🇹🇷 Türkiye · Gaziantep
BeyranGaziantep lamb and rice soup
The spicy lamb, rice and garlic soup of Gaziantep, built on a broth of lamb simmered overnight, with shredded lamb and rice put in each bowl with crushed garlic and red pepper flakes and drunk at breakfast.
Origin and history
Beyran is a breakfast soup of Gaziantep in south-eastern Turkey, a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. The Kultur Ansiklopedisi says its history goes back to the Ottoman period, that according to tradition it was made to give soldiers strength in war, that the name comes from an Arabic word meaning boiling, and that it is a registered geographical indication. A restaurateur quoted in Hurriyet claims an age of about 500 years, which the article does not support with evidence.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 2 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 500 g1.1 lb bone-in lamb neck or shank, lean cut; for the traditional version simmer it the night before
- 1.5 l6 cups water, just enough to cover the meat, plus hot water as needed
- 200 g1 cup short-grain rice, rinsed
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1 tbsp fat skimmed from the broth or butter, traditionally lamb fat
- 1 tsp Aleppo-style red pepper flakes (pul biber), Gaziantep pepper if you can find it; more to taste
- black pepper, added last
- lemon wedges, fresh parsley, mint or arugula, to serve
Method
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1. Set the lamb in a wide pot with water just covering it and bring it slowly to a bare simmer over medium-low heat; a hard boil clouds the broth.
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2. Skim off the foam as it forms and keep simmering for at least 1 h 30 min, until the meat comes away from the bone.
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3. Lift the meat out, pull it from the bones and shred it. Strain the broth and skim the fat into a small bowl for later.
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4. Boil the rice in a pot of the strained broth with the salt for about 15 minutes, until it is very soft and the broth turns slightly starchy.
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5. In a pan melt the lamb fat or butter over low heat, add the pepper flakes and the crushed garlic and let them colour for about 30 seconds; do not let the pepper burn.
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6. Put the rice and shredded lamb in the bowls, spoon over the red garlic fat, and ladle in the boiling broth a little at a time.
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7. Finish with black pepper only at the very end and serve at once with lemon, herbs and bread.
Notes
- Quantities follow a Turkish yemek.com recipe for Gaziantep-style beyran (500 g bone-in lamb neck, 1 cup rice, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tsp red pepper, 4 garlic cloves; 4 servings). Turkish newspaper Hürriyet describes the Gaziantep method: lamb shank simmered slowly, often overnight, rice boiled until it releases its starch, each bowl made separately in a copper pan with the pepper first coloured in the skimmed fat, then rice and lamb, garlic and hot broth. The water amount is not given by yemek.com, so the 1.5 l here is a guide: enough to cover the meat and leave broth for the rice and the bowls.
- Add black pepper last: put in too early, it turns the soup dark, as the Hürriyet piece notes. Squeeze lemon over the bowl if you like.
- Beyran is a breakfast soup, especially in winter: Gaziantep restaurants serve it from about 5 a.m. Some recipes use more garlic, up to 10 cloves.
- The Kültür Ansiklopedisi entry mentions sugared pilaf (şekerli pilav) with finely cut bone-in meat, so rice treatment varies by cook. Any red pepper flakes work, but Gaziantep pepper is the traditional choice.
- Make the broth ahead if you like, and assemble each bowl just before serving.
Adapted from Yemek.com: Beyran çorbası tarifi, Hürriyet: Kahvaltıda yenen beyran çorbası, and Kültür Ansiklopedisi: Gaziantep yemek kültürü.
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