A winter classic in Turkey and neighboring regions… Spices and herbs used in the meat stuffing varies from town to town, whereas soft and glossy texture of the cabbage remains the same. I made it my grandma’s way, cooked the rolls with the sourest quinces.

Ingredients:

1 medium size whole cabbage (try to pick the less veiny, thin layered and soft cored ones)

For the filling:

300 g minced meat,

3 medium onions, grated,

1 cup of rice,

1 tablespoon of tomato paste,

3 tablespoon butter (at room temperature) or vegetable oil,

1/8 cup fresh coriander, finely chopped,

1/4 cup fresh mint, finely chopped,

1/8 cup fresh dill, finely chopped,

1/4 cup fresh (purple or regular) basil, finely chopped,

1 teaspoon black pepper,

1 teaspoon salt,

For the sauce:

1/4 cup of melted butter or vegetable oil,

1/2 tablespoon tomato paste,

1/2 teaspoon salt,

1 quince, cored, cut into cubes.

Bring 2 liters of water to boil in a large pot. Prepare another container filled with icy cold water. Stab the cabbage in four places around its core, do not remove the core completely, just cut it loose as if you’re trying to remove it. Try not to cut through the outer layers. Soak the whole cabbage into boiling water. In around 2-3 minutes, as the outer layers loosen up, remove them with your hands one by one, be careful not to burn your hands and not to damage the leaves. Do this until you reach the core. Soak the boiled leaves into cold water, which you put aside. Depending on the type of your cabbage, you might be able to retrieve (almost) flat rollable leaves right through to the core. The ideal rollable leaf would be the size of a palm, rectangular shaped, so cutting the leaves into equal palm-size pieces would be the best thing to do to achieve nicely a rolled bunch of sarma.

Mix all the filling ingredients thoroughly. On a flat surface lay one cabbage leaf, the narrower edge facing yourself. Put one level teaspoon of the filling onto the edge closer to you. Align the filling to form a stick parallel to the edge. Roll firmly. You now have one sarma ready. Do the same until you use up all the filling mix. Line the bottom of a wide pot with the remaining cabbage leaves. Place all the rolls onto those leaves neatly. They should sit next to each other, firm, but not too too tight. Top the rolls with quince cubes. Mix the rest of the sauce ingredients into a bowl, that is, the oil, tomato paste and salt. Add 2 cups of water into the sauce. Mix it and pour over the rolls. Place a flat plate onto the rolls to keep them in place. Cover the lid and bring to boil on medium heat. Lower the heat once it reaches the boiling point, put a stone or something heavy onto the lid to keep the steam inside the pot as much as possible and cook on the lowest heat (almost like candle light) around 40 minutes until the cabbages and rice are tenderly cooked, absorbing almost all of the water. Remove from the heat when done. Let rest for about 15 minutes. Serve warm with bread and yogurt.

During our last meal in Cunda, before the mesmerizing effect of the lor tatlisi arrived, we were knocked down by a couple of meze dishes. One was lakerda, which is among my a dozen seafood favorites and a new acquaintance for my husband. I was reluctant to tell him that it was raw fish in fact, I know he would do anything to avoid it if he knew. The plan worked well. The delicacy turned him into a humming bird soon enough so I told him what it really was, two seconds of hesitant silence was again followed by num nums. He liked it so much that he asked the restaurant owner to pack a jar of that goodness for us to take home.

A properly-made lakerda tastes divine. Fatty fish fillets, cured with salt, then soaked in extra virgin olive oil… The type of fish differs. What we had was akya, garrick fish that is. A more desirable fish for pickling would be large bonito, called torik in Turkish. It takes around two weeks to cure the fish. Cleaning is the tricky part, no blood should remain in the flesh.

It is best served cold with olive oil, red onions and dill. It makes me thank God for living in this part of the world.

Lor tatlisi is an unforgettable Cunda treat… 2 weeks ago, my husband and I had a short vacation to the northern Aegean coastal town of Ayvalik, more specifically an island called Cunda. We stayed in an old Anatolian-Greek house, now turned into a hotel with only 7 rooms. Hotel’s decoration had an antique touch to it and the house itself was built from a local stone called sarimsak tasi. It had a very high ceiling, wooden floors, gorgeous wooden windows, vintage heaters with flower patterns and antique furniture.

Everything was simply divine, magical and amazing. I haven’t got enough adjectives in my vocab to describe our stay. The first day, it was raining like crazy, but still we drove around, discovered very nice spots on the island and in the evening had a perfect seafood dinner in Ayvalik.

We had mixed feelings, walking around Cunda’s and Ayvalik’s old town centers. We felt kinda sad that Greeks had to leave and again Muslims who were displaced from Crete came over and took whatever was left from those people, but also were happy to still have found the authentic feeling of the towns intact, especially in Cunda. It had been 8 years since my last visit to the island. Not much changed in the old town, I don’t care for the newly built villas on the outskirts. I took my husband to show him the ruins of a monastry called Ayios Dimitri Ta Selena, but couldn’t do so because a lady from one of the richest families of our country apparently “bought” the monastry. I don’t know how one can buy a monastry though!!! There was a guard standing at the main door and he wouldn’t let us on the premises. On the way back we went into another road and reached two small villages in a row, almost completely deserted.

The island was still full of very old olive trees. To me, the best olive oil in Turkey and one of the best in the World is produced here in this town of Ayvalik. It has all it gets to bring you the best: Sea, warm weather, windy hills facing the coast full of old (when I say old, I mean OLD) olive trees. It is still possible to get first cold pressed olive oil, which is extracted with millstones from the freshest olives that are harvested early into the season. The result: very low acidity, no metalic taste, fruity fresh olive flavor throughout the whole experience, a lingering taste on your palate for quite a while. Oh God, please protect this land from industrialized methods of ruining our food!

Well back to our trip, on our second day, it was sunny and we took lots of pictures and again I got my share of seafood on the island in the afternoon. At the end of the meal, the owner of the restaurant presented us with a generous serving of a local dessert, creamy fresh cottage cheese topped up with sour cherry preserve. It was mild, balanced in flavor, colorful, fresh and what not! We loved it and asked them where we could buy the cheese/curd. Our next stop was of course the cheese vendor, then another one, followed by another one. We ended up buying lots of fresh and aged cheese, enough to feed us for a couple of months.

That evening we visited a cosy nargile shop (sheesha-hookah-waterpipe). It was again an old stone-built house with a very high ceiling, decorated Mediterranean style in blue, white, turquoise and stone colors. The owner Haci Ziya was the friendliest person ever. We had Istanbul-quality nargile, great tea, nice chat and a wonderful evening with the snuggly cats around.

We love Cunda. We are in love with Cunda. Are we going back there again? Hell yeah! As soon as we get a chance.

I don’t think I need to provide the recipe for the dessert, all you need is to get the best cottage cheese (creamy-fatty type) and sour cherry preserve. Just put those two together and serve. The trick to it is finding the best ingredients. Good luck.

One last recipe from the summertime. Perhaps, I’ve heard over a hundred people say that they like the taste and aroma of okras but they hate the gooey texture. The best way to avoid the sticky slimy texture is to keep the pods intact, only peel the most outer skin on top and leave the cap intact (the holes inside shouldn’t be seen so that the mucilage will not come out of the pod), to add lots of lemon juice and not to stir it while cooking. Here’s the recipe to a flowy clear okra dish.

Ingredients:

2 onions, peeled and cut into 4,

500 g of okra,

3/4 cup of olive oil, extra virgin as always

Juice of 1 lemon

3 tomatoes, peeled and grated,

1 teaspoon of salt,

1 teaspoon of sugar,

1/2 cup of water

Directions are simple. Put all the ingredients in a steel pot. Cover. Put on medium heat for the first 5 minutes, then lower the heat and cook on low heat until the okra becomes a bit softer than al dente. Remember, avoid stirring it as much as possible. Just shake the pot gently half way through the cooking process. Remove from the heat when done. Serve the next day -olive oil dishes are usually their best the day after cooking-  at room temperature with more lemon juice if you like, or with bread. Simple, healthy, delicious.

These days, the hype in Istanbul is (not-so) fine dining restaurants that claim they serve Ottoman palace cuisine. Are all of those places bad? Of course not! Some are very genuine and not overpriced considering the food they serve. But for others, all I can say is “overrated”! Kavun dolmasi or stuffed melon is one of those dishes that existed since the 15th century, maybe even earlier. I guess it is Persian and Armenian influence what made Ottoman cooks combine meat and fruits, which when done right creates an excellent balance of flavor. The trick to this recipe is picking the right size and type of melon, small, round, aromatic variety that is, adding the right amount of spices and nuts and using good quality minced meat (preferably lamb meat ground with a chopping knife) with a good amount of fat content.

Ingredients:

50 g + 50 g butter or ghee,

1 onion, chopped finely,

50 g of unsalted fresh almonds, shelled and peeled,

30 g pine nuts,

300 g ground meat,

1 teaspoon of blackpepper,

1 teaspoon of allspice,

1/2 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon,

1 teaspoon of salt,

30 g black currants, dried or fresh,

2 tablespoons of rice,

2 melons, grapefruit-size,

A pinch of salt,

Fresh parsley leaves

Boil rice in salted water. Drain. Set aside. Melt 50 g butter in a non-stick pan. Brown the onions. Add almonds and pine nuts. When roasted, add in the meat. When the meat is cooked and releases its fat add in the spices, then salt. Finally add the black currants and boiled rice and remove from the heat.The stuffing is ready.

Remove melons’ caps, as you see in the pictures. Scoop out the seeds and some of the flesh, discard those. Sprinkle a pinch of salt on the insides of melons. Stuff them with the meat filling. 

Place 25g of butter on each dolma you’ve prepared. Put the caps back on the stuffed melons and line them in a baking tray. You might want to brush the melons with melted butter on the outside for a more polished look, but this is optional. Bake the dolmas at 180 degrees Celsius for 35-40 minutes. Serve with fresh parsley leaves, roasted buttered almonds and black currants.

Bon Appetit.

Dear Reader, I can’t promise you a very exciting intro to this post, sorry but you’ll have to bear with me till the end of this memoir which I’m about to tell you.

Last year, mid-July, we, my hubs and I, were driving back to Istanbul from Gallipoli where my in-laws reside each summer. While in the car, browsing through radio channels, Greek, Turkish, Bulgarian ones… We stumbled upon one and were quite puzzled because we could swear we recognized the language, it sounded exactly like the Eastern Black Sea Region accent of Turkish. It felt like we could understand what it was saying but no, we couldn’t. Then we found out that it was the radio channel of Pontic Greeks who migrated to Greece from Black Sea Region of Turkey in the last century. There were dozens of words I could recognize in the songs besides the accent and the sound of it as a whole. “Sirona gel sirona” (come and join the siron) was one phrase upon hearing we went “hey, did you hear that?”. Yes, dear reader, Black Sea Region is where siron and Pontic Greeks come from. It is the name of both a dancing style and a manti-like dish. The song was probably talking about the dance unless the songwriter was a food-maniac like myself and took the trouble of writing a song about a dish. Oh no, even I haven’t done anything like that, yet!

I’m an epic fail when it comes to dancing, but here is the recipe to the food version of siron:

Ingredients: (feeds 3-4)

2 sheets of yufka (Turkish pastry sheets) or you can use fillo pastry instead,

2 cups of beef broth, you can make it by boiling 2.5 cups of water with 1 beef bouillon,

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 cups of plain yogurt, whipped

A pinch of salt,

50g butter

A pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

A pinch of sumac (optional)

A pinch of dried mint flakes or chopped fresh mint leaves (optional)

Once you find the ingredients, making siron is pretty easy. Homemade yufka would be even better if you are skillful and courageous enough take the challenge. The amount of the ingredients is for a 25-30cm round shallow baking tray, like you see in the picture below.

Cut each pastry sheet into halves and roll them as tightly as possible before cutting up those rolls into 1-inch discs. Place the discs into the tray, again see the picture below. Meanwhile don’t forget to prepare the broth and set aside to cool off, it needs to be at room-temperature when the discs are ready to be moistened.

Mix yogurt, garlic and salt thoroughly. Put aside.

Bake siron at 200 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes, till the discs brown up nicely.

Remove from the oven. Spoon all of the broth over the discs slowly.

Melt butter in a pan. Add redpepper if you like. When it’s frothy it’s ready.

Take 10-12 discs into a serving plate, top it up with yogurt sauce, pour 1 tablespoon of butter onto the dish and serve immediately with sumac and/or mint.

Eggplant’s last stand before the winter arrives. Did you guys know that the eggplant is a close cousin of tomatoes? Did you know that the Ottomans prepared hundreds of dishes with this vegetable? Did you know that it contains nicotine? Maybe that’s why Turks like it this much. Keywords: nicotine, Turks, smoking…

Karniyarik literally means “slashed belly”. It’s not a very complicated recipe, especially if you consider how sophisticated the final outcome looks, and of course tastes. Here’s how to make this famous Turkish dish:

Ingredients:

For the stuffing:

100 grams of butter,

1 large onion, chopped finely,

300 grams of ground meat (lamb, beef or a mixture of both),

2 tomatoes, peeled and grated,

1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper,

1/2 teaspoon of salt,

For the rest:

9-10 eggplants, preferably oval-shaped small variety, make sure they are firm and shiny,

Vegetable oil spray,

4-5 teaspoons of salt (for degorging, optional),

A pinch of ground nutmeg (optional),

1/2 cup of boiling water,

1 tomato grated,

A pinch of salt,

4 small green peppers, halved, seeded.

Peel the aubergines (peel the skin in vertical stripes if you like), remove the green bits around the stems but leave the hard stalk on top, just like you see in the picture, this helps hold them intact through the whole process.

Make a deep lengthwise slit along each eggplant, 1 inch apart from both the top and the bottom. Make the slit on the inside of the curve if the eggplants are curved. Carve out some of the flesh inside the slit.

Salt the eggplants generously, hold for about 15 minutes and then rinse, drain and squeeze to remove any excess water. Dry with paper towels. The ones harvested in summer sometimes even don’t need any degorging, but I still recommend this step after “slashing their bellies”, salting and rinsing, then draining and drying with paper towel.

Line the eggplants on a shallow tray and spray with vegetable oil, then bake for 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Remove from the oven when soft. The original recipe calls for frying the eggplants, but this way it’s healthier and tastes way better. Sprinkle with grated nutmeg.

To prepare the filling, melt butter in a non-stick skillet on medium heat, sauté the onions till soft and brownish. Put the heat on high setting, then add ground meat. When cooked add salt, black pepper and tomatoes. Continue stirring until tomatoes are cooked and the sauce thickens.

Stuff the eggplants with the meat filling. Put green pepper halves on each stuffed eggplant. I haven’t listed it in the ingredients but at this point I place 1 teaspoon of cream on top of each eggplant. This is optional, though.

Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 15-20 minutes. Serve warm with plain rice pilaf, fresh parsley leaves and yoghurt.

What could be more cooling than a bowl of cacik on a hot summer day? Greeks make it thicker, Turks like it more in a liquid form. Mix up some yogurt, crushed garlic, chopped cucumber and fresh mint, it’s that easy. Garlic is yogurt’s best friend in a Turkish kitchen and mint leaves freshen up the whole thing. Serve it with bread, legumes cooked in tomato sauce or with meatballs. I know I know, it’s not the healthiest thing to consume yogurt and meat together, as it prevents the body from metabolizing the iron in meat.

The trick to a good cacik or tzatziki as Greeks call it, is to avoid the temptation to grate the cucumbers and to chop them finely with a knife instead.

Ingredients:

1 bowl of yogurt, 200 ml

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 cucumbers, chopped finely

1/2 cup of chopped fresh mint leaves

1 cup of cold water (optional, increase salt if you add water)

2 tablespoon of olive oil

Whip yogurt with a fork, add garlic, salt, cucumber and mint. Add cold water at this point, if you decide to do so. Add olive oil and stir up one last time before serving the dip. Serve cold. Garnish with intact mint leaves if you like. As a side dish it serves 4, as a meal on itself it serves 1-2.

It’s definitely not the best time of year to crave fish, but I can’t help it. Period. Those cravings would not be satisfied with frozen or farmed fish and I’m not an easy going person when it comes to less than perfect food. ‘Perfect’ fish is a bit expensive around this time of year, so the best thing to make with it is a fish soup, of course Ottoman style. In certain parts of the Black Sea region this recipe is still very common, with generous amounts of lemon juice and a hint of saffron, just like it used to be served in the Ottoman Palace. I’ve met a lot of people who fell in love with this soup at first sip, even those who claim to not like seafood. Here is the guide to your ‘Love at first sip’!

Ingredients:

250 g sea bass fillet + 50 g (~3 palm-size pieces) of fish bones

1 medium size onion, cut into four

3 bay leaves

1 medium size carrot, chopped into cubes

1 medium size potato, cubed

1/4 cup of olive oil

1 level tablespoon of salt

A pinch of saffron or 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric

A dash of powdered cinnamon

1 tablespoon of corn starch

Juice of 3 lemons

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley

Wrap fish bones, onion and bay leaves into a cheese cloth, put this flavor bag and the fish fillets into 5 cups of water and bring to boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove fish fillets and set aside for later use.

Add the carrot cubes into boiling water with the flavor bag still in it. Boil for 10 minutes.

Add in the potatoes. Simmer for another 5 minutes.

Add in olive oil, salt, cinnamon, turmeric/saffron. In a little bowl mix the corn flour with 1/2 cups of cold water and slowly add this corn flour mixture into the soup. Keep stirring for 10-15 minutes till the potatoes and carrots turn al dente.

Add in cooked fish fillets.

In the same bowl you previously mixed the corn starch and water, mix the egg yolks and lemon juice. This part is a little tricky. Make an even mixture and slowly add some of the boiling soup into this bowl, stir well and pour this warm mixture into the pot over the stove slowly, vigorously stirring at the same time.

Remove from the heat and keep stirring for another 5 minutes.

Garnish with parsley and serve warm.

I need a getaway, urgent, seriously! Any suggestions, around Istanbul?

Finally today, sun is up and spring seems to have arrived! Yesterday, I was watching the weather report (yeah I am watching the weather report, that’s how serious my need to have a break is) and apparently it’s 25 degrees Celsius in Kiev!?! What the heck! What’s wrong with you Istanbul! Yet, I guess I am the only person to catch a cold and get an almost 2nd degree sunburn on the very same day!

Enough with the weather, I know, my dear beloved reader… In coming weeks I’ll make it up to you with stories from my soon-to-be-planned weekend vacation, promise.

For now, you’ll just have to suffice with a dessert recipe, semolina halva, my best friend nowadays, thanks to holy carbs and the almighty gluten.

Ingredients:

500 g semolina (you may substitute this with polenta, it’s equally delicious)

250 g butter

41/2 cups of boiling water or water+milk

3 cups of sugar

1/2 cups of walnuts or pine nuts

A pinch of powdered cinnamon

In a nonstick cooking pot, we need to roast the semolina, constantly stirring on medium-low heat for around half an hour. The semolina grains will turn translucent, shiny and caramel colored in the end. Add in the butter and walnuts or pinenuts at this point. Roast for another 4-5 minutes.

In the meantime prepare syrup in a separate pot with the boiling water(+milk) and sugar, boil for 7-8 minutes. Add into the semolina mixture. Stir and bring the heat to the lowest, cover. Remove from the heat 3-4 minutes later. Line paper towel under the lid and cover again. Let it rest on the kitchen counter for around 15-20 minutes. Stir and serve.