🇹🇷 Türkiye · Turkey (made in all regions)
Yayla çorbasıTurkish yogurt soup
Turkish yogurt soup of rice (sometimes wheat and chickpeas) cooked in a yogurt, flour and egg base, finished with mint warmed in butter; 'yayla' means highland pasture.
Origin and history
Yayla çorbası, 'highland soup', is made in every region of Turkey. The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism explains the name this way: before refrigeration milk was turned quickly into yogurt, and the cool highland plateaus gave the best yogurt. Daily Sabah adds that its exact origin is unknown and that towns across the country claim it.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h
- Hands-on
- 25 min
Ingredients
- 60 g1/3 cup short-grain rice, rinsed
- 800 ml3 1/3 cups water, or light chicken broth
- 2 tsp salt, adjust at the end
- 360 g1 2/3 cups plain whole-milk yogurt, at room temperature
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 1 egg
- 40 g3 tbsp butter
- 1 1/2 tbsp dried mint
- 1/2 tsp pul biber (Turkish red pepper flakes), optional, for the butter
Method
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1. Put the rinsed rice, water and salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently for about 30 minutes, until the rice is very soft and the grains are starting to break.
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2. In a bowl, whisk the flour into the yogurt until smooth, then beat in the egg.
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3. Warm the yogurt mixture by stirring in 3 or 4 ladles of the hot rice liquid, one at a time, so it does not curdle.
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4. Pour the tempered mixture slowly into the pan and stir continuously, always in the same direction, until the soup comes to a boil.
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5. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, still stirring now and then. The soup should coat the back of a spoon.
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6. Melt the butter in a small pan, add the dried mint (and pul biber if using) and stir for about 30 seconds, off the heat once it sizzles.
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7. Taste and adjust the salt. Serve hot with the mint butter spooned on top.
Notes
- Stirring until the soup boils is what keeps the yogurt from splitting; the flour and egg stabilise it. Do not walk away before the first boil.
- The Ministry of Culture and Tourism's recipe uses rice, as here. The Daily Sabah version instead uses wheat berries (boiled about 1 1/2 hours), soaked chickpeas and a much larger proportion of yogurt, with the flour optional.
- Flour is optional in some versions, where the yogurt is left to thicken the soup on its own; if your soup turns out too thick, loosen it with a little hot water.
- The name means 'highland soup'. Eaten as a starter, with bread; also popular in cold weather.
- Make-ahead: it reheats gently, but never boil it hard a second time.
Adapted from Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Yogurt Soup (Yayla Çorbası) and Daily Sabah, Recipe of the week: Turkish yayla soup.
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