Red lentil soup with milk (sütlü mercimek çorbasi)

There are loads of different Turkish red lentil recipes, and this is just one of them. If you are driving through the night and you stop at a roadhouse, you will see many people eating this soup before the main course. Sometimes they eat it for breakfast as a cure for hangovers.

Credit: Turkish Fire

• serves

  4

• prep

  5 minutes

• cook

  35 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 80 ml (2½ fl oz/⅓ cup) olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 tbsp plain (all-purpose) flour
• 1 tbsp tomato paste (concentrated purée)
• 125 g (4½ oz/½ cup) red lentils
• 1 tbsp pul biber (see Note), plus extra for sprinkling
• 250 ml (8½ fl oz/1 cup) milk

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in quite a large saucepan. Fry the onion over a medium heat for 5–6 minutes, or until soft. Add the flour and tomato paste. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Now add the lentils, pul biber and 500 ml (17 fl oz/2 cups) water. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender.

Stir in the milk and cook for a further 5 minutes, until heated through. 

Serve as is, sprinkled with a little extra pul biber — or if you wish you can blend it to a smooth soup before serving.

Note

• Pul biber is a crushed red powder made from dried aleppo peppers. It is mild to medium in heat, and the Turkish love sprinkling it over just about anything. If you can’t find it in spice shops or Middle Eastern grocery stores, you can use chilli flakes instead.

Recipe and image from Turkish Fire by Sevtap Yüce (Hardie Grant and SBS, $55, hbk).View our Readable feasts review and more recipes from the book here. 

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.