Week 3 was Turkish, and I decided to give one of my favorite Turkish dishes, mercimek koftesi, another try. I did it the last time Turkish came up in the challenge back in 2014, but it had been a long time since I last made it, definitely before B came along. This time, I found some new (to me) recipes at 196 Flavors and Vidar Bergum, combined elements of those with the one I came up with last time, and hoped for the best after about six hours of chilling them in the fridge.
The recipe I posted back in 2014 is still fairly close to what I ended up doing after consulting with the other two recipes, except that the pastes and seasonings were added to the onions first, then the lentils, bulgur, and onions were mixed in a mixing bowl and not on the stove, and then the scallions and parsley were added at the very end once the flavors had been adjusted. So, the ingredients were similar, the order of operations was a little different, but the general idea of mixing them together was the same. I did notice that I used far more of each paste than the recipes did in order to get the color and flavor to our liking and what we remembered from our favorite restaurant versions (and it was not because the biber salcasi got old and lost flavor; it was new), but we were happy with how it turned out.
The mercimek koftesi may not have been the most attractive dish (I couldn't get them shaped as well as the professionals), but it was definitely tasty. I still love this vegetarian kofta as much as the first time I tried it, and now that I have fresh pepper paste and bulgur (well, almost a year opened now...), I think I should make it more often!
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