Turkish Bride Soup

I figure you can eat all the brownies you want when you have a bowl of this for dinner.


Turkish Bride Soup
slightly adapted from All Recipes
Serves 6-8

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 brown onions, roughly chopped
Sea salt flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups red lentils
1/2 cup fine bulgur wheat
3 litres vegetable stock
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 tablespoons dried mint
A handful of fresh mint leaves, chopped
The juice of 1 lemon

Fresh mint leaves, lemon wedges and Greek yoghurt to serve.

Put the roughly chopped onions into a food processor and blitz to chop them finely.

Heat a large Dutch oven over a medium flame and pour in the oil. Let the oil get warm then add the blitzed onion along with a fat pinch of sea salt flakes. Turn the heat down to low and cook the onions for 10 minutes. You don't want any colour on the onions, so stir them occasionally. Add the tomato paste, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper and stir for about 1 minute just to heat the spices up.

Add the lentils and bulgur and stir, coating them with the oil and spices. Add the stock and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover, cooking for about 30 minutes. Give it a stir now and then.

After half an hour the lentils and bulgar will be soft and you'll have a lovely thick soup. Remove from the heat and add the dried mint and a squirt of lemon juice and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Clamp the lid back on until you are ready to serve.

To serve: Ladle the soup into deep bowls and garnish with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, a sprig of mint and a spritz of lemon juice.