Green Bean Salad-Turkish Style

This dish has become one of my favorites this summer. It is an “olive oil” dish, typically means it is served cold. It makes a great light summer meal, with fresh bread to dip in the juices. The technical name is

which translates into Fresh Beans with Olive Oil.

1 pound of fresh green beans
2 onions onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 big fresh tomatoes, finely chopped,
1/4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 tsp of salt

Clean and cut the green beans into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces.
In a deep pan, heat the olive oil in a pan and cook the onions and garlic until translucent.
Add the beans, stir, and cook them until they are brighter green
Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes and then add sugar, water, and salt.

Cover the pan and cook on low until the beans are soft (about 45 minutes.)

Technorati Tags: Recipe,Turkey,Zetinyağli Taze Fasulye

Comfort Food—Yayla Çorba

Yesterday I was sick. A 24 hour virus, but it put me through the wringer. I was dehydrated and unable to eat (I will spare you the details, I wanted to be spared of them myself.) I wanted something warm, and comforting, and helpful. Enter Yayla Çorba, a yogurt soup, which is tasty and easy to make—which is great. When you are sick the last thing you want to do is stand in the kitchen and chop and measure.

6 cups water
1 cube beef bouillon (omit for vegetarian soup)
1/2 cup rice, washed and drained
2 cups yogurt
1 egg
2 tbsp of flour
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp dry mint

In a large pot boil the water, rice, salt and bouillon. Cook on medium high, until the rice is done.

While the rice is cooking, in a bowl, mix yogurt, egg and flour well. After the rice is cooked, take a few spoons of liquid from the pot and mix into the bowl to temper the yogurt and egg. Add the yogurt and egg mixture into the pot slowly, so the egg and yogurt does not curdle. Stir very slowly. Cook for 10 more minutes.

In a frying pan, heat the butter until it starts to spit, then add the mint, and let sit for 20-30 seconds. Do not let the mint burn. Pour the butter and mint into the soup and stir.

This soup is very quick, very easy and very tasty. Other herbs that are sometimes used in addition to, or in place of, the mint are tarragon and dill. I used less butter, because I wanted to keep the soup light, and I could not distinguish a change in taste.

Technorati Tags: Recipe,Yayla Çorba,Sick,Turkey

Sarma (Stuffed Grape Leaves)

I love sarma, sometimes called dolma. Grape leaves stuffed with rice and beef, served with yogurt on top. Intellectually I knew that it was a time consuming food to make. But, doing it yourself, afterwards, every mouthful tasted like gold. As it damn well should, it took so long.

It was totally worth every minute.

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds of ground beef

3 onions diced finely

1 tsp of salt

2 cups of uncooked short grain rice

1/2 cup of water

5 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 1/2 of black pepper

1/4 cup of olive oil

3 teaspoons of mint

75 to 100 medium grape leaves

If you can't find fresh, brined will do.

Take all of the ingredients above and combine, mixing thoroughly (except the lemon). The seasoning will be most evenly distributed if you knead it with your hands. Forget about not wanting to touch the meat with your hands. If those are your feelings, you are going to have an awfully hard time stuffing the grape leaves.

While the meat is resting from its workout, wash the leaves, then place them in a boiling pot of water for 5 minutes, until tender, but not too soft.

When they go in they will look like this

When they cocme out they will look like this.

After they come out of the pot, drain them well, rinse in cold water, then firmly squeeze out any water, but be careful not to rip the leaves.

To Fill

Gently separate each leaf, (I recommend readying several at once then rolling assembly style) tear off the steam. Holding the leaf vein side up, place a small amount of filling horizontally

1. Looking at your left palm, turn down the right corner of the leaf

2. Now the left corner, also please ignore the rice on my thumb, it looks gross. Your hands will get messy.

3. & 4. Bring first the right then the left sides of the leaf in, in a parallel fold

3. Fold

4. Fold

5. Now the tricky part. Using your thumb to keep the roll tight, start rolling the filling down towards the bottom of the leaf.

Keep it Tight (or it will spill all over the place)

Whew! Finished!

Now, go make a hundred more. When you are finished, take a heavy bottomed pot with a lid, cover the bottom with grape leaves(the ones that ripped or seemed tough), then carefully place your sarmas inside, seam side down, close together but not tightly packed.

Add enough water to cover the sarmas (I used the water I cooked the grape leaves in, because it has all the nutrients from the grape leaves.) Juice the lemon and add it to the water. Cook on the stovetop on a low heat, for about an hour, until the rice is down. At 50 minutes, check on the rice, if it is not done, give it another 10 minutes or so. When serving, it is great with yogurt on top. I love to add mashed garlic to my yogurt, and then spoon it on top. As tasty as this is I would not advise it on a "Date Night," or everyone will regret it.

In the event you are floundering with your grape leaves, as I was, below is a video of an expert grape leaf stuffer. Behold the mastery.

Hoşaf aka Delightful and Refreshing

I am tasting so many new things over here (the scale with confirm this) I want to be able to take back my favorites and integrate them into my cooking. So instead of just writing about food I have eaten, occasionally I will be posting recipes as well. This first one is one of my favorite dishes I have had so far. It actually is not too unhealthy either. Hoşaf (horshaf) is actually a compote or stewed fruit dish. It can be made with a variety of fruits such as dried raisins, apricots, plums, pears etc.

Dried Fruit

Two types of apricot, plums, pears.


First get your fruit together, 4 cups or so. Pick through it making sure there are no unwanted elements (stones, sticks etc), then rinse your fruit thoroughly.

I prefer a main component of apricots with some plums thrown in, the apricots release their sugar more than the plums do so you end up with a sweeter juice.

Then (a hard task) get a large pot of water to a roiling boil. When it is boiling dump your dried fruit in the water and shut off the heat.

Let the fruit sit out in the water until the water cools. Once the water has cooled put the pan in the fridge. Wait at least a day before eating the hoşaf, don't worry about using it all up. The longer the hoşaf sits the tastier it becomes. You could ad sugar (this should be done when the water is hot) but I think it is unnecessary. Hoşaf can be served as a side (usually with börek) or as a dessert. It is light and refreshing and is fabulous in hot weather.