Borhani
Borhani is a traditional dish listed among the local “aş” (broth/stew) dishes documented by the Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, served with yoghurt poured over it after cooking.
How it’s made
According to the official source, Borhani comes in three versions: dough-based, egg-based and mushroom-based. In the dough-based version, small pieces of dough with a hole pressed in the centre are placed in a pot and cooked; once done, yoghurt is poured over the top. A simpler version recorded by Üçköy, a village in Çorum’s central district, calls it “Borana (Borhani)” and describes it as egg boiled in water or oil, topped with garlicky yoghurt.
Its name and regional context
Borhani belongs to a wider, older family of yoghurt-based dishes known across Anatolia under names such as “borani, borana, boranı” — a tradition academic literature traces back to the “burani” dish of the medieval Turkic-Islamic kitchen. Anadolu Ajansı’s 2008 “Flavour Map” survey also lists Borhani among Çorum’s well-known local dishes.
Relationship with Alaca Boranisi
Our site also has a page for Alaca Boranisi (officially registered as Alaca Borana Yemeği), which holds geographical indication status. Sources point to both overlap and difference between the two: Alaca Boranisi shares Borhani’s egg-based and mushroom-based names, but in the registered recipe the egg or mushroom is mixed directly into garlicky yoghurt, topped with a butter-and-pepper-flake sauce — this does not exactly match Borhani’s officially documented method of cooking dough pieces separately and pouring yoghurt on top, and Borhani’s “dough-based” version has no counterpart in the registered Alaca Boranisi. Sources do not clearly state whether the two names historically refer to the same dish or are separate local interpretations of the same “boranı” root family, so they are treated here as distinct dishes.
Sources
- Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism — “What to Eat?” (corum.ktb.gov.tr)
- Gastronomi Dergisi — “Çorum Cuisine, Bearing the Traces of a Five-Thousand-Year-Old Culture”, Reha Tartıcı, 20.09.2021
- Anadolu Ajansı Archive — “Flavour Map”, 05.01.2008
- Academia.edu — “A Popular Dish in Medieval Cuisine: Burani”
- Çorum Üçköy Village Association — “Our Dishes” (corumuckoy.com)
- Çorum Hakimiyet — “Alaca’s Most Famous Flavour: Borana Yemeği”, 23.03.2024