Turkish Red Lentil Bride Soup Recipes

Steps:

• Heat the olive oil in a large pot over high heat. Cook and stir the onion in the hot oil until it begins to soften, about 2 minutes. Stir the garlic into the onion and cook another 2 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes to the onion mixture; continue to cook and stir another 10 minutes.
• Pour in the chicken stock, red lentils, bulgur, rice, tomato paste, paprika, cayenne pepper, and mint to the tomato mixture; season with salt and black pepper. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook at a simmer until the the lentils and rice are cooked through, about 30 minutes.
• Pour the soup into a blender to no more than half full. Firmly hold the lid in place and carefully start the blender, using a few quick pulses to get the soup moving before leaving it on to puree. Puree in batches until smooth; pour into your serving dish. Alternately, you can use a stick blender and puree the soup in cooking pot.

Steps:

• Melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Cook the onions in the hot butter until they are golden brown, about 15 minutes.
• Stir the paprika, lentils, and bulgur into the onions and coat with the butter.
• Add the tomato paste, vegetable stock, and cayenne pepper; bring to a boil and cook until soft and creamy, about 1 hour.
• Crumble the dried mint leaves into the soup; stir the soup and remove from heat.
• Ladle into bowls and garnish with lemon slices and fresh mint to serve.

Steps:

• Melt butter in large pan on medium heat. Add onions, turn heat to medium-low and cook, stirring, 15 minutes, until golden.
• Stir in paprika. Add lentils and bulgur. Cook, 1 minute, stirring to coat.
• Stir in 10 cups broth, tomato paste and cayenne. Turn heat to medium-high and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 1 hour, partly covered, until bulgur is soft and creamy.
• Stir in mint. Remove from heat. Cover and let sit 10 minutes.
• Add some or all of remaining 2 cups broth to adjust to desired consistency. Add salt.
• Garnish with dollop of yogurt, lemon slice and mint leaf.

Steps:

• Combine everything into a pot, and bring to a boil.
• Lower the heat, loosely cover the pot, and let simmer for 25-30 minutes or until the lentils have completely softened.
• Let the soup cool for about 5-10 minutes (you can also cheat and just pop the pot in the fridge or freezer for a couple minutes while catching up on work and texting, like I did!).
• Pour the soup in a blender to puree it nicely.
• After pureeing, I sometimes like to pop in a can of big white beans like great northern beans, navy beans, cannellini, or butterbeans with a little fresh cilantro if I happen to have any on hand. These are found in piyaz, another delicious meze.
• Garnish with lemon and/or fresh mint, and serve with some delicious pitas, toasty Turkish bread, or sigara bourek!

Steps:

• Heat butter in large pot over low heat. Add onions and sauté until golden, about 10 minutes. Add paprika, lentils and bulgur and stir.
• Add stock, tomato paste and cayenne and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender and bulgur is creamy, about 40 minutes. Add a little more stock if soup gets too thick. Crumble dried mint leaves and stir into soup.
• Remove soup from heat, cover and set aside 10 minutes. Ladle soup into bowls, and garnish with lemon slices and fresh mint.