Needs Must when the Devil Drives

Photo © Rob Jones

I have a cupboard of things that need to be used up.

I have a fridge full of items looking for a recipe to be part of.

Two pressures which very often can conjure up some some lovely meals.

As in this case.

Behold Trahanosoupa. Find it on the menu as Τραχανάς σούπα.

What?

That’s a very good question.

In Greece Trahana is a traditional way of preserving milk for the winter, and involves mixing it with wheat and leaving it out in the summer sun to dry. You can then revitalise it in recipes such as Trahanosoupa which involves an awful lot of feta cheese. I suppose you could describe it as Cheese Soup or Cheesy Porridge.

Now the weather in Cornwall is good, but not that good, so I have adapted the recipes I could find to my own needs and tastes.

If you were making it properly, you’d mix your harvest of bulgar wheat, semolina or wheat flour with yoghurt buttermilk or milk on the turn, make the stodge into croquettes and then dry them in the warm late summer Mediterranean winds. Then whip them out when you want to make soup in the Winter. You end up with a sour tasting grain.

I toasted some Bulgar Wheat that was lounging in the cupboard, along with some chopped almonds in a fifty-fifty mix of butter and olive oil.

When it was beginning to go brown, I added some chicken stock. The process is a little like a risotto. You’ll need to keep adding stock.

Then add chunks of Feta cheese - crumbled into the mix - as much as you want. I grated in some Parmesan too. Because the Feta is salty, don’t add any extra salt to the mix.

To serve I squeezed over some lemon juice and added some chopped Spring Onions.

It goes really well with some crusty bread.

You can make a sweet Trahanasoupa, by switching out the cheese for something like cream, and using coffee instead of stock. Not unlike the fabulous Risotto al Caffè I once made.

Very warming, very good Winter lunch. Allegedly it’s healthy. Hard to believe I know. Maybe that bit’s not true.

R