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Cereals and bread from Western Iran

Tarkhineh (Kurdish and western Iranian)ترخینه

Tarkhineh is a dried sour food of western Iran made from wheat meal and doogh, a sour yogurt drink. The wheat soaks and ferments in the doogh for about a week, is mixed with salt and dried mint, then dried in the sun in tiny portions for 3–4 days.

Fully documentedCereals and bread10 days – 12 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceAmounts are the traditional-method batch of Moradi et al. 2022 (after Mashak et al. 2014); households vary them.
Wheat meal1000 g[moradi2022]
Sour doogh4000 ml[moradi2022]
Salt20 gAdded after fermentation[moradi2022]
Dried mint (Mentha longifolia) powder20 gAdded after fermentation; pennyroyal and ziziphora are also used[moradi2022]
Startersour doogh, whose yogurt bacteria ferment the wheat

Total time across the recorded steps: 10 days – 12 days

Start
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Close-up: water moving into a grain

What changes: Wheat meal soaks up sour doogh

Step 1 of 5
Soak the wheat meal in sour doogh
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
L. delbrueckii
L. plantarum
Lactococcus lactis
L. mesenteroides

Output: wheat and doogh mix.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

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

At a glance

Tarkhineh is a dried sour food of western Iran made from wheat meal and doogh, a sour yogurt drink. The wheat soaks and ferments in the doogh for about a week, is mixed with salt and dried mint, then dried in the sun in tiny portions for 3–4 days. Made in 5 steps over 10 days – 12 days. The longest step, ferment the mixture, takes 7–8 days (Moradi L. et al. 2022). Salt is 2 % (Moradi L. et al. 2022). Lactic bacteria isolated from 60 traditional tarkhineh samples of Kermanshah: Lactobacillus delbrueckii, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, Lactococcus lactis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and Lactobacillus johnsonii and Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus (yogurt cultures in the doogh); 7.45 log CFU/g after drying do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step7–8 daysReported[moradi2022]Ferment the mixture
Salt2 %Reported[moradi2022]Mix in salt and dried mint
AciditypH 4.9Measured[moradi2022]Store

What makes this one different

Tarkhineh soaks wheat in doogh, a salted yogurt drink, and is dried in small pieces. Turkish tarhana uses flour, yogurt and vegetables and is dried into granules, and Levantine kishk uses bulgur and yogurt.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Cooked tarkhineh (laboratory recipe)Wheat semolina soaked 3–4 h in buttermilk or yogurt, then salt and herbs added, heated and stirred until thick; plain or with turmeric.

Safety

Moradi et al. name contaminated doogh, wheat and spices such as mint as the potential route for aflatoxins in tarkhineh, and cite a survey that found M1 at about 11 ng/kg in samples from four western provinces. In their own study, with toxin added to the doogh, eight days of fermentation lowered M1 by 65.10–81.20% and B1 by 55.80–74.10%. The levels rose again as the paste dried, then held about constant through four months of storage at room temperature. WHO advises discarding grain that looks mouldy, discoloured or shrivelled.

Hazards the sources name: Aflatoxins B1 and M1; when added to the doogh in a study, fermentation lowered them and their concentration rose again as the paste dried.

History and sources

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

A locally made food of Kermanshah, Ilam, Kurdistan and Lorestan in western Iran, where it is also called tarkhowana or doowina in Kurdish.

  1. [moradi2022] Moradi L. et al. 2022, Fate of aflatoxins M1 and B1 within the period of production and storage of Tarkhineh, a traditional Persian fermented food, Food Science and Nutrition 10(3):945–952, doi:10.1002/fsn3.2728paper
  2. [kiani2025] Kiani A. et al. 2025, Synergistic antimicrobial and probiotic activity of lactic acid bacteria isolated from Tarkhineh against Candida albicans, Scientific Reports 15:20651, doi:10.1038/s41598-025-07549-7paper
  3. [kiani2021] Kiani A. et al. 2021, Application of Tarkhineh fermented product to produce potato chips with strong probiotic properties, high shelf-life, and desirable sensory characteristics, Frontiers in Microbiology 12:657579, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.657579paper
  4. [who2023] World Health Organization 2023, Mycotoxins, fact sheet (2 October 2023) (general safety text only)gov