My Aşure

Aşure has and will always be meant for sharing, no matter how good or terrible your aşure is.. It took me many years to experiment the making of the turkish aşure that my beloved and I would love.So here it is....my recipe...especially for my sweet Hatice...who loves this Aşure so much and may need the recipe one day to cook in her own home...
Çiçeğim... işte... bu senin için...

-500 gram of wheat.
-Wash it again and again until you see no brown color coming out of the water.
-Leave it in water overnight to soften.
-Cook it in a pressure cooker (duduklu tencere) for 1 hour (dont forget to add in enough water!!).
Turks love their wheat extremely soft...so one hour is actually not long enough.. trust me..

-Add in 3/4 more glasses of water into the cooked wheat.
-Turn the heat to minimal.
-Add in 1 kg of granulated sugar.

-Cook half a glass of rice with loads of water.
-Blend the rice into smooth paste.
The rice paste will act as a thickening agent.
-Add in the rice paste into the pot
-Continuosly stir the mixture. Do not let the bottom part of the pot burn.

-Add in 1 litre of milk

-Add in 200 grams of fresh almonds.
The almonds should be boiled for around 5 minutes until the skin can slide off easily from the nut.
-The skin free almond will then be added into the aşure pot.
-keep stirring...

-Slice the dried apricot into small pieces
-Add in the sliced apricot once the Aşure mixture starts boiling.
-Never stop stirring.
-Once the sliced apricot looks soft, add in the dried raisins
-Dont add the raisins too early as it may color the Aşure.

REMEMBER: TURKİSH AŞURE MUST BE WHITE!

-Add in the sliced dried figs into the Aşure mixture AT THE LAST MINUTES..
The figs can colour the aşure. We dont want that...do we?

-crush the hazelnuts and walnuts (forgot to take the walnuts' pics) to be sprinkled on top of the aşure before service...

ops..did i tell you that you can also add in cinnamon stick to the aşure recipe? Yup... dont add it in too early though... add in at the last minute...

Here is the end finish of my aşure...made today... my 2nd aşure this year..3rd coming up after the bursa trip...
I love it when my Aşure is topped with pomogranate (nar/buah delima)...
NOTE: Almost every turkish Aşure will have chick peas and broad beans in it. I do not put them in as my hubby do not like them in his Aşure. You can also add in the skin of oranges, thinly sliced,pistachios, and any other things one feel like adding (this year, i ate an aşure with cucumber in it!)...so the choice is basically yours...

Afiyet Olsun...
Try it... it is simple really...