Turkish lentil soup: homemade recipes

Turkish lentil soup “Mercimek Çorbası”

Ingredients

lentils (preferably red) – 100 gr.;
water – 1 l.;
olive oil – 100 ml;
white onion – 50 gr.;
carrots – 50 gr.;
lemon – 30 gr.;
mint – 3-4 gr. (you can use dried);
salt, red chili pepper, spices - to taste.

Preparation

Peel the carrots and onions and chop them finely. You can grate it on a medium grater.
Fry in hot olive oil until soft. The carrots need to darken.
Wash the lentils and throw them into the pan. We send fried vegetables along with oil to it. Pour in water and put on fire.
As soon as the soup boils, reduce the heat to low and cook with the lid closed for about 10 minutes.
At the very end of cooking, add spices, salt and a sprig of mint to the lentil soup.
Pour the finished soup into a blender and grind until pureed. Pour back into the pan and bring to a boil.
Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and garnish with mint leaves and a slice of lemon.

This lentil soup recipe is easy to prepare.

This is a vegetarian dish rich in vegetable protein. If you wish, you can cook it in meat broth.

Lentil soup

Introduction

Lentil soup is probably on the menu of all nations. One of the most ancient cultivated food plants is lentils, mentioned in the Bible.
According to biblical history, lentil stew became a measure of the birthright between the brothers Jacob and Esau. A legume native to Asia, lentils are still one of the most important agricultural plants in Asia. The seeds are mainly eaten - both whole and ground into flour. For many peoples, lentils are the main source of vegetable protein. In Asia Minor, Turkey, lentils are a staple food in some regions. Additionally, lentil soups are quite common and loved.

I remember while staying in a luxurious Turkish hotel, I tried a very tasty lentil soup. For some reason I remember the name - Ezogelin çorbası. Actually, this is a fairly thick and homogeneous soup made from boiled lentils. The prevalence and variety of recipes in Turkey is approximately the same as Ukrainian red borscht. There is no single recipe, and there cannot be one. The basis of the soup is lentils and coarsely ground wheat (bulgur). Everyone has their own spices.

The name of the soup is a separate issue. There is a sweet story about a Turkish girl, Ezo, who lived more than a century ago in northern Turkey. In the wake of personal and family problems, the girl cooked lentil soup, which was later called Ezo gelin çorbası. Literally translated, "Ezo's Bride's Soup." Since then, every bride cooks the soup on the eve of the wedding - it’s like a master class multiplied by a “bride.”

Ironically, if you write Ezo gelin together - ezogelin, then the translation will be very prosaic - lentils. Whether it was by chance or an attempt to bring the legend closer to cooking, it doesn’t matter. Turkish lentil soup is exceptionally tasty and nutritious, perfectly warming in cool weather. In addition, it is extremely easy to cook, no more complicated than a recipe for white bean soup.

After reviewing a large number of articles entitled “recipe - lentil soup”, I came to the conclusion that there is no unity. How many people, so many recipes. Often they also write pureed lentil soup or red lentil soup. I settled on a recipe that I accidentally wrote down in a nice place on the border of Bulgaria and Turkey. The owner told me very kindly and even gave me a small book, which, unfortunately, I gave to someone and... that's all. But the recipe remains.

We prepare a delicious soup from lentils, wheat, and tomato. It's getting colder outside now, and this soup for dinner will come in handy. It's not just delicious, it's very tasty! I recommend!

By the way, I have another option for making lentil soup, it’s simpler.

Turkish red lentil soup

Ingredients

red lentils – 250 gr.;
potatoes – 100 gr.;
carrots – 50 gr.;
white onion – 50 gr.;
water – 2.5 liters;
tomato paste – 25 gr.;
butter – 5 g;
cumin – 3 gr.;
thyme – 6 gr.;
dry mint – 5 gr.;
salt - to taste.

Preparation

We clean and wash the vegetables. Cut the potatoes and carrots into small cubes, grate the onion on a medium grater.
Wash the lentils under running water until they become transparent.
Place the washed lentils and cooked vegetables into the pan. Fill with cold water only and put on fire.
As soon as the lentil soup boils, turn the heat to medium and cook for about half an hour. During this time, the vegetables should be completely cooked.
As soon as the vegetables are ready, add all the other ingredients to the lentil soup: tomato paste, butter, caraway seeds, thyme and mint. Salt to taste.
Bring the lentil soup to a boil and puree it in a blender.
Reduce the heat to low and continue cooking for another 10 minutes. Turn off the stove and let the lentil soup steep for the same amount of time.

Pour the hot soup into bowls and season with lemon juice if desired. The soup recipe is similar to the previous one, the only difference being that more vegetables are added to it.

Turkish lentil puree soup with mushrooms

Ingredients

red lentils (Mistral variety) – 200 gr.;
water – 1 liter;
olive oil – 100 gr.;
white onion – 70 gr.;
carrots – 100 gr.;
champignon mushrooms – 200 gr.;
salt and spices - to taste;
greens - for decoration;
baguette - for making croutons or croutons.

Preparation

Peel the vegetables and chop finely or three on a medium grater.
Pour oil into a frying pan and heat it. As soon as it is warm enough, reduce the heat and add the prepared vegetables to the pan. Simmer over very low heat, covered, stirring occasionally.
In the meantime, prepare the mushrooms for adding. We wash them and cut them into thin slices.
As soon as the vegetables are stewed, the carrots become softer and darken a little, the onions caramelize and also become soft, add mushrooms to them. We continue to simmer until the water that appears from the mushrooms evaporates. After this, simmer for about 10 minutes.
While the vegetables and mushrooms are being prepared, rinse the lentil grains until clean.
Take a thick-walled saucepan or cauldron. Place lentils there, add vegetables and pour in cold water. We send it to the stove.
As soon as our Turkish lentil puree soup has boiled, turn the heat to the lowest setting and cook until tender (15-20 minutes) under a closed lid. The soup should literally drip.
At the end of cooking, add spices and salt to taste. Puree with a blender and simmer for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid burning.
While the lentil soup is cooking, you can prepare croutons or croutons. The recipe is very simple. Cut the baguette into small cubes and fry in a drop of olive oil until crispy and golden brown. Croutons are cooked in the oven. You need to place the baguette cubes on a baking sheet and place them in a preheated oven, after sprinkling them with the same olive oil and, if desired, seasoning them with the spices that we use to prepare the soup.

Pour the hot soup into deep plates. Greens are best served in a separate bowl, just like croutons. Everyone will add them at will. You can leave a few slices of fried mushrooms and place them on top of the soup. This recipe makes it possible to prepare delicious Turkish lentil soup even for the holiday table.

Turkish lentil soup

Have you been to Turkey? Then you probably remember the taste of spicy, fragrant lentil soup. Turkish lentil soup is always present in everyday, holiday, and restaurant menus. Served everywhere - in family meals, in all-inclusive hotels, in street eateries, at high-end dinner parties. I'll tell you how to cook lentil cream soup in Turkish. Prepare it as a reminder of a magical holiday if you have been to Turkey and as an anticipation if you are about to travel here.

FEATURES OF TURKISH LENTIL SOUP-PUREE

Turkish merzhimek chorba has a puree-like, thick consistency. Also easy and convenient to prepare. It can be prepared with vegetable fillings and minced meat. Creams or egg sauces are not used for this soup or are used extremely rarely. When consumed, the soup is generously sprinkled with lemon juice or a special sauce made from butter, dried mint and ground red pepper.

Red and yellow lentils are widely used in Turkish cuisine. Green is used a little less, but soups are also made from it.

The list of vegetables allowed in lentil soup is quite short - add onions, carrots, in the absence of tomato paste - fresh tomatoes, and, perhaps, that's all. You can put green peppers, potatoes, there is no prohibition, but classic soup recipes are limited even without vegetables at all.

The color of lentil chorba (soup) can vary from yellow to red depending on the selected variety and the presence of tomato paste and allspice in it. Green lentil soup is dark in color and generously seasoned with tomato paste.

And now, actually, the recipe itself.

HOW TO COOK LENTIL SOUP WITH FRYING FLOUR

Ingredients

Cooking instructions

We sort out the red or yellow lentils and wash them. Finely chop the onion. Cut the carrots into large slices or cubes.
Lightly fry the onion in a saucepan, add flour, continue frying until the flour turns yellow.
Add tomato paste, lentils on top, continue frying for about three minutes, no more.
Salt, pepper, add water or broth, add carrots. Let it boil and leave to cook until done.
Turn off the heat and carefully pass the soup through a blender until it reaches an even, smooth puree-like consistency. If the soup is too thick, you can add broth or hot water and let it boil again.
In a separate small bowl, melt the butter and immediately turn off the heat. Add ground red allspice and crushed dry mint to hot oil and mix. This is a sauce for all lentil and many other soups.
Serve this first dish with sauce and breadcrumbs on top. Be sure to serve it with lemon slices; sprinkle the soup generously with lemon juice.

If you like cooking with lentils, but don't like pureed soups, make another version of lentil soup - lentils with rice and bulgur. It can be served either pureed or as regular, unground soup.

RECIPE - LENTIL SOUP WITH RICE AND BULGUR, EZOGELIN CHORBASY

This soup has its own sad story. The dish is named after the Ezo girl; the full and correct translation means “Ezo’s daughter-in-law’s soup.” They say that the story has real roots and took place at the beginning of the last century, this girl existed, in fact, lived in one of the southern provinces bordering Syria. Ezo had an unearthly beauty, naturally, there were incredibly many people who were in love with her and wanted to marry her . To please the strict traditions of that time and area, she was given as a wife to Syria against her will. The material wealth of her husband’s family fell into severe decline, she vegetated in a foreign land in severe poverty with 6 daughters, which, by the standards of that time, further aggravated her situation. Due to circumstances beyond her control, Ezo could not return to her homeland, for which she greatly missed. In order to somehow feed the girls, she cooked everything she could find. Oil was unavailable, so the family ate mostly lean lentil soup with whatever they could find, dipping dry bread into it when they had it. This is how Ezo’s daughter-in-law’s soup and the custom of serving croutons with lentil soups were born. Nowadays it is cooked in broth, tomato paste is added, a lot of spices are added, doused with butter sauce, and served with different types of croutons.

So, the recipe

Ingredients:

Yellow or red lentils – 1 cup,
rice, bulgur - 1 tbsp. l,
vegetable oil or butter - 2 tbsp. l,
onion – 1 small head,
tomato paste – 1 tbsp,
garlic – 3 cloves,
water or broth - 2 liters.
Salt, red and black pepper, crushed cumin, dry mint - to taste.

The process of preparing this first dish is very simple.
Fry chopped onion in a saucepan, add tomato paste, crushed or pressed garlic. Stir, add washed lentils, rice, fine-grained bulgur. Salt, pepper, stir a couple of times and fill with water or broth. Bring to a boil, leave to simmer over medium heat until done. It’s not necessary to put it through a blender; if you don’t like puree soup, then you don’t need to. Ezogelin chorbasy can also be cooked in a pressure cooker, so it will cook in 10 minutes. And all the stages of preparation, the proportions are the same. Before serving, pour over the same sauce as in the first recipe, serve also with lemon and breadcrumbs. Sorry that today’s story was sad, I hope the dish will please you with its taste and will become a permanent fixture on your table. Goodbye, see you in new recipes. Author: Dilyara

Adviсe

This lentil soup recipe is quick and easy to prepare. Lentils, unlike their legume counterparts, cook much faster. But you definitely need to rinse it with clean water - then the taste will be much brighter.

Turkish soup has its own basic recipe. This is Merdzhimek Chorbasy. But if you add your own ingredients to it, such as vegetables, or cook it in meat broth, you will get a Turkish dish with original notes.

The puree soup, the recipe for which calls for cooking without adding potatoes, loses a little in texture. If you add at least one potato to this soup, it will become silky in texture, acquiring a “velvety” flavor.
Recipes for Turkish dishes, in particular soups, recommend the use of spices. They give them an ethnic touch. Always add cumin, saffron, thyme, turmeric - then your dishes will have an oriental flavor.

Lentils are popular and respected in the East. For some reason, Europeans do not attach much importance to it, although it is one of the oldest representatives of the legume culture. The protein content in lentils, especially red ones, is the highest. But it should be remembered that for people who have problems with the gastrointestinal tract, protein consumption is indicated in very small quantities or is contraindicated altogether.