My dear Grandmother used to make tarhana for all the family. After she passed away I bought from trusted sellers from the market. But now that I am in London, I have no option to buy packaged ones which do not taste anything near to the real tarhana. So have started making my own.
Silly me, I have not written down any of my grandmother’s recipes. Lucky me, her best friend/neighbour Mrs Sevim helped me out. Tarhana making needs days or fermenting and drying and crumbling, meaning needs space, open air and friends to help. As I do not have such time and space I have experimented and created my own recipe.
How to make tarhana at home?
Although the tarhana making takes a lot of time, it is not difficult to make. There are three stages: cooking the vegetables, kneading the dough and controlling the fermentation and spreading, drying and crumbling.
Coarsely chop the vegetables and onions, and use a food processor to make the vegetables turn into a puree one by one. Transfer them to a pot and cook to reduce the amount of water in them for about 20 minutes. Add the tomato and pepper paste and salt and mix to blend. When the time is up remove from heat.
In a large mixing bowl let cool then start adding the flour and yogurt. Mix and knead until you obtain a dough thicker than a cake mixture.
The yogurt should be strained yogurt. If you cannot find it use a cheesecloth or a colander to get rid of the excess water in the yogurt.
How many days does it take to make tarhana at home?
Then cover the top with a tray or a clean kitchen towel and set aside. For the following 3-9 days mix the mixture with a wooden spoon every day and night. If young children will eat the soup 3 days if you like it sour longer days are suggested. During these days the mixture will be fermenting and growing. So the smell might not be pleasant, do not worry. It will get better when the mixture dries later on.
On the day you want to start with the next stage of drying the tarhana spread tablespoons of mixture on a baking tray with oiled paper. Bake in an oven at 150°Celsius until crispy and switch sides.
Put the dried tarhana into a food processor and grind it into powder. You might need to do this several times if the tarhana has not dried enough.
When you have all the tarhana turned into a powder keep on a tray for at least a day to make sure it is totally dry.
How to keep the tarhana mixture?
Keep in a cloth bag or in plastic bags in the fridge or freezer.
It is a long process, but you will not regret having your own delicious tarhana mix when you start making the Tarhana Soup for your loved ones on a cold day.
Traditional Homemade Tarhana Mix
Ingredients
- 500 grams tomato
- 500 grams onions
- 3 garlic cloves
- 500 grams red peppers
- 250 grams strained plain yogurt
- 50 grams pepper paste
- 50 grams tomato paste
- 2 kilograms flour
- 250 grams semolina
- 1 tablespoon salt
Instructions
- Chop the tomato, onion and peppers coarsely. Then process in a food processor.
- Cook all toghether in a pot without adding anything else for about half an hour to make the excess water to evaporate.
- Add salt and the tomato and pepper and mix to blent.
- Remove from heat.
- Let cool and then add the strained plain yogurt and half of the flour.
- Add the remaining flour gradually while mixing and kneading. Obtain a dough.
- Cover with a tray or similar and let rest for 4-9 days.
- Mix every night and morning. If the mixture becomes watery add and mix some more flour.
- Then on the day you want to move to the next step, preheat an oven to 150°Celsius and spread oily paper on trays and put tablespoons full of the dough on the trays.
- Bake both sides until almost dry.
- Use a food processor or a colander to turn the dough pieces into a crumbs.
- When crumbled, spread the crumbs onto oven sheets or clean table cloths for several days until totally dry.
- Keep in fridge or freezer.