Mercimek Çorbası (Red Lentil Soup)

Ingredients

• 300 g red lentils, rinsed
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tbsp tomato paste, cooked out until brick-red
• 1.5 litres vegetable or chicken stock, plus more for adjusting consistency
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• to taste salt, added in stages
• For the paprika butter
• 40 g unsalted butter
• 1 tsp sweet or hot red pepper (paprika)
• 1 tsp dried mint
• To serve
• 4 wedges lemon, served at table

Method

1. 1
   Warm the olive oil in a heavy pot over a medium flame. Add the onion and a pinch of salt; sweat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is fully softened and beginning to colour at the edges — 8 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for one further minute. Add the tomato paste and stir continuously over the heat until it deepens to brick-red and loses its raw smell — 2 to 3 minutes. The caramelisation of the alliums and the cooked-out paste together form the depth that the lentils alone cannot provide.
2. 2
   Add the cumin and turmeric; stir for 30 seconds so the spices bloom in the residual fat. Pour in the rinsed red lentils and the stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a steady simmer. Cook uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes, until the lentils have dissolved and the mixture is uniformly soft — no distinct lentil shape should be visible.
3. 3
   Remove from the heat. Blend with an immersion blender for a minimum of 2 minutes, working the blender continuously through the full volume of the pot, until the purée is completely smooth with no fragments remaining. For restaurant-grade smoothness, pass through a fine-mesh sieve. This step is where the dish lives or dies: under-blended soup with even small lentil fragments has failed; the target consistency is a smooth, pourable cream — neither watery nor paste-like. Adjust by adding hot stock in small increments, blending briefly after each addition, until the correct body is reached.
4. 4
   Return the pot to a low heat and season in stages with salt, tasting after each addition. Red lentils absorb significant salt; do not season once at the end. The soup is correctly seasoned when the lentil and spice flavours are forward and the finish is clean — not flat, not sharp.
5. 5
   Immediately before service, melt the butter in a small pan over a medium-high flame until foaming. Remove from the heat, add the red pepper and dried mint, and swirl — the mint blooms in the fat within seconds. Pour the sizzling butter over the surface of the soup in the bowl at tableside, never into the pot and never stirred in. The finish is correct when the butter arrives at the bowl still audibly sizzling and the spiced fat pools visibly on the surface.