Mercimek çorbası

Red lentils simmered with onion, carrot and sometimes potato until they collapse, blended smooth, and served with lemon wedges, a drizzle of butter coloured with red pepper, and bread: mercimek çorbası is the soup on every Turkish lokanta menu, the one ordered before a kebab, at breakfast after a night out, and at home when someone is ill. It is the most common soup in the country and the one most often made badly, because it is cheap and assumed to be simple. The southern version, ezogelin, adds bulgur, rice, mint and tomato paste and keeps some texture; the plain mercimek is the western and central standard, pale orange and velvet-smooth. Every region and most kitchens have a version, and the differences come down to the fat, the thickness and whether the lemon is squeezed in the pot or at the table.