Cue the memes about a return policy or 0 star reviews on 2021. I’m still not 100% convinced that it’s been only 1 week since the start of the New Year. Between the utter insanity in DC, the unabated carnage of Covid-19, and the beginning of the academic quarter hitting me like a ton of bricks, I feel like I’ve aged 10 years in the past 10 days. So I hope you forgive me if I keep things simple this week.
This is a hearty lentil and bulgur soup that both comforts and reminds me of better times. The recipe comes from a Turkish cooking school where Omar and I took a class on one of our trips to Istanbul. It’s become a tradition of ours to take cooking classes when we travel to new places. We’ve found it’s a great way to learn in more detail about the ingredients and techniques that go into local, homemade cuisine. Every class we’ve attended also provides a recipe booklet as part of the class so we can recreate the dishes and memories at home.
The soup was only the first dish in a multi-course Turkish feast that also included İmam Bayıldı (eggplant in tomato and olive oil sauce), Kabak Mücveri (zucchini and cheese fritters), Etli Yaprak Sarması (lamb-stuffed grape leaves), and Şekerpare (almond semolina cookies). It was a lot of food, but we also worked up quite an appetite with all the labor that went into it!
Luckily for us, the lentil and bulgur soup (Ezogelin Çorbası) requires minimal labor to reproduce at home, and it’s become a regular on our winter dinner rotation. You can seriously have this on the table in a grand total of 30 minutes from start to finish. There are two ingredients worth seeking our that might take some effort to find – Turkish red pepper paste (biber salçası) and pepper flakes (pul biber) – but given that a pandemic might not be the time to venture into multiple stores to hunt them down, I’ve also provided notes on approximate substitutions from American pantry staples. Post-pandemic, I encourage you to visit a Middle Eastern market and seek them out, as the flavors are really unique.
I’d love to hear about the foods from travels that you’re recreating at home during quarantine – let me know in the comments below!
Turkish Lentil & Bulgur Soup
Ingredients
- 250g red lentils, rinsed
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp dried mint
- 1 tsp turkish pepper flakes (pul biber)*
- 1 tbsp turkish red pepper paste (biber salçası)**
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 50g medium or coarse bulgur
- 5 cups vegetable or chicken broth
- salt to taste (not needed if your broth is very salty)
- lemon wedges and chopped parsley for serving
Directions
- Put the lentils in a pot and add water to cover by about ~2 inches. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes until lentils are falling apart. Set aside.
- In a separate large pot, melt butter and oil together over medium heat. Add flour and stir to make a light roux. Add mint and dried pepper, stirring constantly for about 1 minutes – do not allow it to burn!
- Add pepper and tomato pastes, stir and cook for 30 seconds. Add bulgur and stir to combine.
- Add broth and cooked lentils. Bring to a boil, then lower heat. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Taste and salt if needed.
- Serve with lemon wedges, chopped parsley, and extra pepper to season to taste.
- If you don’t have aleppo pepper flakes, you can use a combination of hot Hungarian paprika and red pepper flakes. If you don’t want the soup to be spicy at all, mild paprika can be substituted.
- Turkish red pepper paste can be tough to track down, but its worth seeking out. Many middle eastern markets stock it. if you can’t find it, double the tomato paste.
