Kırmızı Mercimek Çorbası or Red Lentil Soup

Restoranda:

Ben: Urfa kebap nasıl? Güzel mı?

Garson: Evet, çok güzel.

Ben: Peki, bir tane Urfa kebap.

Sonra öğle yemeği...

Garson: Seviyor musun?

Ben: Evet, seviyorum. Ama, bence, Adana kebap daha lezzetli.

And this is how exciting my life is now; that I'm thrilled to bits when I can have a mini conversation with a waiter about whether or not the Urfa kebap is any good or not. And to recap, he said it was good so I ordered it and after I ate he asked if I liked or not; to which I replied that I did but in my opinion the Adana kebap is tastier.

Oniony goodness

So speaking of food! I managed another semi successful Turkish recipe; the all important (red) lentil soup. I have become rather enamored of the various lentil soups here. I knew I liked Indian lentils so I guess it's not such a stretch that I should like them in Turkey.

Bet the teapot never thought it would be used for this.

I feel like going into this recipe I was already set up to at least partially fail. Although I feel that I used this as an opportunity to demonstrate my flexibility and creativity. For example, I still have only the one pot and since the onion, potatoes, and carrots were occupying it I had to find a different way to soak the lentils.

The addition of potatoes and carrots makes it a very hearty soup

That worked out alright though so yay me. What didn't work out alright was actually using as much water as the recipe called for. So I tried (and failed) to pour off some of the water. It worked for about half a minutes before an extremely hot pot coupled with a lack of pot holders caused the lid to slip off the pot. I lost about half the ingredients into the sink.

Woops

In the end though what I did save was pretty tasty. While I also have no blender I got a bit of a workout whisking the soup for everything I was worth. It wasn't perfect and the end result was a bit of a chunky soup, not the smooth experience it's supposed to be, but it still tasted pretty fine.

Recipe:

1 cup red lentils, washed

1 large potato chopped into small cubes

1 large carrot chopped into small pieces

1 medium-large onion chopped

3 TBS tomato paste

3-4 cups water

2 TBS olive oil

Saute the onion in a sauce pan with half the oil. When the onion softens, add the rest of the oil with the potatoes and carrots. Once those are softened (3-5 min), add the water, lentils, and tomato paste. And a lot of salt. I swear the salt here just isn't very salty. Bring to boil and let simmer until all the vegetables are soft. 

If you have a standing or immersion blender, go for it. If you're like me and you don't have those, whisk as best you can. Serve the soup with a lemon wedge. I know, it seemed weird to me at first but trust me; it's good.