Beet and Carrot Salad (Pancar ve Havuç Salatası )

If you are into food and travel you most likely will want to check out what the city you are going to has to offer in terms of food. I know from my own experience that when I visit a new country, one of the first things I do is check out the local food of the city I am visiting online. However, sometimes the information on the internet is not enough or it is in a different language. Now there is a new website called ‘Mycitycuisine.org’ that allows people to contribute and introduce their own local cuisine to the world. A contributor to a Wiki project contacted me and asked if I would announce that Mycitycuisine is currently looking for contributors. Since I really liked this project I wanted my readers to know that they can contribute to this website. What a better way to introduce your local cuisine? If you would like more information, go to:

http://www.mycitycuisine.org/wiki/Main_Page

Now a little of background on my recipe… The thought of eating raw beets was not appealing to me so my weekly incorporation of beets into our diets this past year included only roasted, steamed or boiled beets. However, recently I found out my uncle has been cooking with beets too and he shared a very simple salad recipe that includes raw beets and carrots. Knowing that my uncle has a good taste, I decided to try it out. Last week, I made this salad with deep red beets and carrots and the result was incredible. The only difference from my uncle’s recipe is that I added the radish and tomatoes for garnish. Here it is…

4 medium red beets
4 medium carrots
4 green onions
4 medium radishes
1 tomato
1 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Wash and scrub the beets thoroughly and peel the rough parts of the skin. Follow the same process for carrots. Do not peel the carrots unless the skin is unpleasant. Shred the carrots and beets. Chop the green onions put on top of the salad. Add the salt, olive oil and squeeze the lemon. Toss well. Place in a salad plate and garnish with radish and tomato slices.

Eggplant with Lentils (Mercimekli Patlıcan)

Summer time is a great time for the rich selection of fresh vegetables. My refrigerator is always stocked with eggplants, green peppers and tomatoes during the summer months when they are in season since these three vegetables are frequently used in Turkish cooking. Of the three vegetables, the eggplant is a star vegetable as the main ingredient in Turkey since it produces so many different varieties of delicious recipes. And the tomato and pepper just go perfectly with it.

I have already shared a few eggplant recipes on my blog and here is another one. Different people in Turkey make this recipe differently but they all taste good at the end. Many slice the eggplant and stew it with the rest of the ingredients. My approach is similar to ‘imam bayıldı’ recipe where the eggplant is still attached at the top but cut into fourths in the bottom. My mother makes it both ways so I tried this version first.

If you’re looking for a nutritious and succulent meal, this works perfectly. With pilaf and yogurt on the side, it tastes even better.


6 medium eggplants
4 medium tomatoes (chopped)
1 green pepper (chopped)
½ cup brown lentils (soaked overnight)
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
¼ medium onion or small shallot (chopped)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp salt (adjust to taste)
1 tbsp red pepper paste
1 tbsp tomato paste
¼ tsp ground black pepper
1 cup water

Wash the eggplants, cut the stems and peel them in stripes (about 1 inch stripes). They will have one purple stripe and one yellowish (the peeled part) stripe. Slit the eggplant lengthwise in 4 pieces without detaching the top portion. The eggplant should have four long pieces that are attached at the stem. Fry the eggplants partially in the olive oil (less than 2 minutes). Remove and set aside.

Add onion and garlic to the pot and sauté until translucent. Add the soaked lentils, chopped tomatoes, green pepper, salt, black pepper, red pepper paste, tomato paste and stir. Simmer covered for 15 minutes on low heat until the lentils are slightly soft.

Add the partially fried eggplants back to the pot along with the water. Stir well to make sure the ingredients are incorporated into the eggplant. Cook for 30-40 minutes on low heat. Serve with rice pilaf and plain yogurt.

Chickpeas with Ground Lamb (Kuzu Kıymalı Nohut)

Chickpeas are excellent source of vitamins in addition to being delicious. That’s one of the reasons why I like cooking with chickpeas year round. This meal is probably cooked more commonly during winter months, but in my opinion anything that is fresh and tastes good can be relished any time of the year. We had the chickpeas with ground lamb served with bulgur pilaf cooked with orzo pasta and it was just out of this world. If you’re not into lamb, ground beef or even chicken can be substituted without compromising the taste. Here is the recipe….

3 ¼ cup chickpeas
½ medium onion (chopped roughly)
2 cloves garlic (chopped fine)
1 lb ground lamb
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbps red pepper paste
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp ground dry mint
1 ½ tsp salt (adjust to your taste)
2 tsp white vinegar
3 cups water


Wash and soak chickpeas overnight. Drain and boil in a pot for about 30-35 minutes. The chickpeas should be soft, but not mushy after boiling.

Heat a skillet and cook the ground lamb until all the juices are released. Remove from heat and get rid of the juices in the pan.

In a large pot, heat olive oil on medium heat. Saute onions and garlic for 2-3 minutes. Add the lamb and stir for less than a minute. Add chickpeas and cook for 5 minutes. Add water, red pepper paste, cumin, black pepper, dry mint, salt and vinegar.

Stir the ingredients in the pot and cook covered on medium heat for approximately 40 minutes. Make sure the chickpeas are soft to eat.

Serve with rice or bulgur pilaf.

Pasta with Turkish Sausage (Sucuklu Makarna)

My comfort food cravings usually appear when my fridge is almost empty and need to use up the food I have on hand. Yesterday after running around all day I started thinking about what to have for our dinner. Eating out was out of the question as I am sick and tired of it lately. When I walked in the kitchen, both the long and short pasta in the clear, glass containers were staring at me from the other side of the counter. Then I recalled seeing Turkish sausage in my freezer earlier in the morning and the milk in the fridge that needed to be used in a couple days. Albeit, it was difficult to decide whether I should cook long or short pasta, I went with the short penne pasta. In my head, I already had created the taste I wanted to acquire for the pasta and it worked perfectly. It was comforting and filling and scrumptious. A bowl of salad and a side of plain yogurt accompanied it very well.

For the Sauce:

1 ½ cups Turkish sausage (cubed)
1 cup milk
4 small tomatoes
1 clove of garlic (chopped finely)
½ of medium onion (chopped finely)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp red pepper paste
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp salt


For Boiling the Pasta:

1 box Penne Rigate pasta (the pasta that is shaped like a cylinder and cut diagonally)
1 tsp oil
1 tsp salt
Water

In a small pot, boil water for the tomatoes. Place tomatoes and boil for 2 minutes. Turn the heat off. Keep tomatoes in the hot water for 3-4 minutes with lid closed until the tomatoes are soft. Cool and skin the tomatoes. With a heavy fork, roughly smash the tomatoes. The tomato pieces will stay in large chunks. Set aside. If raw tomatoes are used for the sauce, the sauce cooking time will be longer.

In a large pot, boil water. Add pasta to boiling water and follow cooking directions. Usually this kind of pasta requires about 12-13 minutes. Add a little of oil and a pinch of salt so that the pasta does not stick together while cooking. Drain the pasta and set aside.

Heat olive oil on medium heat, in a pot. Add sausage and sauté for 1 minute. Add garlic and onions and sauté for about 2 minutes or until transparent. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, red pepper paste, milk, salt and black pepper. Stir the ingredients for a minute and close lid. Simmer for 3-4 minutes.

Add the drained pasta over the sauce and stir. Keep on heat for two minutes and serve hot. If preferred, a favorite cheese can be sprinkled on the pasta. Garnish with pickles.

Uncle's Food

During a beautiful summer day in the North of the U.S., my uncle cooked all this food for us when we were visiting a while back. Except the scallops, all the meats were grilled along with corn and red peppers. It was a weekend full of delightful food. Since he does not follow recipes when cooking, I made notes and documented every dish he made. Unfortunately, I lost all the recipes and I am left with only beautiful pictures of these foods. I could not pass without sharing all of them.

Turkish Beet Salad (Pancar Salatası)

Beets never made it to my shopping cart during grocery shopping until this past fall. I had eaten beet slices on salads or as a side dish at restaurants and in dormitory cafeterias during college and the flavor never was desirable to me so I never thought about using them in my cooking. One day this past fall, I read an article about the health benefits of beets which convinced me to try this nutritionally very powerful vegetable.

After the first purchase, the flavor was definitely was much better than what I had eaten before. I believe what was provided in the dorms or restaurants came out of a can instead of recently being pulled out of earth. I bought the organic beets as I do with almost all our produce and meats and they tasted pretty good. Beets have an earthy flavor and I think they are an acquired taste. Since the fall, I have been purchasing them almost every week. I boiled, steamed or roasted them and created wonderful salads alone or with other vegetables. Before the beet season is over, I wanted to share a traditionally Turkish beet salad recipe. Hopefully I will recreate and share the other ones to at another date.

For those of you who hate beets, you may want to try them again with an open mind and you may change your mind.


4 medium red beet roots
1 cup plain yogurt
1 garlic clove (chopped)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white vinegar or lemon juice
½ tsp salt (adjust to your taste)
¼ tsp dried mint

Discard stems of beets and wash and scrub the roots. Steam in a pot or pan for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and leave covered for another 30 minutes.

Once the beets are cooled dry with paper towel. Grate beets with skin on. Grating them using a food processor will be much cleaner than grating manually as the red color of the beets will splash everywhere. Place grated beets in a deep bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients and toss. Serve cold.

Spinach and Feta Borek (Ispanaklı ve Beyaz Peynirli Börek)

Two years ago, I made a spinach and feta börek and prepared the recipe and all the pictures step by step and never got around to publishing it. Just recently, I made this börek and documented it again. This time, I made a few changes in the recipe and I decided to publish this version instead of the previous one. The taste of this one surpassed the previous one, so I decided to publish this version.

Note: The Phyllo dough sheets can be found in the frozen section of most markets. If the Pyhllo sheets are too big for the tray or Pyrex dish you are using, the phyllo sheets can be folded to reach the size of the baking dish.

1 package Phyllo sheets
½ cup yogurt
½ cup olive oil
1 egg


For the Filling:

2 bunches fresh spinach (approximately 2 lb)
2 cloves of garlic (chopped fine)
2 shallots (chopped fine)
1 cup feta cheese (crumbled)
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp black pepper
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp salt (if the feta cheese is not too salty)
Pinch of black sesame seeds

Preparation of Filling:

Wash the spinach thoroughly. In a large pot, boil water and add the spinach in the boiled water for 2 minutes. Do not keep them in the boiled water long as their texture will become mushy. Immediately run the spinach under cold water in order to stop the cooking process. Create small balls from the spinach and give them a nice squeeze to remove the excess water in the spinach. Chop each spinach ball coarsely and with your hands, separate the spinach leaves from each other as sticking together will hinder the salt and spices to get inside the spinach.

Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add onions and garlic and sauté for 2-4 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Add the spinach to the onions and garlic. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the cheese for the filling and sauté for 5-6 minutes. Make sure the salt, cumin, black and cayenne peppers are distributed evenly in the spinach.

Remove the spinach filling from heat and let it cool. When the filling cools down, add the crumbled feta cheese. If the feta is very salty, no salt is needed for the filling as feta cheese may compensate for the salt.


Putting All Ingredients Together:

In a deep bowl, add the yogurt, olive oil and egg. Mix vigorously until all three ingredients are mixed well.

Using a brush, spread a small amount of the yogurt-olive oil-egg mixture in a large Pyrex dish. This is to prevent the Phyllo sheets from sticking to the Pyrex dish.

Open the Phyllo dough package. Place a damp cloth on top so that the Phyllo sheets do not dry out. These are the same dough sheets that are used for baklava.

Place one sheet of the Phyllo dough in the Pyrex dish. Dip the brush in the yogurt-olive oil-egg mixture and brush the Phyllo sheet. Do this one by one until half of the Phyllo sheets are used up. After half of the phyllo sheets are layered, spread the spinach filling on top. Add another sheet of the phyllo sheet on top of the filling and brush with the yogurt-olive oil-egg mixture. Continue the process of brushing each Phyllo sheet and placing them on top of each other until all the Phyllo sheets are used up. If you have any of the yogurt-olive oil-egg mixture left over, pour it on top and spread it evenly with a brush. The result will be a spinach filling in the middle of the layered phyllo sheets. Half of the phyllo sheets will be in the bottom of the filling and the other half will be on top of the filling.Sprinkle black sesame seeds on top.

Bake at 350º F in the middle rack of the oven for 40 minutes or until golden brown. Let it cool before cutting, otherwise the bottom part of the börek may get soggy.

Serve warm or at room temperature.