🇨🇾 Cyprus
Cypriot trahanasCypriot cracked wheat soup
The Cypriot form of tarhana soup: trahanas made in summer from sour sheep or goat milk and cracked wheat, dried, then boiled (traditionally in chicken broth) with cubes of halloumi added near the end.
Origin and history
In Cyprus trahanas is made in summer: sheep or goat milk is salted and soured for about a week, heated, and thickened with crushed wheat, then cut into pieces and sun-dried for at least eight days so it keeps all year. It is eaten mainly in winter, boiled in water or, very often, in chicken broth with halloumi. Where the Turkish parent uses flour and vegetables, the Cypriot version is wheat and soured milk alone.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 25 min
Ingredients
- 700 g1.5 lb chicken pieces on the bone (legs, thighs or a half chicken)
- 2.25 L9 1/2 cups cold water
- 1 tsp salt, for the broth
- 200 g7 oz (about 1 1/4 cups) Cypriot trahanas (dried pieces of cracked wheat and sour sheep or goat milk)
- 1 ripe tomato (optional), peeled and chopped; many families leave it out
- 150 g5 oz halloumi, in 1 cm (1/2 in) cubes
- black pepper, freshly ground
- bread or croutons, to serve
Method
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1. Put the chicken in a large pot with the cold water and bring it slowly to the boil.
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2. Skim off the foam, add the salt, lower the heat and simmer gently for 40 minutes, until the meat is cooked through.
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3. Lift out the chicken and strain the broth back into the pot; you need about 2 L (8 cups).
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4. Bring the broth back to the boil and add the trahanas, and the tomato if using.
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5. Lower the heat and simmer for 30–40 minutes, stirring often so the pieces do not stick, until they have softened and broken down into a thick, slightly sour soup.
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6. While it cooks, take the chicken off the bones and tear it into pieces.
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7. Add hot water a ladle at a time if the soup becomes thicker than double cream.
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8. Stir in the halloumi, and the chicken if you want it in the soup, and heat for 3–5 minutes, until the cheese has softened but kept its shape.
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9. Taste before salting, since halloumi is salty, and finish with black pepper.
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10. Serve very hot with bread or croutons.
Notes
- This is the Cypriot form of tarhana soup. Turkish tarhana is a flour-and-yogurt ferment with vegetables, crumbled fine and usually cooked in water with a mint-butter finish; Cypriot trahanas is only coarsely cracked wheat and soured sheep or goat milk, dried in larger pieces, cooked in chicken broth and served with halloumi.
- Cooks without chicken broth use water or vegetable stock; the soup is then lighter and the sourness more pronounced.
- The chicken can be served on the side as a second course, or returned to the soup to make a full meal.
- It is a winter dish in Cyprus, eaten for supper, for breakfast by people heading to the fields, and when someone is unwell.
- The soup thickens as it cools; loosen leftovers with hot water or broth when reheating.
Adapted from Republic of Cyprus, Gastronomy in Cyprus (government publication) and Kopiaste (Ivy Liacopoulou): Cypriot Trahanas Soup.
At the festivals
Served at 1 festival in Belgium.
Earlier editions
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December 07, 2025
🇧🇪 Lommel, Belgium
16th Internationaal Soepenfestival
On the menu as Trahanas met halloumi uit Cyprus