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Fermentation Atlas

Cereals and bread from Turkey

Tarhana (Turkish)tarhana

Wheat flour, yogurt, yeast, cooked vegetables, salt and spices are kneaded into a dough and left to ferment for one to seven days. Lactic bacteria and yeasts sour it to about pH 4. The sour dough is then dried and crumbled into granules that keep for months and are cooked into soup. Made in 3 steps over 24 h – 7 days. The longest step, ferment the dough, takes 24 h – 7 days (Daglioglu O. 2000) and runs at 30–40 °C (Settanni L 2011). Salt is 0.6–9 % (Tamer C.E 2007). Pediococcus acidilactici and Streptococcus thermophilus do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 7 daysReported[s1][s2]Ferment the dough
Temperature30–40 °CReported[s5]Ferment the dough
Salt0.6–9 %Measured[s9]Dry and crumble
AciditypH 4.3–4.8Measured[s2]Ferment the dough
Fully documentedCereals and bread24 h – 7 daysMore cereals and breadMore from Turkey

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold recipes vary; the only fixed ratio in the sources is about one part yogurt to two parts flour by weight.
2 partsWheat flour · Generally one part yogurt to two parts flour (w/w)[s1]
1 partYogurt[s1]
Baker's yeast[s1]
Cooked tomatoes, onions and green pepper[s1]
Salt · Salt slows the souring[s1][s2]
Mint and paprika[s1]
Starteryogurt bacteria and baker's yeast, plus the flour and vegetable flora

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 7 days

Start
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shapes, not to countYeasts

What changes: Cooked vegetables, yogurt, flour, yeast and spices are kneaded into a dough

Step 1 of 3
Cook the vegetables and knead the dough
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactobacilli

Output: tarhana dough.

Flavour
tomato, pepper, mint
Texture
stiff dough
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

yogurt bacteria and yeast go in with the yogurt and the baker's yeast

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Tarhana is a yogurt-and-flour dough that is fermented and then dried into granules, so one batch keeps for soup for months. Yogurt bacteria and baker's yeast sour and raise it together.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Wet tarhanaThe fermented dough is kept moist or frozen instead of sun-dried; frozen tarhana kept less lactic acid than sun-dried in one study.
  • Barley tarhanaHull-less or hulled barley flour gives more beta-glucan, some of it lost in fermentation.
  • Wholemeal tarhanaWholemeal flour raises protein and vitamins but was liked less in one trial.

Safety

The low pH and 6–10 % moisture of the dried product give a poor medium for pathogens and spoilage organisms. A controlled study found no coliforms during fermentation when the vegetables were pasteurised.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

A Turkish household food with Central Asian roots; its earlier history is not settled in the sources used here.

  1. [s1] Daglioglu O. 2000, Tarhana as a traditional Turkish fermented cereal food: its recipe, production and composition, Nahrung 44(2):85–88 (abstract read)paper
  2. [s2] Ibanoglu S., Ainsworth P. et al. 1995, The effect of fermentation conditions on the nutrients and acceptability of tarhana, Food Chemistry 53(2):143–147 (abstract read)paper
  3. [s3] Ibanoglu S., Ibanoglu E. 1999, Effect of different ingredients on the fermentation activity in tarhana, Food Chemistry 64(1):103–106 (abstract read)paper
  4. [s4] Sengun I.Y., Nielsen D.S. et al. 2009, Identification of lactic acid bacteria isolated from Tarhana, a traditional Turkish fermented food, International Journal of Food Microbiology 135(2):105–111 (abstract read)paper
  5. [s5] Settanni L., Tanguler H. et al. 2011, Evolution of fermenting microbiota in tarhana produced under controlled technological conditions, Food Microbiology 28(7):1367–1373 (abstract read)paper
  6. [s6] Erbas M. et al. 2006, Effects of fermentation and storage on the organic and fatty acid contents of tarhana, a Turkish fermented cereal food, Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 19(4):294–301 (abstract read)paper
  7. [s7] Erbas M. et al. 2005, The effect of fermentation and storage on free amino acids of tarhana, International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition 56(5):349–358 (abstract read)paper
  8. [s8] Bozkurt O., Gürbüz O. 2008, Comparison of lactic acid contents between dried and frozen tarhana, Food Chemistry 108(1):198–204 (abstract read)paper
  9. [s9] Tamer C.E., Kumral A. et al. 2007, Chemical compositions of traditional tarhana having different formulations, Journal of Food Processing and Preservation 31(1):116–126 (abstract read)paper
  10. [s10] Erkan H., Çelik S. et al. 2006, A new approach for the utilization of barley in food products, barley tarhana, Food Chemistry 97(1):12–18 (abstract read)paper