Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Mercimek Corbasi -Red Lentil Soup

I have just finished making another pot of red lentil soup, the staple soup here in Turkey. Dry red lentils and a couple of carrots thrown in. Simply divine. I know, it's blazing hot nowadays, but I gotta have my soups. I tell my kids it's called vitamin soup and they drink it out of a straw from a cup.

1 part dry red lentils-8 parts water
1 or 2 carrots grated
1 potato grated
salt
onion
oil
flour

Boil lentils, water, grated vegetables (vegetables are optional), and whole onion in a soup pot until boiled beyond recognition except for the onion. When the lentils are ready, in another small sauce pan heat some oil, maybe a 1/4 a cup or less, depending on how much soup you've made, and add a few spoonfuls of flour. Stir, stir, and stir it over heat until it is smooth, has some thickness to it but will still drizzle from a spoon, not plop, and the color has turned brown. It will also smell a little burnt. When that happens stir it into the lentils. It will thicken slightly. Remove the onion, then use an immersion blender and mix everything up. Add salt to taste and you are done. Enjoy your turkish staple!

2 comments:

Aimee said...

Do I remove the onion before using the immersion blender or mix it in?

Christine said...

remove it, thanks for asking. Now I know I need to fix that little detail.