Trahanas Pasta

Trahanas is a favorite soup pasta, and a winter favorite, often eaten for breakfast. Trahanas Soup with Milk is the Greek answer to chicken soup, made for whatever ails. Photo is of handmade trahana. The pasta is made and set out in pattie shapes to dry in hot weather, then ground into small pieces and set out to dry for several days until it becomes hard. Trahanas is used like rice and soup pastas - in soups and stews, in baked dishes, and as a breakfast dish. Trahanas is made in two versions - sweet and sour. Substitutes for the sweeter version are peperini (larger) and acini (smaller) soup pastas.

Basic Recipe for Homemade Trahanas

Traditionally made during sunny summer days because it dries over a period of several days in the sun, recipes with trahanas are winter favorites.

• 4 cups of hard (bread) flour
• 4 cups of semolina (fine grind)
• 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt
• whole milk (for sweet trahanas) or
• sheep's milk yogurt (for sour trahanas)

Quantities of milk or yogurt are vague due to differences in flour and semolina. Start with 1 cup and add more as needed to make a medium dough.

You'll also need pieces of tulle to cover the dough while it dries.

Combine all ingredients (using either the milk or the yogurt) to make a medium dough that doesn't stick to hands. Cut the dough into small pieces and form into small pattie shapes.

Place in a single layer on a flat surface outside in the sun, cover with tulle, and allow to dry out, turning the patties once or twice a day (drying may take 2-3 days). They should be fairly but not completely bone-dry because they still need to be ground.

In the food processor, grind the trahanas to small pieces. (Old fashioned home cooks grate the trahanas by hand.) The size of the ground trahanas pieces is very small, like other soup pastas.

Place ground trahanas on trays on a flat surface in the sun, cover with tulle, and allow to dry for one day.

Store in a plastic container in the refrigerator or, unrefrigerated, in a fabric (not plastic) bag.