Turkish manti soup recipe

Of course, it is mantı, not manti, the vowel harmony! I am always inspired by Turkish cuisine, it is such a potentially wondrous fare that somehow all too oft ends up very über-meh in most Turkish restaurants, even those catering the local clientèle in Turkey. I suspect that real Turkish food must be made by Turkish mama's loving hands for her family.

In the absence of such in my social circles, I have no choice but to be a Turkish mama to myself. So I venture northwards, to Finsbury, where round-the-clock Turkish grocers beacon with mouth-watering displays of ripe fruit and fragrant bread and then rows upon rows of roast pepper paste jars, bags of crackly bulgur, packs of salted olives and huge trays of syrupy sweets. Slurp.

A pack of thumbnail-sized ravioli, mantı, costs 1.39 quid. It's enough for three pots of delightfully tangy and zesty soup. I also insist that you invest in a jar of proper Turkish acı biber salçası, spicy pepper paste. Don't let the word spicy confuse you, this is nothing like Thai or Jamaican spiciness, more like Basque piment d'Espellete.

So here's for the recipe:

Slowly roast some crushed garlic in olive oil. Fold in a full spoon of tomato passata and a full spoon of acı biber salçası and fry a couple of minutes more. Add some dry mint and sea salt. Add a litre or so cold water and bring to a gentle boil. Add mantı and a tin of boiled chick peas. Remove from the fire after 5 min and serve with lemon juice and chopped coriander.