Cold nights call for a warm bowl of trachanas soup, rich and satisfying.
Trachanas, as many of you know, is cracked wheat or flour dried with yogurt, or milk (regular fresh or fermented) or vegetable pulp. Cracked barley can be used instead of wheat, it is not a common practice though. When trachanas cooks it becomes a creamy soup.
I use to cook trachanas as soup, pilaf or side dish and love to add it to pies, so I always have different types of it in my fridge.
(The best way to store any uncooked trachanas is to keep it in the fridge.)
Trachanas, as many of you know, is cracked wheat or flour dried with yogurt, or milk (regular fresh or fermented) or vegetable pulp. Cracked barley can be used instead of wheat, it is not a common practice though. When trachanas cooks it becomes a creamy soup.
I use to cook trachanas as soup, pilaf or side dish and love to add it to pies, so I always have different types of it in my fridge.
(The best way to store any uncooked trachanas is to keep it in the fridge.)
If the uncooked trachanas is highly flavorful, it needs only be boiled with water. Some yogurt or feta cheese can be added at the end.
Trachanas also makes a delicious warming breakfast.
These days I have 3 varieties of trachanas in my fridge.
These are two different kinds of trachana from Lemnos*: spicy lenten trachanas made with a combination of flour, red peppers, onions, and basil leaves (left) and trachanas made with cracked local barley** and fermented milk (right).
Here is a close up of lenten trachanas.
This is wonderfully tasty Turkish tarhanas made by dear Ozlem’s mother.
Tarhana herb (echinophora sibthorpiana, engl. thurb) has been used as a flavoring in it. Nurcan Deghirmencioghlu suggests that this herb also improves the fermentation of trachana.
*Lemnos produces wheat flour of an exceptionally good quality for bread, pasta and trachanas.
**The local barley of Lemnos is called Virgin Mary’s barley (krithari tis Panaghias).
MORE ABOUT TRACHANAS