Almost Turkish Recipes

Ezo the Bride Soup (Ezo Gelin Çorbası)



























Zöhre Bozgeyik, aka Ezo the Bride, was a real person who lived in a small village in the south eastern part of Turkey in the city of Gaziantep close to Syrian border in early 20th century. She was called Ezo the Bride because she was very beautiful and at the age of marriage. Although, there are many variations of Ezo the Bride legend/story mostly as a romance in popular folk culture, her story is one of suffering, patriarchal traditions, and homesickness. Ezo had two marriages both of which were berdel, i.e. bride swapping (a marriage arrangement between two or three families in which they swap daughters in order not to pay for the brides). By the time she made her second marriage to a cousin in Syria, the Turkish Republic was founded and had established borders between the two countries. She died young in Syria, homesick. As per her will she was buried in Syria on a hill overlooking Turkey. There are films based on her hard, unfortunate life, the most celebrated one being Ezo Gelin (Ezo the Bride) (1968), based on a story by well-known poet Behçet Kemal Çağlar and featuring one of the most famous and talented actors of the time Fatma Girik as Ezo, which won the the Second Best Film and the Best Actress awards at the Adana Golden Boll Film Festival in 1969.

As for the soup itself, rumor has it that during grim times of poverty Ezo created the soup by using whatever she had left in the house. However, the most important trivia about Ezo Gelin soup is not the bride, but that you cannot find a single Kebapçı (Kebab Restaurant) in Turkey that doesn't serve this soup. Rumor also has it that if you cannot serve this soup you couldn’t get a license for a Kebapçı restaurant in Turkey—just saying! It's the best starter before kebap-you have to have the soup, and whatever you do at home, including my recipe, Ezo Gelin soup is always better at a Kebapçı, even or especially at a sloppy one. Also, it's considered to be a perfect hangover cure, after, of course, the Tripe Soup (İşkembe Çorbası).

traditional ingredients:
1 cup red lentils
1/4 cup bulgur
1/4 cup rice
1 tbsp pepper paste (if not, substitute with tomato paste)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 onion, very finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 tbsp dry mint leaves
1 tsp oregano leaves
1/4 tsp black pepper
pepper flakes, as much as you want
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
salt
~5 cups chicken stock (or water)  
(I sometimes hide from the kids grated carrots in the soup)
-Place bulgur and rice with 2 cups of water in a pot and bring to a boil. Simmer once it starts boiling. Check now and then to make sure it doesn’t run out of water. Add hot water if necessary. Turn it of once bulgur and rice is cooked. Drain excessive water.
-Heat butter and olive oil in a pot and sauté onions and garlic until very soft, ~8-10 minutes.
-Mix in tomato and pepper pastes and cook for 4-5 minutes.
-Add 5 cups of chicken stock or water, whichever you’re using. Bring to a boil.
-Add washed and rinsed red lentils, rice and bulgur. Simmer for ~20 minutes stirring now and then.
-Add dried mint, oregano, and salt. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

-The trick is not to put Ezo the Bride soup in a blender. Once everything is cooked and soft, a whisk could work just fine. So after adding the legumes, whisk the soup for a couple of times until smoothened.
-Always serve Ezo the Bride with a slice of lemon. Splash of lemon juice will bring the best out of the soup.

Optional:
Some people like to sizzle the mint with butter instead of adding the spices to the soup. For that, heat olive oil or butter (1 tbsp for 2-3 servings) in a small skillet. When oil starts sizzling (if you're using butter, try not to burn it) add mint and oregano (and 1/2 tsp paprika if you wish) and after approximately 30 seconds remove from the heat. Pour over the soup.

Feeling lazy and own a pressure cooker?:
Put everything in the pressure cooker and cook for 15 minutes.


18 comments:

  1. Blogunuz çok güzel, tarifler özenle seçilmiş ve yazılmış. Sizi ingilizce linklerime ekleyeceğim. Kolay gelsin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sher, if you like lentils, you should definitely try this. It's like red lentil soup, but mint flakes and garlic along with rice (I usually use white rice rather than bulgur) give it a very distinctive taste.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Burcu for the recipe! I love lentil! Will try this one out soon! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I need to give this a try, hangover or not.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Burcu - This is a great time to have a soup like this as it is getting so cold. I should imagine it is good for hangovers on account of the the wheat, starch, and carbohydrates (in New Zealand we often have something that includes stodgy potatoes and/or bacon).

    ReplyDelete
  6. I loved this soup when I visited Turkey and I have been looking for a recipe ever since. Thanks, I can't wait to try it.

    One question - what is pepper paste? is that like sweet peppers or hot?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Rachel,
    Pepper paste is just like tomato paste, but made from red peppers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Rachel
    You can find chili paste, (which I gather, is the same as pepper paste), in the Asian section of your grocery store or at an Asian store. It is called Sambal Oelek. Make sure that you get the paste without garlic! And yes, it is hot. You could adjust pepper paste to taste.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. just wish I could find it w/o preservatives!

      Delete
  9. Anonymous9:00 AM

    The pepper paste is not the hot spicy one, it's called 'sweet red pepper' paste which is made from the big red bell peppers. The cook them normally by baking them, skin them and the puree them. If you use the spicy hot pepper paste then I would really reduce the amount you put to maybe 1 to 2 teaspoons. (Tatlı Kırmızı Biber Salçası is roughly what it is called in turkish which is rouly translated to 'sweet red pepper paste/puree'.)

    (All of your recipes are delicious and I trust this site the most for reliability that a recipe will be delicious. So, from an English girl with a Turkish husband, living in Turkey and trying to cook Turkish food everyday, I thank you very much, I cannot tell you how much you have helped my relationship with my husband... Çok teşekkür ediyorum ablacim, elinizi sağlık (sorry for my spelling, I am learning:))

    ReplyDelete
  10. ı mistakenly put harissa instead of the pepper paste the first time, and it turned out so good !! I switched to harissa from then on :))

    Ellerine saglık, blogdan denediğim her sey hep cok guzel oldu.

    Sevgiler,
    Asli

    ReplyDelete
  11. Harissa, hmmm, intriguing! My Turkish store here closed, maybe I should switch to harissa as well.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yummy soup. Thanks for sharing recipe here with us, it is really helpful. Keep updating with more post.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous2:09 AM

    Thank you, Burcu for this lovely recipe. As in our home we do not eat very often lentils and we should as a rule we decided to have lentils every first day in the month. So, this is the soup I will prepare for 1st of March! And also am very eager and curious to try the sizzle mint. Sounds really very delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The sizzle mint/oregano/paprika is also the best - it is a feature of soups in India and central Asia. I do mine in oil rather than butter because it doesn't burn the spices. Tempering the spices releases their essential oils - much more flavorful than just simply throwing them into the soup.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Wow. Very interesting information about Ezogelin Soup. I am impressed.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi ... I am very love your soup recipes.
    I think this is one of favorit soup recipes and suitable for my taste

    I want try at home , Thanks for recipes

    ReplyDelete