We can easily say that “yayla çorbası” is one of the most known and loved soups in Turkey. Mainly consisting of plain yogurt, dried mint and rice, this soup is easy on the stomach and very nutritious. There are several different ways of making and serving it. Here I will share my own recipe that is enriched with fresh purslane.

These are what you need:

  • 1/2 cup rice *(can be substitute with 1 cup leftover cooked plain rice)
  • 6 cups water
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 1 cup plain yogurt
  • 1 egg yolk
  • ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 tbsp. butter
  • Salt, dried mint and hot red pepper flakes
  • 250g purslane – washed and chopped

In a medium size saucepan combine rice and 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Cook rice until it softens with the lid covered. In a separate bowl, beat egg yolk, yogurt, flour and 1 cup of hot water with a whisk until well blended and creamy. Slowly add this mixture into the saucepan with rice and water while stirring continuously. Turn up the heat, add butter, salt, red pepper flakes and dried mint. Again, bring to a boil and after 5 minutes remove from heat. Lastly add the purslane, let it stand for 10 minutes with lid covered before serving.

Serve and enjoy!

Some tips:

  • The traditional way of serving this soup is to drizzle melted butter with red pepper flakes and dried mint over the top of the soup just before serving. Without a doubt, this will look and taste better. But I rather skip this tradition to reduce the steps and use of butter in my soup.
  • Adding purslane, the last will help prevent overcooking that will preserve the nutrition.
  • Adding hot water in the yogurt mix will prevent the curdled yogurt appearance in your soup.
  • If you want to use leftover rice then reduce water to 5 cups.
  • If the soup becomes thick you can always add more water little by little.

Filiz Arslan
Jumadi al-Awwal 1442