The salad was an afterthought. Aynur Zorkirisci hadn’t planned to make it for me. She was more interested in demonstrating her grandmother’s recipe for dolma—diminutive eggplants, tomatoes and zucchini hollowed and stuffed with ground lamb, rice and a breathtaking volume of hot pepper paste, all of it corked in place with fresh, lemony grape leaves jammed into the ends, then simmered with five heads of garlic and a handful of sour plums until plump and tender.

But the simmering would take several hours, so on a whim she decided to share another of her grandmother’s recipes—maş fasulyesi salatası, a simple mung bean salad boldly seasoned with all the flavors I’d come to love during my week eating my way across Gaziantep, Türkiye’s culinary hub near its southern border with Syria.
“My grandmother’s life was based on the kitchen. She loved cooking for her family,” Zorkirisci said while pouring dried mung beans into a pot of boiling water. “I’m not a chef. I’m only a housewife. But I learned to cook from my grandmother.”

A grandmother, by the way, whose cooking was so coveted every family in her village would beg her to cater their weddings. And as I’d soon taste, that talent clearly had been passed on.

Once the mung beans were plump and tender, Zorkirisci drained them and doused them with olive oil that glistened over their green skins. That was the extent of the cooking. After that, she merely tossed the beans with sliced red onion, sweet red peppers and hot chilies. Then came the flavors that seem to punctuate so much of the city’s cooking.

Copious dried chili flakes, both sweet and hot. A shower of punchy-tangy sumac. Enough cumin to add deep, earthy richness without dulling the brightness of the sumac or heat of the chilies. Finally, a squeeze of lemon juice and a blizzard of fresh mint and parsley. Some people add chopped walnuts, she said, but she prefers to leave them out.

For such a simple assembly, I was floored by the flavors, which just popped in my mouth. The beans were rich and meaty without being heavy. But it was the delicious chaos of sweet and heat, peppers and chilies tangled with the brightness of the sumac and lemon and freshness of the herbs that put this salad over the top.

I could have eaten that salad for my meal. But that wasn’t an option. There still were the dolmas to contend with, and they did not disappoint. That said, it was the salad that brought me back for seconds. And if ever I get married again, I will take the advice of Zorkirisci’s grandmother’s neighbors and include it in our feast.

JM Hirsch

J.M. Hirsch is a James Beard Award-winning food and travel writer and editorial director of Christopher Kimball's Milk Street. He is the former national food editor for The Associated Press and has written six books, including “Freezer Door Cocktails: 75 Cocktails That Are Ready When You Are.”