🇹🇷 TurkeyCatalog recipe
Brown lentils and bulgur cooked down together with caramelized onion until soft and nutty, eaten warm or at room temperature with a squeeze of lemon.
For 4 servings.
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Cover the lentils with 600 ml water in a pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 15 minutes until just tender.
Meanwhile, cook the sliced onions in the olive oil over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until deep golden and sweet, about 15 minutes.
💡 Low and slow is the whole dish here — rushed onions turn bitter instead of sweet.
Stir the bulgur, cumin and salt into the lentils and their cooking water; if the water level sits below the grain, top up with a splash more.
Cover and simmer on low for 12 minutes until the bulgur has absorbed the liquid.
Fold in most of the caramelized onions, rest off the heat 10 minutes, then fluff.
Top with the remaining onions, a crack of black pepper, and serve with lemon wedges.
This pairing of lentils and cracked wheat runs through southeastern Anatolian and Kurdish home cooking, where it is often called mercimekli bulgur and treated as a full meal rather than a side. Cooks in the region debate the ratio of onion to grain with real seriousness.
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