Intro

Strictly speaking, this is a cold Armenian yogurt & sorrel soup (called Tanov in Ukrainian). But I make it hot: ain't nothing wrong with changing a recipe more to our liking!

And I changed this in more ways than one.

It's a soup I make rather regularly, cos it's super cheap and rather easy to make (only has 4 steps) and provides me with my yogurt quota for the day (read first two sections here for why that's super important).

Also this time I'll include short reviews of two recipes by fellow steemians @mariossap and @tikotiko!

Exciting!

So let's get soupin'!

Greens galore!

That's no cereal bowl, that's a big-ass salad basin!

The amount of greens that go into this gets me excited. It gets me excited cos I got this notion — not unsupported by research — that greens are good for me.

My taste buds ain't complainin' either. And there's a very satisfying crunch to the dill's stems that I like.

I've adjusted the quantities to 100 g spinach, 30 g dill, 20 g coriander, and 25 g sorrel. Those are for a single dose. (I make a double.)

That might not seem like a lot of grams, but they're a lot in dog years...excuse me I meant they're a lot in green grams.

Also once chopped and thrown into the pan, their mass gets quite manageable.

A note on the sorrel

They don't sell it where I live. As far as I know. So I use the salted jarred version. The 25 g refers to that. I use half a tsp salt & 1 eighth of a tsp finely ground pepper (for a single dose), so you might need to adjust upwards for the salt if you're using fresh sorrel (which is called οξαλίδα or λάπαθο in Greek, and щавель in Russia, where it's a common ingredient).

On to the Yogurt!

The recipe calls for "natural yogurt". That's quite generic if you ask me. The results you'll get using strained Greek yogurt vs soury sheep's yogurt will differ substantially, methinks, though I haven't tried the strained version.

No, I went straight for the sheep's yogurt. It seemed more reasonable to me, because this is a "half-Armenian Aunt Nina's" recipe written down by a Ukrainian chef, and despite recent political events Ukrainians and Russians share like 100% of their DNA and culture, including food culture, and in Russian dishes sorrel usually imparts a sour taste, so I figured that's what was intended, and after I tried it I was rather convinced I wouldn't like it any other way, and at least one other person who tried it told me "no, regular yogurt just won't do".

That was a big sentence.

So sheep's yogurt it is! 2 x 440 g of it! And as sour as it comes!

And 2 eggs, not 1. (The amounts are always for a single dose.)

And that's the last change I'll make to the recipe.

I promise.

Hot not cold

Except for the heat. It's okay-ish cold. But it's much better hot IMO.

Though I suspect for some reason that Aunt Nina's version is much better than mine, and might be better cold when she makes it. And it's her favorite family dish, to boot. I suspect the magic of Aunt Nina's cooking just can't be captured in a written recipe.

(Also make sure the rice is al dente.)

(No one likes mushy rice.)

On to our lovely steemian cooks!

I'm not saying there's anything going on between @mariossap and @tikotiko, but their recipes do complement one another rather well. Suspicious? You tell me.

@mariossap's freshly harvested cured olives

Let's start with @mariossap's homemade olives recipe, because that's the one that came first chronologically.

It started when I read his post.

It continued when I went to the grocery store one day and saw fresh uncured olives being sold.

For lack of an olive tree, that was my next best option.

So I purchased some.

Followed the recipe almost to the letter, including using an egg to measure proper salt/water ratios.

We got a floater!

I cured them for a week instead of 2 because they looked done to me.

And I was right.

I also left them in the salt half a day longer which did result in a bit of an extra-salty taste.

Now I'm not an olive connoisseur, but these did taste better than their supermarket equivalents. There was a more direct, more primal, more "full" taste to them.

If you won't mind, I'll have some with halloumi-filled feta.

Gripes: I only purchased some and the jars I had were either too small or too big. Many of the olives floated to the top, and I'd like to have something to weigh them down with, but the mouth of the jar was too small compared to its inside capacity, so the olives escaped to the side anyways, whatever I used.

This has been a constant issue with other ferments I tried. I'll probably need to buy some more specialized equipment.

Poor visibility, but it's the only pic I took.

@tikotiko's white beans soup (Fasolada)

This too was greens galore. I like!

Fasolada is a national dish, and therefore a favorite.

However, I can't really offer an objective review of this recipe, cos I messed it up!

All I can offer as an excuse is that it was my first time using a pressure cooker!

I know, strange, for someone who cooks regularly. But life is strange.

So what was the problem?

You see, my pressure cooker had the beans ready in 15 min instead of the prescribed 45. But I only checked after 20 min, and by then they were already a mush. But I had to dump the "first water", which probably took most of the beans' taste with it.

I then recooked the beans along with the veggies!

And I added the max amount of water.

So the result was a watery mush without much taste!

However, on the second day it was better, and the third day better still, approximating what I think ought to be the intended taste of this dish—and it was nice!

In a fit of inspiration I dumped @mariossap's olives right into the soup and the result was very good! The saltiness fit right in, and the tastes complemented perfectly.

I also liked the subtle but noticeable spicy punch that the chili imparted, which isn't a common ingredient in fasolada.

Note to recipe triers that "white beans" refers to navy beans, although they're white not navy blue.

If your beans are blue there's probably something wrong with them.

So there it is! Make sure to check @tikotiko's photos which are much better than my amateurish ones!

The cookbook

Tanov - Armenian cold yogurt & sorrel soup in Mamushka: Recipes from Ukraine and Eastern Europe, by Olia Hercules.

The posts

A classic comfort food: Beans’ soup (Fasolada) by @tikotiko

Wild Olive-The Process Of The Harvest/ A Superfood In Your Salad! by @mariossap

All pics by yours truly.

Past episodes:

4: Cookbook With Me #4 - My lovely date with a Prosciutto!

3: Cookbook With Me #3 - Something to Dip about

2: Cookbook With Me #2 - Evocative Almond Cake!

1: Cookbook With Me #1 - Surprisingly Good Pickled Okra!

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@alexander.alexis is a @greek-trail trailer and trailee