Rashouf: lentil, wheat and jameed soup

Rashouf is the winter soup, or porridge, of the Hauran: lentils, chickpeas and cracked wheat cook in churned yoghurt or dissolved jameed, and onion fried golden in olive oil goes over the top. It is made on snowy, cold days, when the family gathers at the house of its eldest.

Where the name comes from

In Arabic, rashf means to sip. The dish is named for the way it is drawn in sips, hot, from the sahleh, a low-footed copper bowl known in the Hauran; eSyria’s article on the dish is titled “sahleh soup”.

How it is made

Cooks in Daraa describe it like this: whole lentils are half-boiled, chickpeas are soaked ahead, and wheat is cracked into jarish. The yoghurt or jameed is brought to the boil, then the lentils, chickpeas and wheat go in and cook through. Boiled meat can be added. Onion fried golden in olive oil goes on last, and the dish comes to the table in a large bowl.

The recipe shifts from place to place. Some areas use bulgur or rice instead of wheat, and in others bread is torn in to make a tharid.

What comes with it

Olives, olive oil and shrak bread. Some tear the shrak into the bowl and pour the rashouf over it. In Nawa the dish is also tied to the threshing and wheat season.

How it differs from harak osbao

Damascus harak osbao is lentils and dough with pomegranate molasses. Rashouf has a yoghurt or jameed base with grain in it, and its sourness comes from the yoghurt rather than from pomegranate.

Where to eat it

It is a home dish, made in winter in Daraa province, Nawa and the villages of the Hauran. The same dish exists across the border in northern Jordan and in the Syrian steppe, a winter table shared by both sides of the Hauran plain.