwarmer soup again from Turkey, and also great for the Weekend Herb Blogging hosted by Kalyn's Kitchen this week. This soup is commonly made with fresh parsley, but dried mint also works well.

Fresh tomatoes are always better, but tinned tomatoes are practical and work fine. Another short-cut (great for weeknights) is to use one-day old leftover cooked rice. 1 cup is enough, and you only need to add the rice, and bring the soup to boil. If using cooked rice, adjust the amount of water to 3-4 cups.

If you like thicker consistency, stir 1 tablespoon of flour into the thickened tomato mixture and before slowly adding water.

Spice it to taste, sweet paprika, freshly ground black pepper, ras-el-hanout (I know it's not Turkish, but I love it).

2 tablesp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, diced
2 large tomatoes, crushed
(or a tin of crushed tomatoes, around 400 gr)
1/2 teasp salt
1/2 teasp sugar
1/3 cup uncooked rice
5-6 cups of water
1/3 cup fresh parsley, chopped
(or 1/2 tabsp dried mint)

Lightly fry garlic in oil in a large saucepan. Before garlic changes colour, add the tomatoes, salt and sugar. Cook tomatoes for about 5 minutes until it is thickened. Add the rice and water. Cook covered, stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes until rice has softened. Add the parsley, cooking for a couple of minutes. Serve warm.

Croutons: Croutons are optional, not being part of the original recipe. To make your own croutons, dice one-day old bread, drizzle with olive oil and place in a microwave safe container. Microwave uncovered in high for 2 minutes. Stir, if necessary, microwave another 20 seconds, and another 10 if necessary. (Watch out, they burn quickly - so only increase time at short intervals).

Brown Lentil Soup

Melbourne is a funny city in terms of weather. Temperature difference from one day to the other can be huge. Yesterday was a scorching 37.4 degrees, and today - 19 degrees! So I felt like some soup, and made this Turkish soup that is my father's favourite.

The original recipe uses eriste (semolina based Turkish egg noodles). I buy eriste from Turkish shops in Melbourne, although this soup can also be made with rice or risi bisi pasta.

1 brown onion, chopped
2 tablesp olive oil
1 teasp tomato paste
1 tablesp plain flour
4 cups of water or stock
1/2 cup of green lentils
2 tablesp of "eriste", rice or risi bisi
1/4 teasp salt
1/2 teasp dried mint
1/8 teasp sweet paprika

Lightly fry the brown onion in oil. Add the tomato paste, stir. Then stir in the plain flour until the onion pieces are well-coated. Add the water gradually. When it starts boiling, add the green lentils. Cook, stirring occasionally. When the lentils become tender, add in eriste (or `rice or risi bisi), and cook until the eriste is tender. Add salt, mint and paprika. Serve warm.

Super Souper Challenge

Turkish Wedding Soup (Düğün Çorbası)

This traditional soup is rich and nutritious. Although it is one of my favourites, I do not make it often due to preparation time it requires. However, the outcome is definitely worth the effort. The soup has four stages: meat preparation, soup base, egg mixture, and the sauce. Despite the meat and the egg, the soup is not heavy at all, and is a mix of great flavours. I think it is timely for the upcoming soup event.

1 litre meat stock (or water for a lighter version)

250 gr lamb, diced into small cubes

2 tablesp. butter

3 tablesp. flour

3 egg yolks (two also works fine)

juice of 1 lemon

Sauce:

2 tablesp. butter

1 teasp. paprika

1. Cook the finely diced up meat in a pot with a cup of water for about 20 minutes, skimming the froth occasionally. Add the meat with the leftover water into the stock, and cook the soup base until boiling.

2. In a separate pot, heat the butter, and add the flour, stirring until the flour changes colour. Add some of the meat stock into the flour gradually, stirring so that the mixture is thick and homogeneous.

3. Blend the egg yolks and lemon juice together in a nonreactive bowl. Add some of the soup mixture to the egg mixture, stirring it at the same time. Add some more soup mixture, and repeat. The aim is to prevent the egg mixture from curdling. Then return the egg mixture back into the soup. Cook until it has just started boiling.

4. For the sauce, melt the butter in a frypan, add the paprika. Cook until it bubbles, but watch out that it doesn't burn.

5. Pour the soup into bowls with equal pieces of lamb, and add a spoonful of sauce before serving.

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.