Hot And Sour Orzo Soup Recipe
Hot and sour Chinese soup is my favorite soup from world cuisines. When I go to a Chinese restaurant, I always order it as a starter. I love the feeling that it slowly burns me rather than the taste. I've never tried making it at home. Because there are a lot of ingredients I need to buy especially for that soup, and I don't like to do special shopping for a single recipe. But one day, if I combine it with other recipes and shop for Chinese recipes, I will definitely try it.
Until that day, I will find solace in the hot and sour orzo soup recipe, which gives me the feeling that hot and sour soup gives me. Don't mind me saying I'll find solace. Although its ingredients, preparation and logic are very different, it does not look like hot and sour soup at all. On top of that, it gives an extra spiritual warmth with its very familiar orzo soup smell and aroma.
While eating hot and sour orzo soup, you feel like you are eating a slightly spicy soup first, just like you do with hot and sour soup, and as you keep eating the soup, the level of hotness you feel increases, and every place the soup touches starts to burn. If you eat it fast, it makes you sweat a little. With these features, it is a soup that can be made for healing from a cold.
Why Does Orzo Soup Have An Oil Layer On Top?
One of the most distinctive features of orzo soup is the oil layer floating on it. So what causes this layer of oil? As is known from the proverb to rise above water like olive oil, oil and water do not mix and oil always rises above the water. In this case, in a soup where oil and water come together, there is nothing more natural than oil rising on top of the soup. The main question to be asked is why there is no oil layer in soups such as chicken broth soup or lentil soup. There are ways to bind oil and water together and prevent the oil from floating above the water. The strongest binders that bind oil and water together are eggs, milk and starch. The flour and milk used in the chicken broth soup and the egg yolk used in the sour chicken soup bind the oil and water together, giving the soup a velvety smooth consistency and appearance. Lentils, which are processed with a hand blender in lentil soup, do this with their own starch.
On the other hand, since no binder is used in orzo soup, the oil rises above the soup. However, when the soup is kept in the refrigerator for a while, the oily appearance of the orzo soup disappears as the orzo gradually release their own starch into the water.
In short, if you see the oily appearance of your orzo soup as a flaw, leave it. This image is the hallmark of orzo soup.
Enjoy the recipe...
Ingredients
- 1 cup of orzo,
- 1 green pepper,
- 1 cup of tomato puree,
- 5 tablespoons of olive oil,
- 6 cups of boiling water,
- 1 teaspoon of sumac
- 1 tablespoon of pomegranate syrup,
- 1 tablespoon of hot pepper flakes,
- Salt.
Preparation
- Heat the olive oil in a deep pan, add the finely chopped pepper and stir fry until soften,
- Add the tomato puree and stir fry for a few minutes,
- Add water and orzo and cook by stirring until it starts to boil,
- When it starts to boil, reduce the heat, close the lid and cook, stirring occasionally, until the orzo is soft,
- Add salt, pepper flakes, sumac and pomegranate syrup, mix and remove from the heat.
Bon Appetit...