Mercimek çorbası

Ingredients

• Red lentils — rinsed250 g
• Onion1
• Carrot1
• Potato1
• Tomato paste1 tbsp
• Water or stock1.4 l
• Butter40 g
• Dried mint1 tsp
• Sweet paprika1 tsp
• Lemonto taste
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the onion and carrot in a spoon of butter until soft, add the tomato paste and give it another minute, until it darkens.

   8 min

2. 2

   Add the lentils, potato and water, bring to the boil and simmer for twenty-five minutes, until the lentils have collapsed completely.

   25 min

3. 3

   Blend until entirely smooth. The soup should be thick but still pourable; loosen it with boiling water if it is not.

   3 min

4. 4

   Melt the rest of the butter, take it off the heat and stir in the mint and paprika. Ladle out the soup, spoon the butter over and serve with a wedge of lemon.

   3 min

About the dish

This soup is in every Turkish canteen and every Turkish home, and the recipe is nearly the same everywhere: lentils, onion, carrot and a potato for body. The difficulty is not in the list but in two finishing touches.

The first is lemon. It is squeezed into the bowl, not the pot, and without it the soup stays heavy: the acid opens up a lentil flavour that is fairly muted on its own.

The second is melted butter with dried mint and paprika poured over the top. It is not stirred in — the aroma comes off the surface, and half the pleasure is in that.

Worth knowing

• — The paprika goes into butter that is already off the heat. On a hot pan it burns in seconds and turns bitter.
• — Rub the mint between your palms before it goes in — that is what releases the aroma.
• — The soup thickens as it cools. The next day it is loosened with boiling water rather than reboiled.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

330 kcal

Protein

16 g

Fat

10 g

Carbs

45 g

More from Turkey

• Menemen — Eggs cooked into tomatoes and green pepper. They are never beaten and rarely stirred, or you end up with ordinary scrambled eggs.