Red Lentil Soup / Mercimek Çorbası

Writer's Note: Today I read the first 50 pages of Russell Brand's memoirs, "My Booky Wook." (I should be writing my paper on civil-military relations in Turkey but I cannot resist Russell--he's candy for my brain.) Russell, you over-sexed madcap weirdo, you made me laugh like a psych ward banshee on the cross-trainer. If you haven't heard of Russell Brand immediately stop reading this blog and go youtube him. Don't worry about your hungry family, Russell will make the hunger pangs go away. This soup is so easy you can watch Russell and make dinner at the same time.

Ingredients:

4 cups beef or chicken or vegetable stock*

1 cup red lentils

1 onion, diced small

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. Aleppo pepper

1/2 tsp. of butter for each bowl of soup

1/2 tsp. dried mint for each bowl of soup

1/2 tsp. cayenne or Aleppo pepper total (optional)

quartered lemons for each bowl of soup

Directions:

Heat the olive oil in a pot over low heat and add the onions. Saute them until they are very soft, about 6 minutes, it's ok if they brown a little bit.

Add the lentils and saute for 2-3 minutes. Add the beef broth, salt, and Aleppo pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 minutes until the lentils are very soft (try them to make sure there is no "bite" left in them). They will swell and absorb most of the liquid in the pot after about 15 minutes. You can make the soup thinner by adding water if you find it too thick.

Using a hand-held blender or a regular blender, blend the soup until it is a creamy consistency.

Serve the bowls of soup with the quartered lemons and pour the sizzling butter over each bowl at the table. To make the sizzling butter, melt it in a small saucepan with the dried mint and the cayenne or Aleppo pepper if you so desire. Once it froths, pour it over the soup.

Watch Russell, eat soup, and cry tears of joy.

*I prefer beef stock but you can make it lighter with chicken stock, or vegan with vegetable stock.

Spinach or Purslane in Olive Oil with Garlic Yogurt / Yoğurtlu Ispanak

Writer's Note: My parents cook everything in bulk. On any given day there is enough food to feed the Turkish army squirreled away in their three fridges and pantry, useful if the apocalypse hits when I happen to be visiting. This dish can be made in bulk and kept in the fridge for days. Lie about in your pajamas and spoon up bowls of spinach at your leisure.

While I personally don't like to corrupt the pure taste of spinach by adding onions, the dish is traditionally made with sauteed onions, so I have both options here. Sprinkling a little Aleppo pepper and dried mint on the garlic yogurt adds a bit of color and depth to the dish.

Ingredients:

2 bunches of purslane or spinach, washed, dried and roughly chopped

2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 small yellow or white onion, diced (optional)

1 cupsfull fat traditional thick yogurt

1-2 garlic cloves

pinch of sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt and salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (optional)

1/2 teaspoon dried mint, crumbled (optional)

Directions:

If using onions: Heat a medium-sized pot or deep skillet over medium heat and add olive oil. After two minutes, add the onions and saute until soft and translucent.

If not using onions: Heat a medium-sized pot or deep skillet over medium heat and add olive oil and heat for two minutes.

For both recipes: Add the spinach or purslane and the sugar and saute until wilted but do not overcook! Taste it after 3-4 minutes. Everyone likes their greens cooked to varying degrees but I think the less cooking the better when it comes to this dish.

To make the garlic yogurt: make paste of the garlic and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a mortar and pestle. Mix into the yogurt. Taste the yogurt to make sure that the taste of garlic is not overwhelming -- you can always moderate by adding extra yogurt.

Spoon the spinach into a bowl, drizzle the garlic yogurt on top, and then sprinkle with Aleppo pepper and dried mint, if you like. Add salt to taste.

A Note on the Mortar and Pestle: Garlic Paste

I am gutted that Gourmet Magazine has closed its doors (despite a million person membership) -- for shame, Conde Nast! At least the recipes are available on its website and epicurious, but still, it was a lovely surprise in the mail once a month, and the articles were well-written and informative. (A few weeks ago I had a Gourmet Magazine tribute dinner to celebrate its years of providing us with unbelievable food).

Last night I was reading the Gourmet Today cookbook, a fantastic collection of 1000 recipes -- I think it is our consolation prize to make up for the loss of the magazine. Several times in the book, the writers recommend creating garlic paste "using side of a large heavy knife." Honestly, that is the last possible way I would consider creating a garlic paste. If you want a true garlic paste for garlic yogurt or various dressings, a mortar and pestle is the only way to proceed. Adding a bit of salt helps to create friction with the garlic and then a good 5-6 minute pounding is required to create the correct consistency. This is also an excellent way to work out your aggressions -- your cheating ex gave you the clap, childhood home burned down to the ground, best friend married your soul mate -- the mortar and pestle can take it all.

A mortar and pestle is also useful for grinding spices (although I prefer an electric coffee grinder that I have devoted to that purpose). I recommend a marble mortar and pestle, available from several on-line sources. No need to spend more than $20, and you will use it forever. I don't recommend the fancy porcelain mortar and pestle and I bought my parents from Williams-Sonoma. It makes a horrid racket and isn't worth the heavy price tag.

Traditional Fried Eggplant with Tomato Sauce and Garlic Yogurt Sauce / Patlıcan Kızartması

Writer's Note: Last night I went to Andrew and Bonnie's house for dinner and board games. I brought this dish, and the börek. Both were a hit. Playing board games with graduate students is a bit like negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. You spend half your time refining and defining and quibbling over the rules, and the other half playing the game. Our team beat the other team, 3 to 0, yes, riding that high all day today. Thanks, A&B, for an evening of hilarity.

Fried eggplant with tomato sauce and garlic yogurt may be the quintessential Turkish side dish. Unfortunately, the amount of oil used to fry the eggplant will generally scare off the health conscious cook. I have adapted the recipe to make it more healthy, but equally satisfying, by broiling the eggplant instead of frying it.

Ingredients:

4 small-medium eggplants

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp. plus 1/4 tsp. plus 1/4 tsp. salt

10 fresh, ripe tomatoes, blanched and peeled, or 1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes without basil

2 tbsp. salted butter

3 cups thick traditional full-fat yogurt

pinch of sugar

3 garlic cloves

1/3 tsp. dried mint (optional)

1/3 tsp dried Aleppo pepper or paprika (optional)

Directions: Heat your broiler in your oven. If the broiler is part of your main oven unit, move the rack to the middle of the oven.

Cut the eggplants in 1/4 - 1/2 inch discs, you can also cut them in half if the eggplants are particularly large, but they will shrink as they broil. I like to use small eggplants so the discs are small and attractive, and also they don't fall apart easily. Line some pans with aluminum foil and generously brush the foil with olive oil.

Lay the eggplant in a single layer on the foil. Brush the tops of the eggplants sparingly with a marinade of 1 cup of olive oil and 1 teaspoon of salt. Broil the eggplants until they are brown and a little crispy, about 5-6 minutes. Turn them over halfway through and broil the other side for about 3-4 minutes. Some of they may stick -- if they break a bit don't worry, you can cover those with the tomato sauce. Discard any of the eggplant slices that are too browned or blackened. You may need to broil the eggplants in rounds if they do not fit in the oven at the same time. Do not put the eggplants on more than 1 rack in the oven at the same time, they will not cook properly. Also, do not bake them -- they will dry before they brown.

In the interim, dice the tomatoes and simmer with the butter and sugar and 1/4 tsp. salt for 20-30 minutes until the sauce is thick, a little thicker than pasta sauce. Make the garlic yogurt by pounding the garlic with salt in a mortar and pestle and adding to the yogurt.

Take the eggplants out of the oven and arrange on a platter with relatively curved sides (so the sauces don't run off) in an overlapping fashion. Spoon the tomato sauce over the eggplants and the garlic yogurt over the tomato sauce.

The three-layer appearance of the dish lovely! Do not stir to mix the ingredients. Finally, sprinkle the Aleppo pepper or paprika and dried mint on top, if you so desire.

Strained Yogurt Spread / Süzme Yoğurt / Haydari

Writer's Note: You don't need my fancy set-up to do this (notice I am using a flower vase as the base for my rigged contraption, sometimes I feel like kitchen MacGyver), but cheesecloth or a linen bag is recommended. Have you recently seen an episode of MacGyver? Uh, excuse me, since when did he have a mullet? Was I completely blind as a child? There's another hero of my adolescence shattered against the judgmental boulders of adulthood.

Ingredients:

1 32 oz. container full-fat traditional thick yogurt

2 garlic cloves

1/4 tsp. salt

6-7 sprigs of fresh dill, chopped

Aleppo pepper

dried mint

1 tsp. plus some amount good quality extra virgin

oil

Optional: grated cucumber (salted and drained) or purslane

Directions:

Drain the container of yogurt overnight in the fridge using a cheesecloth or linen bag. You will be left with a very small ball of drained yogurt.

Mash the garlic cloves with the yogurt to make a paste. Incorporate the paste into the yogurt. Add 1 tsp. olive oil and the chopped dill. You could also add some purslane or grated cucumber for the dish to make it brighter. Decorate with dried mint and Aleppo pepper and drizzle olive oil on top.

Spinach and Feta Pie / Tepsi Boregı

Writer's Note: Filling filo dough with tasty cheeses and vegetables is a Turkish pastime. I know you think this is difficult, but it's not. You can do all the prep work in an hour to an hour and a half.

The real issue is the amount of butter. You need to brush each sheet with butter or a butter mixture to get the right flavor for the dish. My parents, who as far as I am concerned have gone off the health kick deep end, have replaced the butter with a safflower oil and yogurt blend. They also wash the cottage cheese to remove the salt and soak their feta in water to make it less salty. At that level, the trade off between extra years on this Earth and my standard of living weighs heavily in favor of salt and butter.

But if you are health conscious you can make the dish healthier with those measures, it just won't taste as sinful. And sin tastes good.

This is a difficult dish to get wrong. It looks complicated but it's really not. You just need to conceptualize the dish as follows: layers of dough brushed with butter, a cheese and spinach filling, popped in the oven for 45 minutes. That's it. I will walk you through it.

Good with a drizzle of garlic yogurt or a small side salad. Once you get the hang of the dish you can start experimenting with the filling -- replacing the spinach and feta with a cheese combination, or ground beef with onions, or one of my all-time favorites, sauteed eggplant.

Ingredients:

1 frozen packet of filo dough, see note on defrosting*

9 oz. crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

2 large bunches of fresh spinach or 2 bags of frozen chopped spinach**

1 cup cottage cheese

8 oz. of unsalted butter***

1 cup full fat traditional thick yogurt

1 large yellow or white onions, diced small

2 tbsp. olive oil

fresh ground black pepper and salt to taste

2 eggs

1 tsp. Aleppo pepper or 1/2 tsp. cayenne, optional

Directions:

Put the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Saute the onions in the olive oil over very low heat for 10 minutes until the onions taste sweet and have taken on the hue of the olive oil. Do not let them brown.

To make the filling: combine the cottage cheese, feta, dill, and onions in a bowl. Defrost the spinach and squeeze out the water from the spinach. This is really where you can take a wrong turn -- if the spinach is too watery it will ruin the dish. Add the spinach to the filling. At this point you should taste the filling and add salt and pepper and Aleppo pepper or cayenne to taste. Depending on the saltiness of the cheese you may need more or less salt. Once the filling is to your liking, add and incorporate two eggs. Now the filling is done.

To put together the pie: Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave on low heat. Put aside about 1 - 2 tbsp. for the top. The rest of the butter mix with the yogurt. This is what you will use between the layers of filo dough. Prepare your work station so that you have a pan that will fit the filo sheets in it. If they don't fit, you can cut them down to fit. Check the box and figure out how many sheets are in the box. If you have 20 sheets, you are going to work on a 8-4-8 system. That means 8 sheets of filo, then half the filling, then 4 more sheets of filo, and then the last 8 sheets of filo. If the box has a different number of sheets, figure out a system roughly similar and make sure you keep rough count of where you are in the pile of filo sheets as you go through.

All of this should be done before you open the plastic packaging. You want to keep the filo in the packaging until the last minute. Line the pan with aluminum foil. Using a pastry brush, brush the foil generously with the butter/yogurt mixture. Now open the filo packaging and cut it down if necessary. Place one sheet of filo in the pan and brush it sparingly with the yogurt butter -- this is really a issue of practice but you will get the hang of it by sheet 3 or 4. You want to be sparing as possible so the dish is not drowning in butter. Repeat with the next 7 sheets. Spoon half the filling on the sheets, keeping a 1/2 inch border of filo dough where you do not spread the filling (this helps to create an edge of filo dough so the filling does not leak out of the sides of the pie). Use the next 4 sheets and then add the other half of the filling. Finish with the last 8 sheets and for the top sheet brush it with the reserved butter that does not have the yogurt in it. This will help the top brown better.

Bake the pie for 45-55 minutes until it is browned. If it looks like it is going to burn you can cover it with foil for the last 15-20 minutes. Make sure the bottom is cooked by lifting it carefully by the foil and making sure the bottom sheets are cooked. Let the pie cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting it into squares or triangles. Serve with garlic butter or haydari.

*Filo/phylo dough can be difficult to work with if it is not properly defrosted. I use the Athens brand filo dough, and if I have planned ahead, defrost it in the fridge for about 5 hours, and then on the counter for up to an hour. Or you can defrost on the counter for about 2-3 hours, but

that may lead to the layers sticking to one another (sticky or dry layers are your nemesis for this recipe). You will need to work relatively quickly once you open the plastic sheathing because the layers have a penchant for drying out -- be purposeful, but don't rush! Some recommend laying a damp paper towel or towel on the layers as you work with them -- I have never found this necessary.

**This is the one recipe where I would say frozen spinach may be easier to work with then fresh spinach, and the difference in flavor is undetectable. Which also means that you can keep the ingredients for this dish around for emergency rations in the fridge for weeks at a time.

***Do not use salted butter! It will make the filo pastry burn in the oven. All that work to waste . . .

Poached Eggs over Garlic Yogurt with Sizzling Butter / Çılbır

Writer's Note: There is no culinary subject more discussed on the
inter-web than poaching eggs. It's overwhelming, really, especially for a novice like me. The are gadgets galore, and videos, and heated arguments, even name-calling. For shame, culinary community, such disagreements should be held behind closed doors.

A few nights ago I couldn't sleep -- I woke up at 2:30 for no good reason and thought, well, if I'm up I might as well poach some eggs. I padded downstairs and boiled some water with vinegar and salt and started poaching eggs. One after another. My spinning vortex did nothing to keep those white jellyfish strings from forming around the yolk. Neither did using a small coffee cup. I tried everything I had read about the traditional method for poaching eggs to no avail. Oh fair reader, it was disheartening. After four I gave up and laid in bed listening to the New Yorker Fiction podcast. Junot Diaz read a fabulous short story by Edwidge Danticat. That cheered me up a bit.

Yesterday, having recovered from the earlier debacle, I decided to try one of the gimmicky methods I read about on another blog. Tie the egg in a piece of cling wrap and poach the egg in the plastic. It seemed too easy -- and it was. The white came off the yolk with the plastic, and it looked wrinkled and old, nothing like a poached egg should. Back to square one. Today, armed with a new carton of eggs I tried again. Vinegar, salt, boiling water, lower temperature to a simmer, create a vortex, and slowly, spinning spinning toward freedom . . . uh, no, that's a Simpsons episode. I slowly lowered the dish into the vortex and Yes! Success! One poached egg. Always mindful to quit while I am ahead, I stopped and called it a day. For hours I have been reveling in my perfectly poached egg. Ah, revelry.

Ingredients:

4 fresh eggs

1/2 cup thick traditional full-fat yogurt

1/2 garlic clove

1 tbsp. white vinegar of any variety

1 tsp. and 1/4 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. butter

1 tsp. dried mint

1 tsp. cayenne pepper or Aleppo pepper (optional)

Directions:

Beat the garlic with the salt in a mortar and pestle until it is a creamy paste. Mix the garlic into the yogurt. Divide the yogurt into two bowls.

Boil water, vinegar, and 1 tsp. salt in a small saucepan at least 2-3 inches deep. Crack egg into a small dish or saucer. After it boils turn the heat down so the water is simmering. Create a vortex by stirring a spoon in the same direction for 20-30 seconds. Gently pour the egg into the water from a close distance. Use the spoon to stir the egg white closer to the yolk. Cook for at least 3 minutes, longer for a slightly more solid yolk.

Fish the eggs out of the water using a flat strainer and lay the eggs in the bowls over the yogurt (for some the hot of the egg and cold of the yogurt may be odd -- you can always put a piece of buttered toast between the two to "American-ize" the dish. Although, let's be honest, salty yogurt and eggs for breakfast is about as un-American as cassoulet and universal health care.

Heat the butter with the dried mint and cayenne pepper or Aleppo pepper in a small skillet until it foams and sizzles (this can be done concurrently with the egg poaching). Pour the butter over the eggs and revel in your own competence.

Oven-Roasted Beets / Fırında Pancar

Writer's Note: Today I walked into my kitchen and turned around in circles in despair. The fridge is full of food, cooked and uncooked, and I just hung my head. Le sigh. And then I spotted the beets. Two, huge brilliant beets. Right. I'm going to roast some beets. I have never seen roasted beets in Turkey but I figure a few Turkish spices and I can throw them under imaginative Turkish cuisine. Better than throwing myself under a bus.

Ingredients:

2 large or 3 medium beets

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 tsp Urfa pepper

1 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. ground cumin

2 tbsp. pomegranate molasses

juice from half a lemon

Directions: Preheat oven to 4o0 degrees. Peel the beets and cut them into large chunks -- 1/8 chunks for large beets. Mix with the other ingredients. Cover a baking pan with a large piece of aluminum foil and lay beets in the middle. Fold over the edges and scrunch over the beets. A small opening in the top is ok. Roast for 1 1/2 hours. Serve with the bubbling sauce spooned over the beets. Eat to dispel morosity.

Artichoke Hearts and Fava Beans with Dill

Writer's Note: Usually this dish is cooked for a full 30-45 minutes. I wanted to see if I could reduce the cooking time to 10-15 minutes so the vegetables would be slightly firmer and fresher tasting. This is one of my mom's recipes but also a classic Turkish dish. The convenience of frozen vegetables should not be underestimated -- they retain a significant amount of their nutrition and it means you can make this dish on an off night if you keep the main ingredients in the freezer.

The dish is vegan -- my friend, Chloe, who is an amazing person, is a vegan who doesn't eat wheat products. Talk about hard core. I've been having trouble coming up with vegan dishes that would meet Chloe's high culinary standards, but I think this one fits the bill.

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen artichoke hearts, 12 oz.*

half a yellow onion, diced

1/2 - 1 cup frozen peas

1/2 - 1 cup frozen young fava beans

leaves from 5-6 small stalks of fresh dill, coarsely chopped

juice from 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 a lemon to decorate

4 tbsp. olive oil

2 pinches sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

Defrost the frozen vegetables by running them under hot water for a minute or two. You can defrost the peas and fava beans together but defrost the artichoke hearts separately since they will be cooked at different times.

Heat 2 tbsp. of the olive oil in a small pot for a minute over medium heat and then add the onions, sugar and salt. Turn the heat down to low and saute the onions for 5 minutes until they are soft -- stir often so they don't brown.

Add the artichoke hearts and saute for about 5 minutes and then add the peas and fava beans and a small squeeze of lemon from the half you are going to use. Cook over low heat for an additional five minutes and then turn off the heat.

Cool the vegetables in the pot or a small bowl, covered, on the counter for 30 minutes. Continue to cool in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. When you are ready to serve, whisk the rest of the juice from the 1/2 lemon with the remaining 2 tbsp. of olive oil and stir into the dish. Stir in the dill, keeping a little to decorate the top of the dish.

Serve chilled or at room temperature with quartered lemon.

*I used the frozen artichoke hearts from Trader Joe's.

Pomegranate and Arugula Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Writer's Note: This is certainly not a traditional Turkish salad but given that it is winter and impossible to get good, fresh tomatoes here in the chilly arctic tundra (also known as Cambridge, MA), I thought I would post one of my favorite winter salads. If nothing else, pomegranate seeds are very popular in Turkey and used in several dishes, especially sprinkled on desserts.

Over the holidays I was visiting Napa and picked up a lovely bottle of pomegranate balsamic vinegar, perfect for this salad. No need to run out and buy it -- this dressing works just as well with regular balsamic vinegar. Peeling a pomegranate may seem daunting but it is actually easy: cut off the top just a little into the body of the pomegranate. Score the outside of the fruit in two intersecting circles just deep enough to go through the skin (you will be cutting a little into the seeds but that is unavoidable) and then break the body into four quarters and pull the seeds out with your fingers. One for me, one for the bowl, two for me . . .

Ingredients:

seeds from 1 ripe pomegranate

1 bunch of baby Arugula

1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup pomegranate or regular balsamic vinegar

pinch of sugar

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp. dried mint (optional)

Directions:

Wash the arugula thoroughly and then dry. Put the arugula in a shallow bowl or on a platter and sprinkle the seeds on top.

For the vinaigrette, whisk the the olive oil into the vinegar with a fork, adding the vinegar in a slow drizzle so that it emulsifies. Continue to whisk and add the sugar, salt, and dried mint, if you want. A little sugar and salt is sufficient, and should be added according to your taste. My measurements on the vinegar to oil ratio are pretty generous with the vinegar but I really don't like oily dressing. You can reduce the ratio to 1:3 if you want a more traditional vinaigrette.

Serve the salad with the dressing drizzled on top and some on the side for those who want extra.

A Note on Aleppo Pepper and Other Peppers

I am obsessed with Aleppo pepper. I put it on everything -- yogurt, soup, pizza, pasta, almost anything that comes out of my kitchen. Its dark, earthy tones make it a fantastic addition to almost any dish -- it adds a bit of kick and complexity to Turkish cuisine.

Of course, Aleppo pepper is from Aleppo, Syria, not from Turkey. I spent a month in Syria this summer and finally made it to Aleppo -- I wandered around the various souks staring at the pepper collections. It was a historic occasion in my cooking career -- I finally got up the nerve to approach one of the vendors and asked him in my halting Arabic which one of his 17 peppers was a traditional Aleppo pepper -- the man looked at me puzzled and replied, "Aleppo pepper? This is Aleppo. It's all Aleppo pepper." Right. I bought half a kilo laughing at my inanity. If you want to use a traditional Turkish pepper instead, try Maraş Pepper. It has about the same taste and complexity. Or if you want something smokier, Urfa pepper is an excellent alternative and is a deep purple (see the photo on the right). If you can't find any of the above, you can substitute 1 tsp. of cayenne pepper for about 1 tbsp. of Aleppo pepper. It won't have the same smoky quality but will at least give you a bit of kick. One website recommends four parts paprika to one part cayenne as a good substitute. Crushed red pepper flakes are a substitute of last resort.

Turkish Street Food: Pickle Juice / Turşu Suyu . . . yes, you read that right.

Pickle juice is an amazing concoction sold by street vendors in Turkey. I wish I could find a recipe but sadly, I think you need to travel to Turkey to really experience this wonder.

Photos are of a pickle juice cart on
Buyukada (the Big Island), one of the Princess Islands off the coast in Istanbul. A day trip to one of the Princess Islands is a must during the summer, especially the horse-drawn carriage ride around the island. Intrepid travelers may opt for a bike rental instead.

Pickle juice tastes like sour, lemony pickles - you can opt for a glass or a plastic bag, tied at the top, accompanied by a straw. I always go for "bol acili" -- very hot -- yes, that's right, hot sauce in your pickle juice. On the right is a photo of the man who has been selling me pickle juice since the 1980s. He used to troll the beach I frequented in Ilica, Cesme when I was a kid. He's since moved to another neighborhood -- I wish I could recount the bizarre conversation I had with him about why he moved -- something about the city government and joining the European Union. I love this man because he was there throughout my entire childhood -- visits to his cart punctuated my every summer in Turkey. Pickle juice is best in heat of summer at the beach.