Analı Kızlı

Two different dumplings go into one bowl — bulgur-shelled meatballs and whole chickpeas.

Lamb, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken stock, lamb.

Ingredients

the bulgur shells

• 300 g fine bulgur
• 100 g semolina
• 1 teaspoon salt
• warm water, to bind

the filling

• 250 g minced lamb
• 1 onion, very finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

the soup

• 250 g cooked chickpeas
• 1.5 litres lamb or chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons tomato purée
• 1 tablespoon hot red pepper paste
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 300 g thick yoghurt
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon plain flour
• 2 teaspoons dried mint

Method

1. TWO DIFFERENT DUMPLINGS GO INTO ONE BOWL, and that is the dish rather than a flourish. The larger ones are stuffed meatballs: a shell kneaded from fine bulgur and semolina, hollowed on a fingertip, filled with spiced lamb and closed. The smaller ones are simply whole cooked chickpeas. Both float in the same soup, and a spoonful that gets one of each is the point of eating it. Make it with only the meatballs and it is a perfectly good stuffed-dumpling soup; leave the meatballs out and it is a chickpea soup. It needs both, in quantity, so that neither is a garnish.
2. THE SHELL IS BULGUR AND SEMOLINA WITH NO FLOUR AT ALL. Three hundred grams of fine bulgur to a hundred of semolina, worked with warm water until it stops being crumbs and becomes a putty that holds a thumbprint. That takes a good ten minutes of kneading and it feels wrong for most of them. Wheat flour would make the shells doughy and they would swell and burst; bulgur and semolina give a shell that stays thin and slightly granular.
3. THE SHELLS ARE HOLLOWED ON A WET FINGERTIP. A ball the size of a walnut, a finger pushed into it and turned while the other hand thins the wall, dipping the finger in water when it sticks. Thin as you dare -- two or three millimetres. Thick-walled ones are stodgy and the filling is lost in them.
4. THE YOGHURT IS TEMPERED WITH EGG AND FLOUR BEFORE IT GOES NEAR THE PAN. Yoghurt, one egg and a spoonful of flour whisked smooth, then a ladleful of hot stock whisked into THAT, and only then the lot stirred back into the soup. The egg and flour hold the yoghurt proteins together so they cannot curdle. Yoghurt stirred straight into boiling soup splits into grains and water every time.
5. THE MEATBALLS ARE POACHED SEPARATELY AND ADDED AT THE END. In salted water, not in the soup. They shed bulgur as they cook and would cloud and thicken the soup into porridge; poached apart and lifted in, the soup stays clear enough to see them in.
6. The bulgur, semolina and salt mixed, then warm water added a little at a time and KNEADED 10 MINUTES to a putty that holds a thumbprint.
7. The lamb, onion, cumin, salt and pepper mixed for the filling.
8. Walnut-sized balls of the bulgur paste HOLLOWED on a WET FINGERTIP to a wall 2 or 3 mm thick.
9. Each filled with a little lamb mixture and CLOSED, rolled smooth.
10. A wide pan of salted water brought to a gentle simmer and the meatballs POACHED 12 MINUTES, until they float and firm. Lifted out.
11. The butter melted in a large pan, the tomato purée and pepper paste fried 2 MINUTES.
12. The stock added and brought to a simmer, then the chickpeas in for 10 MINUTES.
13. The yoghurt, egg and flour whisked SMOOTH in a bowl.
14. A ladleful of hot stock whisked INTO the yoghurt mixture, then the whole lot stirred back into the pan.
15. Warmed through WITHOUT BOILING, 4 MINUTES, stirring.
16. The poached meatballs lowered in and warmed 2 MINUTES.
17. The dried mint rubbed between the palms over the pan.
18. TESTED: the soup should be smooth and un-split, with both chickpeas and meatballs in every ladle.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes