Alaca Çorba Recipe
Alaca çorba (alaca soup) is one of the popular soups of Gaziantep cuisine. It is a very nutritious, delicious soup with lots of legumes. The soup gets its flavor from the tarragon rather than the ingredients in it. Tarragon is a spice with a flavor like the mixture of cinnamon and anise in my opinion. Tarragon is usually used in a dried form, but if you have the fresh one, you can use it fresh.
Another feature of the Alaca soup is that it is one of the rare vegan dishes of Gaziantep cuisine. When Gaziantep and soup are mentioned, many people think of beyran soup and lebeniye soup. Both contain meat. Surely there are those who use butter or broth/chicken stock in Alaca soup. But you can cook it without them as well. But you cannot remove meat from Beyran soup.
Another feature of the Alaca soup is that it does not progress with the classic tomato paste and onion frying, add other ingredients and cook. In order to make the alaca soup, first lentils, wheat and onions are cooked together in water. Since I keep the chickpeas boiled in the freezer all the time, I also use it for this soup. But if you do not have such a preparation, you can soak the chickpeas overnight and boil the chickpeas in a pressure cooker while the wheat and lentils are cooking. After the ingredients are boiled, the tomato paste is roasted with tarragon in a separate bowl and added to the soup.
Can You Make Alaca Çorba Without Tarragon?
This may be the first question that comes to mind, as tarragon is not a very common spice. Of course, you can make this soup without using tarragon, but the soup you get will not be a full-blown soup. Because the taste will change drastically. Since tarragon is a spice with a unique smell and taste, there is no alternative that will serve the same function, unfortunately.
Enjoy the recipe...
Ingredients
- 1 cup of wheat berries,
- 1 cup of green lentils,
- 3 cups of boiled chickpeas,
- 6 dried red peppers,
- 1 onion,
- 1 tablespoon of tomato paste,
- Salt,
- 2 tablespoons of fresh or dried tarragon,
- 5-6 tablespoons of olive oil,
- Water.
Preparation
- Take the peppers into a bowl, add boiling water over, and let them soften,
- Wash the wheat and lentils and take them into a pot,
- Chop the onion and add it to the por,
- Add enough water to cover them and boil them on medium heat until the wheat and lentils soften,
- Take the peppers out of the water and chop them into small pieces and add them to the pot,
- Add the chickpeas,
- If the water is not enough, add boiling water,
- Heat the olive oil in a separate pan,
- Add the tomato paste and stir fry until smells good,
- Add the tarragon and mix,
- Add the sauce to the pot and mix,
- Add salt and remove from heat.
Enjoy...