Monday, November 3, 2014

Asure - Noah's Pudding



Yes, today is the day we called Asura in Islam. I would love to give what happened in this day in details unfortunately I am so busy at work since it is month end closing. Maybe I can update this post later. when I first read, I was surprised how magical things happened to many of prophets in the same day(10th of Muharram according to lunar calendar).

But I would like to give my recipe of Noah's pudding incase you want to cook. It is another recipe where you feel free to add anything according to your taste. There are basic ingredients and than others are optional. Here are the list that I used to make pudding;

Necessary ones;
1 cup soaked and boiled shelled wheat
1 cup soaked and boiled dried beans
1 cup soaked and boiled garbanzo beans
1+1/2 cup sugar ( you may substitude molasses or honey)

Optional ones:

A pinch of rice
A pinch of sesame
A pinch of cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 small peeled and chopped apple
1/2 orange skin chopped
1/2 lemon skin chopped
12 chopped dried apricots
6 chopped dried figs
1/2 cup raisins

For topping:

Cracked walnuts
Cracked hazelnuts
Cracked pistachios
Pine nuts
Pomegranate


Choose your biggest pot and bring 2 liters of water to boil. Than add wheat, dried beans and garbanzo beans.Cook them around 10 minutes.After 10 minutes start adding other optional ingredients one by one but please do not forget to take cinnamon stick after you turn the heat off. It becomes thicker as you put all ingredients and they start to boil.As a final add its sugar till you like (it may be more or less than what I wrote) and let it boil 5 more minutes then turn the heat off. Leave the pot for couple hours to set but if you like warm pudding you can start tasting with adding its topping.

As I write at the beginning this is how I like to eat. I like my Noah's pudding darker thus I use cinnamon stick while cooking. Some people prefer not to use it and add ground cinnamon as topping. Again it is open to your imagination. So pelase feel free to try and create your own Noah's Pudding Recipe! Afiyet olsun!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Baharatli/Otlu Pogaca - Turkish Pastry with either spice or herbs


Hello dear reader,

I know it has been a while I couldn't update my blog. I have a very important excuse which I cannot tell now ;-))

Today I have another Turkish pastry recipe for you. I think you all understand how I like to bake. This is a simple and quick recipe and it is open for your imagination too. The original recipe was with feta cheese and dill (parsley if you do not like dill) but I didn't have them at home when I was craving for it thus I used spices instead (dried mint- oregano and chilli peeper flakes)

Here comes the ingrediences;

1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbs soft butter
2 eggs (seperate 1 yolk for brushing)
2 ts sugar
1 ts yeast
1 ts salt
3 cups + 2 tbs flour
100 gr crumbled feta cheese
1 cup chopped dill or parsley or spices if you don't have neither of them.

Mix well sugar, warm milk and yeast at first. Than add oil, butter and eggs and mix couple more minutes. Thank add 3 cups of flour than continue to add if you need more. I added 2 tbs more since I used large eggs. You may decrease salt if your cheese is too salty. Add the other ingredients and knead the dough couple more minutes till you have soft dough. Cover the dough and leave it to raise 20-25 minutes till it doubles. Than divide the dough into two pieces. Put some flour over the counter top and make a circle with the first dough piece about 10" diameter or service plate dimention. You may use either your hands or a rolling pin. Cut that dough to 8 pieces. Roll each triangle dough in order to get croissant shape. Roll the others and finally you will have 16 pastries on the tray. Before you start rolling each piece feel free to add extra cheese or butter than roll it. Or just roll it plain.It is up to your imagination. Leave them on the tray another 20-25 minutes to rise more than brush egg yolk on top of the pastries. Place the tray to preheated oven around 420F about 15 minutes till they have nice color. Timing depends on the oven.Mine took 15 minutes to bake but it could need more time.

Prepare Turkish tea while they are in the oven. Have fun with tea and warm fluffy pogaca which I did couple days ago ;-)) Afiyet olsun!

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

I am back with Simit (Turkish Bagel) Recipe


It has been very long time that I haven't published new recipe. Sorry about that. Last 3-4 months were very difficult for us. Anyway, I am back again ;-))

I have a very delicious recipe for people who starve simit outside of Turkey. Because in Turkey you do not need to bake it at home. It is much more easy to buy them from bakery stores. But if you live abroad and want to have simit than you need to learn how to make it. It is not so hard actually. The most difficult for me was giving shape to simit otherwise it doesn't take long time to prepare. As you can see below the shape is not excellent but it worked for me ;-))



Here are the ingredients that I use;

For the dough;
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 1 cup likewarm milk
- 2 tbs yeast
- 2 tbs sugar
- 3 ts salt
- 1 egg
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 5 cup + 2 tbs flour

For topping;
- 1 cup sesame seeds
- 2 tbs grape molasses
- 2 tbs water

Mix well water, milk, yeast and sugar in a large bowl first. Than add oil, egg and flour, than salt. After I added 5 cups of flour I added additional 2 table spoon more but I put it carefully.You may not need that additional 2 tbs of flour.It depends on what size of egg you are going to use I think. Knead the dough about 10 minutes till it gets soft and smooth. After that wrap the bowl well and let the dough rise about half an hour. After that knead the dough one more minute till it is bubble free and place it onto counter top. You may need to sprinkle additional flour here if your dough is so sticky. Cut the dough 10 equal pieces and start rolling them by your fingers till you get around 20 inches (it will be long roll) Bring the two ends together and twist them than make the ends together like a bagel shape this time. When you finish giving shapes to simits mix water and grape molasses in a large bowl and place sesame seeds in a serving plate. First dip simits to the mixture and than dip them to sesame seeds and place them to baking tray. Let them rise around half an hour. By the time preheat the oven to 475F. Bake them around 10-12 minutes till they are golden. Timing would change depending on the oven style.

Than they are ready to eat :-) I cooked them yesterday and I ate one of them with 3 different cheese. This tray was for my husband who was studying at that time. I hope you give a try to this recipe and like the taste that we did. Enjoy!

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Ezme

Hello everyone,

I know it has been very long that I haven't post a new recipe here. I am not going to find excuses about that. But I know that I am a little bit lazy ;-)

Today I have a very easy but very tasty recipe for you. It goes well with grills in summer. Or that is the way we like ;-) Whenever we barbeku or go to picnic I try to make this salad. It is originally hot but I do not use hot pepper.

It is so flexible to make additions according to your preference. I am just giving you basic items and rest is your imagination.


Ingredients;

4 medium ripe tomatoes
2 medium onion
4 gloves of garlic
1 tbs pepper paste
1 tbs tomato paste
1/2 green bell pepper ( it is hard to find mild pepper here)
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 bunch of parsley
Juice of 2 lemons (it depends on your taste actually)
2 tbs olive oil
Salt and chilli pepper

I first grate tomatoes and than chop all onions,garlic,peppers and parsley. This is the key part. If you use a blender or a chopper it will not have the same taste. If you have a sharp knife and a cutting board it is not difficult and it is not time consuming. Than I add tomato and pepper past with spices. The amount you use might be different. So feel free to add more or less spices or herbs. You will have enough ezme for 3-4 families with that amount of ingredients.

I hope you enjoy your ezme if you give a try!

Monday, June 2, 2014

Happy Birthday!


 
 
It has been a while that I couldn't write here. After coal mine explosion in Soma Turkey I felt terrible. I didn't want to do anything, even working. Life is too short. And we should know how valuable a single breath.
Finally I have decided to continue writing. There are things that we can change but also there are things that we can not change. I found that having hope helps you to overcome a disaster.
 
I do not have a recipe today. It is my 32nd birthday today.
I wish to myself a better world in my new year!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Semolina Halvah


Today is a holy night for muslim people. (Regaip Kandili) It is belived that God will accept your prays tonight. One of the tradition that I know in these holy days is to prepare either halvah or a kind of pastry and share it with your neighbours. My mom still does that.

I have a semolina halvah recipe that I use for you. I know it has many calories but it is worth to have it once for a while, not so often ;-) 




First we need to prepare its syrup.

- 1 glass of water
- 1 glass of milk
- 1 1/3 sugar

Mix these three ingredients well in a pan and bring it to boil. Then you can take it away and let it cool.

Other ingredients we need;

- 1 glass of semolina
- 1 stick butter (113 gr)
- 1/2 pine nuts if you like

In a deep pan butter is melted first than you can add pine nuts and semolina.You need to stir well. You will see the color change of both nuts and semolina. It would take around 6 minutes with this amount of ingredients in medium heat. I always use wooden spoon for stirring. If you see the color change (it gets darker) then you can add the syrup slowly which was already prepared. I am sorry you still need to stir the mixture till semolinas absorb all syrup and halvah gets thicker. Once it gets diffucult to stir than you can turn the heat off. Cover the pan or put its lid and wait around 30 minutes before you serve.Halvah should rest before it is served.

In the picture I just put halvah to a bowl and turned it upside down  in order to get this shape. You may sprinkle some cinnamon, or cracked nuts or even coconut.We have another way to enjoy semolina halvah which is eaiting it with ice cream;-)) It is very common in kebab restaurants in Turkey.

Afiyet olsun!

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Spinach Borek on Griddle

Of course I do not have a convex griddle in US. I used non stick pan instead. But the result is perfect and the same taste that I get from a griddle. Most parts of Turkey it is called "Gozleme" but in my hometown "Sac boregi(borek on griddle)" is the synonym of "Gozleme" and it is more popular.

I have been craving this borek for the last few weeks. Finally I was able to cook two days ago. They turned out very well. I will definetely cook more with different fillings. I love spinach in pastries thus I made them with spinach and feta. But feel free to combine the vegetables you like. Here are some ideas;

Feta & parsley
Potatos with tomato paste
Sauteed leeks with feta
Sauteed zucchinies with spices
Sauteed ground beef with onions

I used;
1 pack of frozen spinach (I didn't have fresh ones at home that day)
1 cup of feta cheese
1/2 chopped onion
1 ts salt
1 ts flaked red pepper for the filling.

2 cups + 2 tbs all purpose flour
1 cup water
1 ts salt  for the dough

1/3 cup olive oil for cooking
Additional flour for counter top

I use stand mixer in order to prepare dough. So mine was ready in 4-5 minutes. If you are going to knead with your hands place the flour and salt first. Than add room temperature water slowly to the mixture untill you have soft and smooth dough. It won't take more than 10 minutes.Take small pieces from the dough and make them ball shape in your palms. There should be 6 or 7 small balls ( like mandarin size) Place them floured conter top and sprinkle more flour to your dough balls. Start rolling them one by one till you have 10" diameter circle with a rolling pin.You can use more flour if needed while rolling the dough. Since I was using 12.5" pan for cooking my phyllos were around 10" or 11" diameter. Place the stuffing one side of phyllo than cover it with the rest of the dough. You will have a "D" shape at the end.
Heat the pan and place your borek inside the pan. I put olive oil to a bowl and use a kitchen brush to drizzle the oil on each surface. This makes boreks to have oil equally and prevents using much oil while cooking. It needs to be cooked slowly and you should be checking the surfaces every couple minutes. But you can start rolling anouther dough while the other is being cooked. Preparing and cooking took an hour for me which is not too long I think.

I would suggest to eat them while they are warm. It is great with tea or ayran (yogurt drink).
I hope you like it when you give a try.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Savory Cookie with Sesame Seed


Here I come with another cookie recipe that goes well with a glass of Turkish tea. But this time it will have a savory taste. It looks like crunchy but when you have a bite it will melt in your mouth.

In Turkey you can find them in pastry shops aspecially in holy nights of Islam. They are called "Kandil Simidi" and their shapes are bigger than I make.

What we need to make those cookies are;
- 1 stick butter
- 1 tea glass of oil (I use sunflower oil)
- 1 tea glass of plain yogurt (yeah... we consume yogurt a lot)
- 1 egg (yolk is used for the dough, white is use for outside of the cookies)
- 2 ts of sugar
- 1 ts of mahlab
- 1/2 ts of salt
- 1 pack of baking powder
- All purpose flour (3-4 tea glass of flour)
- Sesame seeds or nigel seeds if you prefer

Combine all ingredients except egg whites and sesame seeds in a bowl. Mix them well and knead it around 5 minutes.The dough should be soft and oily thus it will not stick to you hands. You can give shape either on your palms or on the counter. Take small balls like a pecan size and roll it with your hand. It should be around 2 inches long and than combie the two ends together. You will have a small circle. First dip this circle to egg white and than sesame seeds. You will see sesame seeds will stick to the dough easily. Place all of them to a baking tray and bake them around 400F for about 20 minutes. Timing may change per oven. You will have approximately 40 cookies with this recipe.
As always I would recommend you to prepare your tea while they are being baked :-)

Their crunchiness will last couple days outside if you keep them covered or in a tin container.

Afiyet olsun!


Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Cookie or Biscuit ...

Hello all,

I hope you had a nice weekend. Mine passed so fast. And I feel busier over the weekends. Usually Sunday is the day that I cook or bake and think about the meals for the following week days. These incredible easy cookies were baked last Sunday. I can not tell you how good the smell was while I was baking them. Because I used mastic powder ;-)

Mastic is a resin extracted from a mastic tree. You can find its jars in international food stores in which Greek or Turkish food is sold. I brought mines from Turkey. It was combined with vanilla powder. Very smart idea... 

Here are the ingredients for making approximately 26 cookies;

- 1 stick butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 + 1/4 tea glass of sugar
- 1/2 tea glass of starch (wheat or corn)
- 2-3 tea glass of all purpose flour depending on the size of the egg
- 1 pack of baking powder
- 1 pack of vanilla powder mixed with mastic powder
(if you have 2-3 mastic crystals you can grind them in a mortar and get mastic powder ready)

Combine them in this order and after kneading couple minutes you will have soft dough. It will not stick to your hands and the container. I wanted to finish as soon as possible thus I didn't do anything different on shape. Take a peacon size of the dough (not walnut) and round on your palms and place it to the baking tray. They will melt and have this circular shape while being baked. Put the tray into the preheated oven in 350F and bake them around 15-20 minutes.
You can prepare your tea while they are being baked and after you take the tray from oven let it cool for 5 minutes. Then enjoy these wonderfull delicious cookies or biscuits.


The picture was taken on my husband's desk. Then I left the room and played with my son in living room. After a while I heard my husband's voice. He was telling me that he finished all of them ;-) And my son had two of them.That is enough for me to understand how successful was this recipe at my house.

Bon appetit!

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

A Cup of Turkish Coffee ?

Would you like a cup of Turkish Coffee ?
I would love to have one now ;-) I will not write here all the history of coffee but it would be better to give some facts about Turkish coffee.

It has been around 500 years that Turkish Coffee is consumed as the way it is prepared. (Coffee beans have been throughly ground and prepared with boiling water.)

It is an old custom to serve coffee to your guests at home. Always it is good to drink together which encourages the conversation.

Breakfast means in Turkish (kahvalti = kahve - alti) to eat something before having coffee.

You can not drink your coffee when you are in a rush. It will be hard to hold tiny cups otherwise. Since you sit down and drink your coffee it makes you relax ;-) It also helps to digest the food if you drink after a meal.

Preparing is not so complicated. You will need;

- Cezve ( small long handled pot)
- Ground Turkish coffee
- Tea spoon
- Water (I substitute water with milk to have less strong coffee aspecially at nights )
- Sugar (optional)
 

Put 1 full tsp of coffee to cezve for each cup. Add the desired amount of sugar per cup. I use 1/2 tsp per cup since I like medium. Than add cold water by measuring with cup that you are going to drink from. Stir them well with tea spoon before you put cezve to stove. (Do not stir after you put cezve to the stove) I prepare my coffee in medium heat. When the coffee rises take it from heat and try to distribute the foam into the cups equally with a tea spoon. Than let the coffee rises again over the stove and turn the heat off. You can pour the rest of coffee to the cups. And this is it. Your Turkish Coffee is ready to drink ;-)
It is always served with a glass of water. First you should drink water than start drinking coffee.Otherwise you can not have perfect coffee taste.

I forgot to put glasses in my picture, sorry about that ;-)
Afiyet olsun...

Monday, March 10, 2014

Pogaca - Turkish Savory Pastry


Yes, this will be my fist recipe in this blog.

I cannot tell you how much I like to eat pogaca. It is very common food in Turkey for breakfast or tea time in the afternoon. To be honest I preferred to buy them from pastry shops when I used to live in Turkey. But here I have to do it by myself. It is definitely healtier.

The more you do it the better it gets. This is a main rule for yeast recipies. Please do not give up if your first or second trial did not work. The quality of flour and yeast are important to have fluffy pogaca. Here comes pogaca ingredient list;

For the dough
- 2 cups of lukewarm milk
- 1 cup olive oil/sunflower oil (these are the ones that I use)
- 2 eggs (whites are for dough and yolks are for brushing)
- 1 tbs sugar
- 2 ts yeast
- 1 ts salt
- 4 + 2/3 cups of all purpose flour (it depends of your egg's size.I would not pour the last 2/3 cup of flour at first)

If you are using mixer which is definitely time saving put lukewarm milk and add yeast and sugar than mix them 3-4 minutes. (I take milk from fridge and pour it to a container and warm it up in microwave for 1 minute before I use) Than add two egg whites and oil. So liquids are first to be combined together well. Than add 4 cups of flour. You can put the salt in this step. (salt should not be used the same time with sugar and yeast) If you still need more flour than you can add by using a spoon. There should not be remaining dough pieces in the container when the mixer is on. Total kneating time is around 4 minutes.
If you are doing it by your hand follow the steps as above. But kneating time would be double. You will have a soft dough which could be a little sticky as well. Cover the container or the dough itself and let it rise. It should double itself. It depends on the room temperature. I usually wait 45 minutes.

For the filling (potato)

- 4 medium potatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 2 tbs tomato/pepper paste
- salt and spices according to your taste

Boil the potatoes first and mash them in a bowl. In a pan heat the oil and add the chopped onions. Stir them from time to time.When onions get soft and started color change add the paste and stir it one more minute. Than pour them to the bowl over the mashed potatoes and add the spices and mix them well.

For the filling (cheese)

- 1 cup of crumbled feta cheese
- 1 handfull chopped parsley if you like
or
- 1 cup of shredded kashkaval cheese

For the filling (ground beef)

- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 1 medium onion
- 2 tbs oil
- salt and spices ( black pepper, red pepper flakes)

Put the ground beef in a pan with medium heat and add oil in it. Cook it around 5 minutes by stirring frequently. Than add chopped onions to the pan. Let them soften and turn the heat. Add salt and spices and mix them well.

When the dough is ready just kneat it one more time in order to get rid of bubbles. Than feel free to give what kind of shape you would like to give. Take an egg size dough and make it circle in your palm. Put the filling at the center and close the rounds.And reverse it on to the baking pan. Or give them "D" shape like the original or roll a bigger piece of dough on the countertop. Put the filling in one side and roll it. It needs to be cut into small pieces after that.
My son's favourite one is the plain. You can try some plain ones with olive spead ones as well. It is all your imagination ;-)

You may have around 25 pogacas with this recipe. Let them rest like 15 minutes in baking tray while the oven gets heated. Temperature might differ for the oven type. I use 420F for electric oven. Before placing them to the oven brush egg yolks over pogacas gently. If you like you can sprinkle some sesame seeds or nigel seeds. Try not to open the oven while they are being baked. Control them after 15 minutes. They should be ready to take from the oven in 20 minutes at most.

I take fresh baked yummy pogacas to a cooling rack and cover them with a kitchen cloth for 10 minutes. Than of course try one of them may be two ;-))
I freeze them after they get cooled. So that we can have fresh fluffy pogaca whenever we want.
I hope you like it after giving a try.

Here is a photo of my potato filled rolls with this recipe;
These are the ones that I baked last Friday. Round ones are with feta cheese filling the others are with black olive spread shaped like "acma"

Hello!

Hi everybody,

It took me months and months to open a new blog which is in English where I can keep my recipies. And by doing this, my friends can enjoy to try them.

Let me tell you a few things about me as an introduction.

I was born in south-west side of Turkey in a small town called Fethiye. My parents still live there. It is a place where you can enjoy the sun, Mediterranean Sea, sea food, and fresh vegetables in every day of the year. Should I mention that I love to cook with olive oil ;-))

After 27 years in Turkey I got married, me and my husband came to US. We have been living in US for 4.5 years now. My husband is from east side of Turkey, a town called Erzurum. After getting married and moving to US, all those different cuisines influenced me in the kitchen.

Another important factor in my life which is affecting me very much in the kitchen is my son who is almost 2.5 years old now and I need to provide him healthy food.

I hope you find my recipies easy to understand and apply and of course you like to eat them as well!