Mercimek Çorbası — Turkish Red Lentil Soup

What you’ll need

Ingredients

Ingredient amounts make 4 servings. Nutrition below is for one serving.

• 200 g Red split lentils, dry
• 150 g Onion, peeled
• 100 g Carrot, trimmed
• 25 g Tomato paste, no added salt
• 20 g Olive oil
• 40 g Fresh lemon juice
• 2 g Ground cumin
• 2 g Paprika
• 1 g Ground black pepper
• 4 g Fine salt
• 1200 ml Water, plus extra for washing or soaking as directed

Make it

Instructions

1. 1

   Rinse the dry lentils in a sieve. Dice onion and carrot.

2. 2

   Heat all oil in a pot. Cook onion and carrot over medium heat for 7 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, cumin, paprika and pepper for 1 minute.

3. 3

   Add lentils, salt and 1.2 litres water. Bring to a boil, then simmer partly covered 25–30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lentils break down. Add a little hot water if too thick.

4. 4

   Remove from heat and blend carefully with an immersion blender, keeping its head submerged. Stir in lemon juice and divide the full batch into four equal bowls.