Trahanas Soup

Trahanas is known all over Cyprus as well as in many parts of Greece. It is a delicious and nutritional food, probably the world's healthiest fast food. It is soup with cracked wheat kneaded in soured milk. Let's see how this traditional food is prepared. After the wheat is thoroughly washed, it is blended in a hand mill. Then it is mixed with soured milk and the mixture is placed in the fire. When it boils well, the mixture coagulates, and then it is moulded into small elongated pieces which lay in the sun where they dry out. These dry pieces are stored and so preserved for a year in the freezer. Each time you wish to cook trahana soup, you take the desired quantity from the stored dry pieces in the freezer. The pieces are placed into water, where they inflate and open. Haloumi cheese can be added, chopped into small pieces, which also cooks inside the soup. Trahanas is served hot after some salt, pepper and lemon (optional) are added.


Here is the recipe of Trahanas Soup in Cyprus
INGREDIENTS
Serves 4
200g trahanas
8 cups water
1 Vegetable stock cube
½ teaspoon salt
125g halloumi cheese cut in small cubes or feta cheese
Ground pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS

1. Place trahanas in a medium sized bowl and cover it with 4 cups water.  Let it soak for 2-3 hours. 
2. Pour trahanas into a large pot, add the remaining 4 cups of water and the vegetable stock. Bring to a boil stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook for 15 minutes, stirring every so often so that trahanas doesn't stick.   Add more water if you think the soup is too thick and cook for a few extra minutes.
3. Five minutes before you turn the heat off add halloumi or feta cheese .  Gently stir in until you take the soup off the cooker. Serve hot!

   Recipe by Anastasia Marou