Turkish Red Lentil Soup- Ezogelin Soup

One of the great things about traditional Turkish dishes is most of them have specific names and stories like people. When I grew up and started to travel abroad, I was very confused about restaurant menus. Reading dishes like "Chicken with brown rice" had confused me, I was like, but what is the name of the dish?

For instance this very famous, traditional and tasty red lentil soup's name Ezogelin. "Ezo" is the name of the girl and "gelin" means bride. Ezobride soup:) Ezogelin soup was created by Ezo.

Ezo was a very beautiful girl from Gaziantep, her name was Zohre, she was very famous with her beauty. She got married with the man she fell in love with but she fell apart with her husband because of other people who were jealous of her beauty and happiness.

Lots of men tried to marry with her but she stayed single for 6 years . At the end she married with a childhood friend with her family's request. They marry through tradition called "berder". She marries new husband and her brother marries her husband's sister. She had to move to Syria due to her marriage. She gets along with the new husband but she was also homesick

Her broken heart from her first husband had been replaced with homesickness.

This soup is her recipe. She probably created this soup when her heart was broken.

Her soup now warming up many people's hearts and body

Turkish Red Lentil Soup -Ezogelin Soup Recipe

Ingredients

2 tbsp butter 1 onion, chopped 2 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 cup red lentils, washed and drained 1/2 cup fine grain bulgur, washed and drained 1/4 cup rice, washed and drained

7 cups water (chicken, vegetable, beef or just water)

Salt

Pepper

Soup Sauce ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp flour

1 tbsp dry mint

1 tsp cayenne pepper

2 cups warm water

salt

pepper

PREPARATION:

1) Melt the butter in a medium size saucepan.

2) Add chopped onions and cook them until they change the color and becomes tender.

2) Add chopped garlic and cook it until the smell of garlic comes out

3) Add lentil, bulgur and rice to the pan and mix them well with onion and garlic mixture

4)Add salt, black pepper and water.

5)Bring the mixture to boil and then lower the heat to low and start simmering.

6) At this stage we can start preparing the sauce of the soup. In another small saucepan start heating vegetable oil

7) Add tomato paste and mix tomato paste well with the oil to thin out the paste

8)Add flour and mix it well

9)Add warm water and rest of the spices (mint and cayenne pepper)

10)Keep mixing the sauce until it thickens, make sure sauce is not sticking to the bottom.

11)After main soup ingredients cooked, add sauce to the soup and mix them well. If you like your soup very silky, puree soup with hand blender before adding the sauce.

12)Boil them together and simmer for another 5 minutes at very low heat

13)Add hot oil with pepper

14)Serve with lemon