Edited BY
G P Kennedy
AŞURE, NOAH’s ARK TO SHARE
from Gul
This month you see an odd food traffic around, a dessert swapped continuously between neighbors. It’s called aşure (pronounced as aah-shoor-ey), or Noah’s Pudding in English. Every year, Turkish women compete each other to create the best aşure while I wait for my neighbors whose names I don’t even know to bring one to me.
Luckily, our summer neighbors are more generous than the winter ones. I have already received three different aşure so far. The other day one of our neighbors dropped a tray in his hand as he was walking 20 bowls on it. Luckily my share was in his wife’s hand. Yummy...
ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE
Aşure means one for all and all for one. It’s cooked in appreciation to God and the celebration of diversity and equality. Sharing with others is an important ritual for aşure month therefore plenty of aşure is cooked in almost every household and distributed to as many friends and neighbors as possible.
There are many rumors about the events believed to have taken in this month. The most common of these are: the landing of Noah’s ark – Noah made it on the Ark by combining whatever ingredients were left on the ark - , in Alevi communities, marks the tragedy of Karbala, when the Prophet’s grandsons were killed, and for Sunnis the celebration of the first Islamic month, called Muharrem. I think there’s a similar pudding, Ashura with a Jewish story attached as well.
Whatever its origins, aşure is delicious. It’s made up of 12 different ingredients, from a combination of chickpeas, walnuts, apricots, barley, currants, raisins, pine nuts and other ingredients. Also, aşure is one of the few Turkish desserts that contains no animal products. It’s suggested that serving aşure is a statement against violence and bloodshed.
I learnt that it is also one of our nominations for the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage for 2020 so good luck for aşure.
HOW TO COOK IT
Unfortunately, I prefer to eat not to cook. It’s way too complicated for my cooking skills. But a couple of years ago, I made some and distributed to my colleagues in Liverpool. Even though don’t think many people liked them, wanted to show a bit of my culture.
There is no one single recipe for making aşure, you can find hundreds variations online. Here is one of recipe (belong to Elizabeth Taviloglu) you can add more ingredients to your taste if you want.
- 3 cups uncooked whole grain wheat or barley
- 1 1/2 cups canned chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
- 1 1/2 cups canned navy beans (rinsed and drained)
- 1/4 cup uncooked rice
- 3 tablespoon dried currants
- 3 tablespoon pine nuts
- 8 dried apricots (cut into chunks)
- 8 dried figs (cut in chunks)
- 3 cups of sugar
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- Zest of 1 orange (optional)
- Zest of 1 lemon (optional)
- 2 tablespoon rose water (optional)
Steps to Make It
1. The night before put the wheat or barley in a large pot and cover it with plenty of water.
2. Bring it to a boil, cover and reduce the heat. Allow it to boil gently for about ten minutes.
3. Turn off the heat and leave the grain to cool and soak overnight.
4. The next morning, the grain should have absorbed most, if not all the liquid. Add the chickpeas, beans, rice, dried fruits, sugar and optional rose water or orange, and lemon zest.
5. Add more water to just cover the ingredients if needed. Bring the mixture to a boil.
6. Stir the mixture gently with a wooden spoon as it cooks until it thickens.
7. Remove it from the heat and fill dessert bowls or a large serving bowl with the pudding.
8. Once it cools down and sets, cover and refrigerate it for several hours.
9. Before serving, garnish the pudding with fresh pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, finely chopped dried fruits and groundnuts.
10. Some prefer their pudding more water, some prefer it stiffer. If you prefer a stiffer pudding, add a teaspoon or two of powdered gelatine while the mixture cooks. This will give you a firmer pudding once it cools down.
AfIyet olsun. Bon appetite.
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