Turkish Zucchini Fritters (Kabak Mücveri)

I have made mücver throughout the summer without following a recipe and each time making differently. This version, by far has been the tastiest one. Most of the time, I do not add white cheese and I think I will never make them again without it. The cheese adds such a wonderful flavor. I was already full when I made these, but I couldn’t resist so I ate two while making them. These are also great for little children who usually would not eat zucchinis. Enjoy!

3 zucchinis

1 medium onion

2 cloves garlic (optional)

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

½ cup crumbled Turkish white cheese (or feta)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dried mint

1 tsp crushed red pepper

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp cumin

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1 cup olive oil

Peel the zucchinis in stripes and grate them along with the onion. Squeeze all the juice out from the zucchinis and the onion. Add the rest of the ingredients except the olive oil. Mix well.

Heat about ¼ cup of oil and place spoonful of the zucchini mixture. 

Cook several minutes on each side until both sides are golden brown. 

Remove and add another ¼ cup of olive oil for the next batch. Repeat this until all the olive oil and the zucchini mixture is used up.

Serve with yogurt garlic sauce (crushed garlic mixed with yogurt) at room temperature.

Kebab Stuffed in Eggplant Pots (Saksı Kebabı)

I could not resist posting another eggplant recipe before the summer season is over. By chance, I found these beautiful looking, organic eggplants and I had to buy them. There are so many Turkish recipes with eggplants, so I like to try something different each time. This recipe I have not made before, but after tasting its deliciousness, I will make it more often. It goes excellent with crusty bread or rice or both!

5 large eggplants (black beauty found in most grocery stores works perfect)

Pot of salty water

2 cups olive oil for frying

For Kebab Stuffing:

1.5 lb cubed beef

8 shishito peppers (or 2-3 long, slim green peppers)

4 medium tomatoes (peeled and diced)

1 large onion (diced)

2 large cloves garlic (chopped)

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp thyme

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

2 cups of water

For Sauce:

2 cups water

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp salt

For Garnish:

2 sliced tomatoes (optional)

10 shishito peppers (or 2-3 long, slim green peppers)

Heat a pan and place beef cubes. Cook until they release their water and remove from heat. In a pot, heat up olive oil. 

Add onions and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add peppers and diced tomatoes. Saute another 3-4 minutes. Add beef and garlic to the pot. Add two cups of water. Add salt, cumin, black pepper, thyme. Stir, cover and cook for 1 hour or until the beef is tender.

Wash and dry eggplants. Cut in half and clean inside to create a pot from each half. 

Add to the salty water and let sit for 1 hour. 

Wash eggplants and sprinkle the inside and the outside with salt. Dry and fry until all sides take a golden color.

Place all eggplants in a baking dish with the openings facing up. Fill each pot with stuffing. 

Garnish green peppers and if desired with tomatoes.

In a bowl, whisk the water, tomato paste and salt. Pour over the eggplants. If there is any juice left from the stuffing, pour it over the eggplants also. Bake at 350º F for 1 hour or until the eggplants are completely tender. Serve hot with rice.

Eggplant with Green Lentils (Mualla/Yeşil Mercimekli Patlıcan)

Eggplant is one of my favorite summer vegetables. I don’t seem to be cooking with it as much now since my kids don’t love it. One day, I really craved eggplants so I decided to make something saucy with eggplants. This recipe is traditionally made in Hatay/Antakya (Antioch) region and it is just incredibly delicious. The pomegranate molasses gives it such a good kick. It is particularly delicious with flat bread, but I served it with rice, instead of bread.

2 large eggplants

3 large tomatoes (peeled and diced)

3-4 green peppers (cut in fourths and sliced)

1 large onion (cut in fourths and sliced)

4 cloves garlic (chopped)

1 cup green lentils

1 tbsp red pepper paste

2 tsp crushed red peppers

1 tsp dried mint

1 tsp sumac

2 tsp salt

¼ cup pomegranate molasses

½ tsp thyme

¾ cup olive oil

Peel the eggplants in stripes. Cut each eggplant in eights and slice diagonally. 

Fill a large pot with cold water and add salt. Place the sliced eggplants in salty water and let sit for an hour.

Wash the lentils and place in a small pot. Add two cups of water and boil for 35-40 minutes or until the lentils absorb all the water and are soft.

In a large bowl, combine the cooked lentils, green peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, sumac, mint, crushed red pepper, red pepper paste, thyme and pomegranate molasses. 

Drain the eggplants and set aside. In the bottom of a large pot place half the lentil mixture. 

Place the eggplant slices on top of the mixture and pour the rest of the lentil mixture on the top. Drizzle with olive oil.

 

Cook on stove top for 15 minutes on high heat and then turn down the heat and cook for 1 hour. Enjoy with rice.

Baked Pastry with Leeks and Chard (Fırında Pırasalı ve Pazılı Börek)

With winter comes, my favorite winter vegetables: chard and leeks. I started buying chard and leeks because of their nutritional value which I feed my little kids on a weekly basis. I grew up eating chard which I was not fond of but my mother only made it with a yogurt soup with grain which is eaten cold. I don’t recall eating it any other way. For böreks, my mother only used spinach and never chard. After I learned cooking many years later, I tried böreks with Swiss chard and regular chard and I was very happy with the results. This time I wanted to add leeks since I had them on hand and really it was so light and delicious!

I prepared the stuffing ahead of time and froze it as it is almost impossible for me to make everything the same day with two little kids and work.  I made the dough the same day I made the böreks and the stuffing tasted as if fresh. We all enjoyed them; especially my boys. They kept wanting more and more. Even though I was in a hurry when making them and didn’t take very good pictures, I think the pictures are acceptable and will explain the steps pretty well.

Caveat: You will most likely have leftover dough. I could have adjusted the proportions for the recipe, but I did not want to do that without really trying it. You can use the left over dough for any type of stuffing you like or even a small pizza.

Now it’s time for the recipe.

For the Dough:

6 ¼ cups white flour

2 ½ cups warm water

1½ tsp yeast (optional)

2 tsp salt

1 tbsp red pepper paste (optional or red pepper can be substituted)

1 tbsp olive oil

1/3 cup olive oil for brushing boreks

½ cup flour for rolling

For the Stuffing:

2 bunches of chard (around 10 chard leaves)

2 leeks

2 garlic cloves

1/3 cup olive oil

1 tsp cumin

1 ½ tsp red pepper flakes

¼ tsp black pepper

1 ½ tsp salt

Prepare the Dough:

Let yeast sit in warm water for 25-30 minutes until it bubbles.

Using a Stand Mixer: 

Attach the dough hook to the stand mixer. Add the flour, salt, red pepper paste and olive oil in the mixer bowl and run it on stir. Gradually add the yeasty water. Change the speed to 2 and let it knead the dough until it is soft. It should take less than five minutes. Cover with a damp cloth and let it sit for two hours.

Manually:

Add the flour, salt, red pepper paste, olive oil and half of the water and start kneading. Add the rest of the yeasty water gradually and continue to knead until soft dough is attained. It should take about 15-20 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth and let it sit for two hours.

Prepare the Stuffing:

Remove stems of chard from leaves.  

First steam stems of chard until soft as they will take longer to cook than the leaves. Remove and steam chard leaves until wilted. Chop both stems and leaves small.

Slit leeks in half and wash thoroughly several times to remove all the dirt between the layers. 

Chop finely. Heat olive oil in a pan. Sauté leeks first for 4-5 minutes. 

Add chopped chard, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper flakes and black pepper. Stir for a couple minutes and remove from heat and cool.

Prepare softball size dough balls and sit aside. 

Take about 2 tbsp of flour and place on the dough rolling surface. Take one of the balls and place it on top of the flour. Add another 2 tbsp of flour on top of the dough ball. 

Flatten with your fingers and start rolling. 

Make the pastry 9-10 inches in diameter, smaller if smaller pastries are desired. 

Add 3 tbsp of the stuffing in the middle of the rolled dough and fold the outer 1 inch from the left, right and the bottom to create a triangle. 

Place on a baking sheet and brush with olive oil. Repeat until all the dough and the stuffing are used up.

Heat up oven to 375º. Bake for 15-25 minutes or until the böreks take a golden color. 

Enjoy with hot tea or with cold yogurt or yogurt drink. 

Baked Eggplant Kebab (Tepside Patlıcan Kebabı)

This truly delicious dish comes from the city of Gaziantep, Turkeywhich is very famous with its cuisine. After Hatay (my Province), I like Gaziantep’s food next and then Adana which is about two hours away from my hometown. I have only passed by Gaziantepand have not been there to taste all the delicious food, but when I was very young we had a family acquaints who were from Gaziantep and would come to enjoy the Mediterranean beach for the summer months. As our families spent a lot of time together during their summer vacation, I have tasted some of their food.  One thing I still remember from those days was when we stopped by one day the lady was making stuffed eggplants. She insisted on us to try it before we left and we did. To this day, the taste of that stuffed eggplants is still in my mouth and have never forgotten it. It was hot, but extremely delicious and I must say I have not eaten any better stuffed eggplant than that. I have tried to recreate it in my adult life by asking my mom about the ingredients, but I have not been fully successful. Now that we’ve gone back to childhood memories, let’s get back to the eggplant kebab.

Gaziantepis known with its eggplant kebab which is normally made on a grill which tastes even better. But this one is also extremely good and probably easier cooking as you put it in the oven and forget about it. I made this twice so far; in the initial trial it is juicier than I would have liked and also I used the fat eggplants that I had in hand. In Gaziantepthe long eggplants are know as “kebaplık patlıcan” meaning “eggplants specifically for kebap”. This version turned out better than the first one. The amount was perfect for two adults and two small children and we had leftovers. You can easily double the recipe for a larger amount.

1 lb ground beef

4-5 eggplants (long eggplants)

1 tomato (cut in half)

8 pearl onions

2 green peppers (any kind of long and thin peppers will work)

1 clove garlic (chopped fine)

1 small onion (grated)

1 tsp red pepper flakes

¼ tsp ground black pepper

1 ¼ tsp salt

For the Sauce:

2 tbsp tomato sauce

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 cup cold water

For Soaking Eggplant:

5 cups cold water

2 tsp salt

Mix ground beef, garlic, grated onions, red pepper flakes, black pepper and salt well. 

Pull a walnut sized piece and slightly flatten. 1 lb ground beef made 17 small patties. 

Cut the eggplants 1-1.5 inches wide. 

Cut as many pieces as the number of ground beef (in this case 17).  Soak the eggplants in the salted cold water for about 30 minutes to get out any bitterness that may exist. In a round pan, arrange the beef and eggplants by alternating with one piece of eggplant and one piece of meat starting from the edge of the pan until all the meat and eggplants are used up. In the middle of the pan, place the tomato halves and the pearl onions. 

Mix the salt, olive oil and tomato sauce with 1 cup of water. Pour it all over the pan. 

Add the green peppers and cover with aluminum foil.

Bake at 400º F for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove aluminum foil and continue to bake for another 15 minutes until the vegetables show signs of roasting. Five minutes of broiling also will work.

Enjoy with rice pilaf or just flat bread.

Note: If your pan is bigger and have a lot of room left in the middle, you may add more tomatoes, onions and green peppers inside. 

Green Beans with Ground Beef (Kıymalı Yeşil Fasülye)

We have been really enjoying all the seasonal vegetables this summer: zucchinis, green beans, eggplant, okra, green and red peppers and of course a lot of tomatoes. Every week at least 3-4 of these vegetables are consumed in our households depending on the availability. I like to purchase them all organic and sometimes organic is not available. In that case, I purchase what is fresh and organic. Lately, organic, fresh looking green beans are available almost every week at the market I shop, so I have been purchasing them and cooking them either just with tomatoes or with tomatoes and chicken or beef. I have posted several green bean stew recipes in the past and I wanted to add another one as this is a versatile dish. This one is with ground beef. I also like it with stew meat but for my little boys, ground beef is easier to chew so I don’t have to cut the meat really small for them.

I cooked this in a Dutch oven but any type of pot will do. If you do not wish to put it in the oven, you may cook it on stove for about 1.5 hours or until the beans are tender. Traditionally, this is cooked on the stove top.

2 lbs green beans

6-7 large ripe tomatoes (peeled and diced)

1 small red onion (chopped)

3 large cloves garlic (crushed)

2 lbs ground beef

1/2 cup olive oil

2 1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cumin

¼ tsp ground black pepper

6 cups water

Cut the ends of each green bean and slit in the middle without cutting through the end. The beans will split in two and stay attached at the bottom.  Take the split beans that are attached at the bottom and cut diagonally around 1 ½ inch long. In addition to cooking faster, when the beans are split in half, all the wonderful juices go inside them which produce a delicious flavor.

Heat olive oil on medium heat. Add the ground beef and stir until no longer pink. Add the onions and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add the green beans and then the crushed garlic and stir. 

Continue to sauté for another 3-4 minutes. Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, paprika, cumin, ground black pepper, salt and water. Stir well.

Preheat oven to 420°F. In an oven safe pot or dutch oven, bake for 2 hours. Remove from heat and enjoy with rice.