Tastes of Turkey

One of the things I enjoy most about travelling is the exposure you get to seeing how different cultures eat, cook and celebrate the special events in their lives. The food in both Greece & Turkey was wonderful, healthy, fresh, colourful and varied. I have come home motivated to try a lot of different dishes so I reserved a couple of Turkish cook books at the local library, this one, Anatolia-Adventures in Turkish Cooking arrived Friday so I’ve done a couple of test meals.

Yesterday I made ‘Ezo The Bride’ Soup, or also known as red lentil and burgul soup. I had been eyeing off a recipe for Turkish Bride Soup that Annabel Langbein has developed but I hadn’t gotten around to making it. This soup seems to have many variations to both the ingredients and the story as to how it evolved, when I googled it, no other recipes seemed to use rice as well as lentils and bulgur and many others used butter to cook the onion first.  I didn’t have enough red lentils so I made up the balance with brown lentils. Served with some pumpkin seed sourdough it was a hale and hearty meal indeed and one I think, that would be extremely high in fibre content. Oops, should have wiped the bowls before taking pictures I think!

I mentioned last post that I made some red pepper paste, this paste is used in just about everything in Turkey. It is as common as our tomato paste is and it is delicious. The version I made is quite spicy as I used my rocoto chillies as well as red capsicum to make it. This pic shows some tomato paste on the left and some weird-looking pepper paste on the right. It has been stored in the fridge with olive oil covering it so it looks strange but you can see the brilliant colour of it. Most of it is still hiding under the layer of oil.

Tonight I made a version of Lamb kebaps with Barbecued salad.

This was delicious! I deviated a little in the cooking as I didn’t have any meat skewers and our little grill pan is all that is available at the moment so it was easier to shape them like kofta. I made these a little earlier so the stove was free to cook the salad skewers, I also included some eggplant in the vegies to grill. The meatballs were reheated just prior to serving.

I couldn’t be bothered making pita bread so it was served with some mountain bread (not really recommended) and some greek yoghurt. I’m glad I halved the paprika in the sauce mix as it was quite hot, tasty but just a little too much.

Both of the recipes I tried were really nice so I’ll continue testing a few more. I will create a document and add the recipes for these dishes later.

Last year I mentioned we had bought a Kitchen dresser, and that I was going to give it some TLC. I just didn’t like the shiny lacquer finish that had been applied and I wanted it to look far more soft and silky.

well I’ve finally been working on getting it to look more like it would have originally. It means going over every part of it with water based paint stripper, lots of sanding, possibly some oxalic acid applications to remove some black staining, lots more rubbing with steel wool then applying a finish of beeswax and carnuaba wax. So far it looks promising as to how it will progress but there is a long way to go yet. This is after the first attack.

Some would think this enough to burn the unit but I happen to love wondering about what it may have been that chewed its way along the back of this drawer.Here are a couple of pics taken in a little restaurant in Goreme Cappadocia Turkey. These women sit here most of the day making dumplings, Turkish ravioli (manti) and other beautiful goodies.This is the setting our table was placed, you look out over some of the amazing ‘homes in caves’ which is what this area is most noted for. This will give an indicator as to how much the tourism industry is effected by the unrest in the area. Normally would be packed at this time of year.We under-estimated how much food would be served by a mile. This was the appetizer,Followed by the main meal of Turkish ravioli (this is what the women made) it is about the size of the tip of a finger and painstakingly shaped to perfection. There is about a match sticks head worth of filling in each piece. This was served with yoghurt, red pepper paste and dried herbs. The other dish was smoked roasted stuffed eggplant and I am drooling remembering it! The bread was baked in their wood oven and I thoroughly enjoyed every morsel!