Ezogelin: An elevated Turkish lentil soup

Recipe of the week from my kitchen in Istanbul

Hey there,

As I work behind the scenes to relaunch A kitchen in Istanbul with more features, recipes and articles, I thought I’d pop into your inbox once a week or so with a free recipe from the archives.

With cold season upon us* (though it hasn’t felt like it in Istanbul), what better place to start with one of my favourite soups.

Turks love a warming bowl of çorba (Turkish for “soup”). Every restaurant – simple or fancy – will have a few options. At home, most dinners start with a small bowl of soup.

Though a simple lentil soup is by far the most popular, Turkish cuisine has a particularly rich range of traditional soups.

I’m writing this from a café in Karaköy, a recently gentrified neighbourhood in central Istanbul, a stone’s throw from the touristy madness of Galata Tower. Around the corner lies Karaköy Çorba Evi, a 24/7 soup restaurant serving 20 or so different and reasonably priced soups daily. At home, I’ve a Turkish soup cookbook with 62 recipes – and many more such books exist.

Photo: Bahar Kitapcı

The recipe I want to alert you to today, is an elevated version of the simple lentil soup, with dried mint, red pepper paste and bulgur addding both flavour and texture. Bearing the name of Ezo the Bride, a name and story from Turkish folklore every local will know, it’s also a soup with a story to tell.

Make sure to try it in the coming days, or save it for a rainy day. And if you prefer the simpler, classic lentil soup, I’ve a recipe for that, too.

Until next week,

Vidar

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* Apologies to readers in the southern hemisphere, who keep getting recipes for the wrong season.