This Black Sea Region recipe is a recipe from my dad's side of the family. My aunt invites the rest of the family over dinner (in addition to all the special occasions) when she cooks three special dishes. Number one is mantı, number two is dolma, and number three is pakla soup, which by the way draws more attendees than dolmas. This simple soup is so popular among the family members that there had been times when we fought over the second serving. The popularity derives from the limited number of times we get to have this soup in a year, and this scarcity is a direct result of a-hard-to-find ingredient: corn bulgur.
Corn bulgur although widely used especially in the Black Sea Region is rarely found elsewhere in Turkey or here in the States. Corn bulgur is parboiled crushed kernel corn made by a similar process that is used for common wheat bulgur.
When I got the recipe from my aunt years ago I asked her what to do if I cannot find corn bulgur here in the States, she suggested fresh corn kernels--it turned out fıne, but wasn't the same soup. However, back then I didn't know about grits. After moving to South, I was introduced to grits, cheesy grits in particular--I absolutely love it. Through explorations I came across coarse grits, which creates a very similar taste to that of corn bulgur in pakla soup, which literally means bean soup.
1 cup uncooked coarse grits (1/3 or 1/4 of a kernel coarse)
~ 1 cup dry cannellini beans or ~2 cups cooked cannellini beans or 1 can of cannellini beans
1 small onion, grated
2 tbsp tomato paste
3-4 tbsp butter
salt
1 small piece of bone-in lamb shoulder*
-Put grits and beans if you're not using can beans in a pot filled with water. Bring to a boil, turn it off, cover and soak overnight.
-Next day put grits and beans in a pot with lots of water (~10-12 cups) with bone-in lamb shoulder and salt. Cook on medium for an hour or until both beans and grits are soft.
-In a frying pan, heat butter and saute grated onion until soft.
-Add tomato paste cook for another minute or two.
-Add onions to the soup and cook for another 5 minutes.
*You can skip the bone-in lamb or beef; this soup is also very good without addition of meat.
I love grits too! Are course grits going to look more like bulgur and less like sand? Would regular grits work? This soup sounds like a wonderful cold weekend meal, I might try it if I can round up some grits.
ReplyDeleteMolly
Hı Molly, i added a picture of the grits I used; they definitely look less like sand. I am not sure about regular grits, taste wise it could be the same yet the texture might differ. Let me know if you try. And yes, it really is a cold weekend soup.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to try grits (can you imagine)but I can see how the course variety would be a great substitute.
ReplyDeleteYum! This looks great. I love the background information you give to each dish. I'm not a big soup fan but I'm looking forward to trying this!
ReplyDeleteWould hominy work? Cracked corn can be purchased in the Latin American section of supermarket.
ReplyDeleteI like the image of family members fighting over second helping of soup. Thanks for the photo of the corn: I don't think I have ever seen grits so coarse, but I will look again.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately no grits here. I will have to try dried corn kernels. If I pass them through the course setting of my grain mill, would that work?
ReplyDeleteThis recipe looks too delicious not to try. I couldn't find corn bulghur, but I did find cracked white corn and some yellow coarse polenta. I'm going to try using mainly the cracked corn and add some of the yellow for color. I'll post with how it turns out!
ReplyDelete