Ashure ~ a.k.a Noah's Pudding

Last saturday my mother cooked ashure. It's also knonw as Noah's Pudding in international literature.

I guess ashure is one of the oldest desserts of humanbeing history. The roots go back to Great Flood from which Noah escaped by his ark. You can read about ashure here and different details here if you like.

On the other hand I can shortly say that ashure is an important piece of Turkish culinary traditions. Day of ashure may remind a sad day for Islamic world (especially to Shi'as) as the grandson of the Islamic prophet was killed in a battle that day.

However I guess (mostly Sunni) Turkish traditions are based on Noah's ark legend as it's a tradition to cook quite a big amount of ashure and give away to friends, relatives, and neighbours.

I asked my mother how she cooked it, and took notes. So here comes the recipe of my mother's Ashure / Noah's Pudding :)


Ashure/ Ashura/ Noah’s Pudding
32-34 cups approx.

Ingredients

500 gr wheat for ashura
1 cup chickpeas
1 cup haricot beans
½ cup rice
1 cup raisins
1 cup dried apricots (chopped)
2 kg sugar (8 cups) (4.4 lbs)
1 cup milk (if desired)
Cinnamon, chopped hazelnuts, chopped walnuts, black currants to garnish


Method

Day 1:

Wash wheat well. Boil wheat in 2 litres of water, and leave it to soak overnight. Dice dried apricots. Also soak chickpeas, haricot beans, diced apricots and raisins in separated bowls in boiled water overnight, too.

Day 2:

1. Cook haricot beans in a saucepan until tender, and strain. Meanwhile also cook chickpeas until tender, strain and then husk them.
2. Put wheat (do not strain), chickpeas, rice and haricot beans in to a big/wide saucepan, add enough water (water must cover the ingredients and over 2 inches of them) and cook in high heat till it boils. Reduce the heat to medium when it boils. At this step you need to cook the mixture for at least 30 min.s. Do not forget to stir it time to time.
3. Add apricots, and raisins to the pudding, and cook for 15-20 min.s more.
4. Add sugar, and keep cooking for another 15 min.s
5. As a last step you can add milk to the pudding if you like, then need to cook for another 5-10 min.s
6. When the pudding is cooked, let it cool for 10 min.s then divide into pudding serving cups.
7. Let them cool in serving cups for another 10 min.s Then garnish them with ground cinnamon, chopped hazelnuts, walnuts, and black currants on top how you like.

Notes: You can add orange peel while cooking the pudding or use as a garnishing ingredient. Dried figs are also favorite to use while cooking but it darkens the colour of the pudding, so you can use diced dried figs as a garnishing as well. Ground pistachios, pinenuts, shredded coconut, and pomegranate seeds are also popular garnishing ingredients, too.


Tasting note edit: This pudding is kept in the fridge. However I like it best when it's still warm, before chilling in the fridge. Thank you Jessie for reminding me this important detail! :)