Kısır

Tip Fine bulgur into a wide bowl and pour over the 350 ml Water — boiling hot, just enough to cover by a finger. Stir once, clamp a plate over the bowl and leave it for 15 min. The bulgur is ready when it has drunk every drop and a grain squashed between your fingers gives no hard core.

⚠ Tip: Too much water and you get porridge. If any water still sits in the bowl after soaking, squeeze the bulgur out by the handful.

While the bulgur soaks, chop Flat-leaf parsley fine — more than you think, it is half the salad — and slice Spring onions thin, white and green. Chop Walnuts into rough rubble, leaving some pieces big enough to crunch.

Add Turkish pepper paste, Tomato purée, Pomegranate molasses and 4 tbsp Olive oil to the warm bulgur. Get your hands in and work it hard for a few minutes, squeezing and turning until every grain is stained deep red and the mixture holds together like wet sand. Season with 1 tsp Salt and ½ tsp Ground black pepper.

⚠ Tip: Warm bulgur drinks up the paste; cold bulgur just sits there. Work it while it still holds heat from the soak.

Squeeze in the juice of half the Lemons, fold, and taste. It should bite: sour from molasses and lemon, heat from the paste, salt underneath. Add the rest of the lemon if it tastes flat, more molasses if it wants depth.

Fold in the parsley, spring onion and walnuts with a light hand — you are dressing the grains, not mashing them. Add 1 tsp Sumac and the torn Mint if you are using them.

Cover and leave it at least 30 min for the flavours to settle; it is better after a night in the fridge. Bring it back to room temperature before serving — cold kills kısır.

Spoon the kısır into a shallow dish, or pile it into Little gem lettuce leaves, and serve with extra lemon on the side. It is a table salad — it should be eaten in the hand or scooped with bread, not picked at with a fork.