Mercimekkkkkkk.

Description

Mercimekkkkkkk.

My favourite. When there is nothing to cook at home — here it is. It is magic, and it is healing. Especially on chik-chik-chik-chikennnn water.

On that night, before I took off with my plane, I asked Elif to cook me a lentil soup. I wanted to bring a bag of lentils with me for my long stay in Portugal, and cook it for the friends I was going to visit.

She washed the bright orange colour of these small beans of health, with care, under the running water. These are her hands, helping them take off their starch.

Chicken broth from the day before. Two big onions cut into four — here it is, she said, without onion no taste, nothing. Then the secret: kuru küçük kırmızı biber, a small dried red pepper, very very spicy. Yakan biber. Small but mighty. A pinch of salt taken with two fingers, black pepper, and nane.

Then she said: time to wait. Forty minutes. And she sent me down to the party downstairs, to meet brand new people.

Nobody in that room knew that upstairs, in a pot, something had been left to cook.

Forty minutes is a long time.

Full recipe on the last slide 🤍