Turkish Red Lentil Soup

My brother, Mark, lived briefly in Istanbul a few years ago, and I was lucky enough to visit him for a short week. Turkish cuisine is simple, fresh, hearty, and flavorful. Ah, now I really miss it. I didn’t expect to fall in love with Turkey. I didn’t even know what to expect when I stepped off the plane- but I was so pleasantly surprised that it jumped up to my third favorite country. The people were outrageously friendly, passionate and caring. I had never seen such an amazing juxtaposition of modern expansion built beside ancient byzantine structures. The following picture is the only one I could find of Turkish food during our trip. One day we explored The Princes Islands in the Sea of Marmara and ended up eating at a restaurant along the Bosphorus. One of the meze plates we ordered was a typical Turkish dish- hamsi. They’re the fried fresh unbrined anchovies in the picture below. They were surprisingly delicious!

Rustic spices paired with fresh veggies to create the perfect mix of typical mediterranean and middle eastern meze. And I doubt I could recreate köfte or kebab properly, but when my brother shared this recipe with me, it felt well within my reach. I’m pretty new to the world of legumes, but this recipe remains a steadfast favorite.

Mercimek Corbasi (Turkish Lentil Soup)

2 cups red lentils (dry)
2 smallish onions, finely chopped
1-2 tomatoes, finely chopped (or ~10 oz canned crushed tomatoes in the winter)
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
4 cups chicken or veggie stock
tomato puree/paste (optional)
olive oil
1 tbsp toasted and ground cumin seed
1 tsp chili powder
3/4 to 1 cup fresh mint, roughly chopped
salt and black pepper
red chili pepper flakes (preferably pulbiber, a tangy, dried and preserved Turkish variety)
lemon wedges and/or extra mint for serving

Place the lentils in a bowl of warm water and soak for at least 1/2 hour (rinsing thoroughly and draining just before use)

Saute onions & garlic in 2-3 tsp of olive oil until soft, adding about 1 tbsp cumin as they become fragrant. Add tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until soft. Add 3 cups of chicken stock and soaked lentils and bring to a boil. Then add 3-4 tablespoons of dried mint, 1 teaspoon chili pepper, and a dash or two of salt and pepper. Add 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste, optional, but nice. I prefer more tomato flavor in mine.

Cook on medium-low heat for at least 30-40 minutes, adding additional stock or water as necessary to maintain consistency. Season with more mint, cumin, chili, salt and pepper to taste. When lentils are soft and the mixture has become creamy, turn down the heat. Begin to puree soup in batches.

The traditional recipes suggests serving with lemon wedges and/or pulbiber/chili pepper flakes and/or sumac, but I just sprinkled some fresh mint on mine.

Happy eating!

a simple pickle

Nate’s the pickle master of the house, but when it comes to sweet and sour pickles, I can’t get enough. I think I adore them so much because they’re the Pennsylvania Dutch gems I grew up munching on. Bread ‘n Butter were my fav. My grandma even makes a simple vinegar/sugar brine to mix in her potato salad, and mmMmMmm is it good.

A few weeks ago I purchased some beautiful beets from the Farmstand, but let them grow sad and soft in our fridge. When I roasted them, only a glimmer of that sweet, delicious beet taste was left at the end. I was sad- almost as sad as my beets- until I realized I could save them with a simple pickle!

It’s easy. So easy. And you can vary the proportion depending on exactly how much sweetness you prefer. First, make the base which is simply sugar dissolved in vinegar. I like to use a small sauce pan on the stove, stirring slowly on low heat. My favorite proportions are: 1 c. vinegar (apple cider, white, or a combo) and 1 and 1/3 c. sugar (white, brown, demerera, or a combo). After the sugar is completely dissolved, then I tweak. I’ll add some spices (fresh ground nutmeg, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, garam masala, cinnamon, anything!), maybe some extra honey or agave syrup if it’s not sweet enough, or a bit of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice if you need more bite, salt, and pepper and stir in while the vinegar is still warm. Spruce it up! Experimenting is half the fun (the other half is eating!). Then just let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Cut up your veggies (this works on raw munchies too- carrots and celery are great!) into sticks or bitesize snippets. Find a jar, add the veggies, pour in the vinegar mixture so it comes to the top.. You can eat them right away, but the veggies are way better if you let them soak up the pickle juice for a least a day or two in your fridge.

Happy eating!!!

Eat this tidbit.

I love crackers. It’s a problem. I could eat through a box of woven wheats in a day, too easy.  But those little salty crunchy bits are so gosh darn expensive anywhere you go. And then when I realized how easy it is to make ‘em from scratch at home, the problem got worse. I can barely bring myself to drop the near five bucks on a box of Triscuits now that I’ve seen the do-it-yourself-you-bum light.

This isn’t a post about making crackers though, or Triscuits for that matter. Maybe a homemade cracker post will come eventually, but I haven’t quite found the right recipe to fill my craving. I do make exceptions now and then on my splurging and caved at DiBruno today when I bought some of the often wrote about Ines Rosales savory olive oil tortas. I’ve read about them many times, but hadn’t taken the plunge yet. They cost a little more than said box of Triscuits, but holy cow, were they worth every penny. Six handmade, hand-wrapped tortas that max out at six ingredients (eight counting the addition of rosemary and thyme in my pack) on the nutrition label. And hey! You’ve heard of all these ingredients.

They’ve been making these things for a hundred years in Seville, Spain. And to call them crackers would be a misnomer. They’re more comparable to a flaky pie crust that’s more savory than sweet.

I opted for the Rosemary and Thyme variety and  scarfed three of the six for lunch with some Manchego and Sicilian Pepperoni. All I’ve been able to think about this afternoon is what will become of the other three. Maybe some hummus and capers? Maybe some melty gruyere? Ok, Im stopping now.