Summer 2011 Istanbul
A lot of traveling and eating has happened already this summer, and with a special guest.
Look for a mega-update in the coming week. Going to be grand.
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Lakerda (cured mackerel) at Sofyalı
Levrek şiş (charcoal grilled branzino) at Karaköy Balık Restoranı
Fava at Balıkçı Sabahattin
Meze tabağı (a plate of meze) at Balıkçı Sabahattin
Fener balığı güveç (Monkfish casserole) at Balıkçı Sabahattin
Puf böreği, at home
Izgara Köfte, at Tarihi Sultanahmet Köftecisi
Piyaz and Şehriyeli Pilav at Sultanahment Köftecisi
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The kitchen-front at Çiya.
Beyaz Turp Yahnisi (Radish stew with wild herbs and yogurt) at Çiya.
Kaymaklı Fıstık Tatlısı (Pistachio dessert with clotted cream filling) at Çiya.
Kabak tatlısı (Candied butternut squash dessert with tahini sauce and chopped walnuts) at Çiya.
Turkish Breakfast at my uncle’s house.
Ekşili Terbiyeli Köfte (Meatballs in lemon/egg whipped broth) at my grandmother’s house. Probably one of my top 3 favorite things to eat.
Grape leaves vendor at Levent Pazarı.
Olives at Levent Çarşısı Pickle parlour at Levent Çarşısı.
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Speaking of places making a difference in the experience of eating - how about eating in the middle of the sea!
As 7 good friends, we decided to take 3 days on a sail boat off the Mediterranean shores of Turkey, and worry about nothing but enjoying some good food, the sun, and the sea.
After we collectively dove into the crystal clear waters at our first stop under afternoon sun..
...Our captain, who doubled as our chef, who also happened to have a speciality in Aegean cooking, serves us lunch. Here we start with Cacik, thick strained yogurt with extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top and topped with mint flakes.
Yesil fasulye - which was prepared only a few minutes ago: Fresh green beans are cooked with onions, chunks of tomatoes (which were in season at the time, and were some of the best i've ever had), and to my surprise, also cooked with big slices of lemon, in olive oil. This is one of the best things you can eat on a summer day. Simply prepared, letting each ingredient speak equally in perfect harmony.
A fresh summer pasta, simply prepared with chunks of the amazing tomatoes, parsley, black olives and more of that fragrant local olive oil.
A mixed salad, again, the tomatoes at the forefront, sweet and juicy, balanced by the finely chopped, and always fresh, and spicy, wild arugula.
A curious plate of pickled carrots, tomatoes and peppers. Garlicky, strong, and kind of hot.
We washed all this down with a bottle of Turkish white wine: Corvus Karga. It's the lowest bottling of the Corvus Vineyard, but somehow it tasted perfectly in tune with our meals. A blend of a number of indigenous grapes, Karga (means "Crow") was very fruity, simple and food-friendly.
After a whole day of of sailing around, anchoring at different virgin inlets and bays, and lots of swimming, on our second day our chef/captain surprised us yet again with an amazing lunch:
Karniyarik - A halved eggplant, lightly fried, then filled with spiced ground lamb/beef mixture, with lots of onions, garlic and parsley, and in this case, of course, with in season tomatoes. Another Aegean twist was the wedge of lemon - which balanced the the dish's richness perfectly.
Karniyarik would've been almost pointless without some simple, buttery rice pilav. Black pepper is optional, for me, mandatory.
Coban Salata (shepherd's salad) - a perfect accompaniment of cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley, and onions, dressed with the local olive oil, and vinegar.
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So we swam more, did some fishing, and tried a few dangerous things, and ended up with our grand finale meal:
Türlü! One of my childhood classics, this is a dish that literally translates "Mixed", which is a mixed stew of all the vegetables in season cooked with onions, tomato paste and any kind of stock you might have around. Depending on the season any of the vegetables can be substituted, but usually eggplant and potatoes are a must, if you are to achieve the perfect balance of flavor.
And Türlü, on a hot summer day in the middle of the sea can only be served with some Bulgur Pilavi. This preparation left me speechless: The buttery bulgur wheat cooked in chicken stock was served on a giant plate and drizzled with Pomegranate molasses. Sometimes the sophistication of flavors in a thousand year old recipe like this blows my mind. While chefs and culinary innovators are fiddling with freeze drying beats and stuffing them into shrimp puffs, the simplicity of the perfect completeness of this dish puts things back into perspective for me.
And speaking of simplicity, the slices of traditional white Turkish bread, which we purchased when we stopped by at a small shore village a few hours ago was the thing that held everything together.
And of course it was not only the perfectly in-season tomatoes, or the genius of pomegranate molasses, or the perfectly chilled white wine, or the lemon wedge in the pan that made our experience of eating special, but it was also the fact that we were alone, healthily disconnected from the worries of everyday, in the middle of the Mediterranean, even if for a few, and most importantly, in the company of great friends who enjoy it as much as you do.
The 3 day trip was a success, and it was a sign of even better things to come our way..
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What makes food special is not only the food itself.We seldom realize that what lets us form irreplaceable memories about food, and experience a sensation that most of the time defies the power of descriptive language, is actually the PEOPLE we share the food with and THE PLACE where that sharing happens.Lots have been written about this, but one thing is clear:The context around your meal is half the meal itself.In the Summer of 2009, I went back to Istanbul again to visit family, eat, eat, and eat some more.
My brother and I stopped by my granduncle Yilmaz's house. He is an accomplished and respected violin player, with great knowledge of Turkish classical music, and of course a gourmand of the old days.
Our cousin Sehnaz also stopped by. This place is familiar: they have been living at this place for over twenty years, and every time we visit, the feeling is more than just familiar; it is a part of who we are, with every moment predictable, yet enjoyable.
Our aunt Sena starts our (what she calls) impromptu dinner with "Su Boregi," layers upon layer of hand rolled thin sheets of dough boiled in water, and then put together layer upon layer with liberal amounts of butter, eggwash, traditional turkish white cheese (beyaz peynir), and parsley, all then baked in a large pan until golden brown.
Cacik is also served - a sort of a thick yogurt soup made with shredded cucumbers, mint, bit of chopped dill, and lots of drizzled olive oil. Cacik, Tzatziki, tzadziki, tsatsiki, or ttalattouri, whatever you want to call it depending on your location, this is one of the best things you can eat on a hot summer day.
"Kisir" makes an appearance. Thin cut bulgur wheat, cooked, then mixed with scallions, (sometimes thinly cut red onions), parsley, red hot pepper flakes, tomato paste, cumin, and most importantly pomegranate molasses. An effort to establish a nationally accepted recipe for Kisir (like any other multi-regionally-shared-dish) can start civil wars, so I will disclaim that this is my aunt's version and no one else's!
Next she brings out Zeytinyagli Dolma, green peppers stuffed with rice flavored with cinnamon, black pepper and currants, and capped with chunks of tomatoes to seal in the filling, then cooked on low heat. I like to eat them cold, straight our of the fridge. Good olive oil is a must.
Then, aunt Sena shows up with a big pot, puts a big plate on it, and turns it upside down. This is what comes out.
Sena, a master in Arab influenced cooking, reveals her braised, cotton-soft chunks of fatty lamb bits with fried eggplant, almonds and pine nuts cooked with a rice pilav flavored with caramelized onions and butter. This 'heavy-hitter' has so many layers of flavor, with the gamey lamb to the smoky eggplant to the sweet bit of caramelized onions.. This dish probably requires timing skills of a most advanced cook, with all of the ingredients having to be perfectly cooked, and work together. Sena is a true master in the kitchen, and her familial background show up in every dish that she makes for us..We try every single dish, and I can't even go on to show the desert and fruit plate we had afterwards with Turkish coffee. Still conscious after all the drooling? Read on.
One of our 'traditional' family dinners at my grandmother's house. The table, the lighting, the furniture, the silverware, everything, and i mean EVERYTHING is not only familiar, but also comforting in a way that says "You are home. You will have a good meal." The sweet smell of day-long cooking permeates every room in the house.
We start with an incredible red lentil soup. The butter and onion based soup is also enriched with a little bit of garlic for flavor, and just the tiniest bit of cornmeal for texture. Topped with chili infused melted butter and croutons made from yesterday's stale bread, this is an experience in itself.
Fava beans cooked in olive oil and topped with dill...
And lima beans cook with tomatoes, Barbunya Fasulyesi, onions and carrots topped with parsley continue the meal...
This being the month of Ramadan at the time, the traditional 'Ramazan Pidesi' replaces the regular loaf of bread in most Turkish homes. It's slightly sweeter, airier, and has a nice wood-oven-baked smokiness.
As a side salad we had a traditional purslane green salad, which is simply purslane green leafs dressed with olive oil and thick strained yogurt. This is a dish that I loved and hated over many years, and I am still undecided about it. You definitely have to be in the mood for it.
And the plate is completed by "Kadinbudu Kofte," a very special meat patty made with beef, lamb, and rice, and then coated with eggwash and pan fried in hot oil. Very few things give me the comfort that Kadinbudu does, down to the slight crunch the fried egg gives out at the moment of the 'first dig.'
Two days later I flew to southern Turkish 'resort-town,' Bodrum. My friend Erinç...
...and I stopped at our regular restaurant right at the heart of the most touristic town square - Nazilli Pidecisi. The location is so familiar to us after having come here for the past ten years of our lives at least once a year (almost), the 'rinky-dink' feel of the place only add to our collective self-assurance that it has not changed a bit; decor, food, or otherwise. You literally sit in the middle of the square, with by-passers enviously gazing over your food.
Pide is a variation on a wood-oven baked open faced bread usually stuffed with lamb meat, cheese and more popularly in the Aegian / Mediterranean regions, with braised local greens, and then finished with a raw cracked egg on top (which then cooks with the heat of the Pide as it's being brought to your table.)
This is the version with the spiced lamb meat, with the yogurt drink "Ayran," not unlike the Indian salty lassie, served in hand-hammered copper cups.
The meal is finished with one of the best things i've ever eaten. (no kidding.) It's a freshly baked, thin pie smeared thick with a tahini paste and sugar, which is then topped with chopped walnut and hazelnuts. The gooey, melting tahini permeates into the crunch of the crust down below, and the caramelized sugar puts this 'thing' into a whole new league where only the most visceral, primal, and unpretentious of foods can compete in. Molecular gastronomy? Raw movement? Pan-american interpretations of French classics? GET OUTTA HERE!Coming up next post in Vol.2: Some incredible regional cooking in southwestern Turkey shared with friends in the middle of the sea!Meanwhile, any comments are welcome! -
I’ve been busy preparing my ‘summer of eating in Istanbul’ saga.
Pictures coming soon. It’s going to be grand.Meanwhile, check out some of the old favorites below, if you haven't already:
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(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 1 Re-visiting my Winter 2007 food journey to Istanbul, here on Posterous. Be sure to check out all parts. Enjoy:
First breakfast in Istanbul. This famous little cafe located right along the Bosporus...
..next to the Bebek Mosque called Bebek Cafe is famous for.. well.. just being a cafe. At a time when coffee houses boast on about their smoked salmon salads and duck confit, this landmark shop has been known to serve the bare minimum of turkish black tea, turkish coffee, sage tea and a couple of pastry items, and do it really well. Here, it's easy to spot some celebrities sip tea next to any Joe Schmoe.
I start my day with some Pogaca, a savory pastry filled with feta cheese and covered with toasted sesame seeds. It's crusty outside and soft and buttery inside.
Of course hot, tart black tea is the best accompaniment.
That night I visit "Dukkan", which is known to be one of the best steak houses (if not the best) located in one of the worst slums located in the European side of the city, Kucuk Armutlu. The concept is genius: This is a butcher shop where you can pick your meat and have it simply grilled and have it inside the shop with a giant bowl of salad and some Argentinian wine. The owner, Emre Mermerci, is known to have traveled and lived in the US and Argentina for years to learn the best tricks about a proper steak.
...and smoked beef proscuitto.
Here we see a medium-rare Ribeye in close action..
...and his beef aging quarters are impressive as well.
That same night we skip dessert and decided to head down to what I consider the best of what might be translated as a 'pudding house'. This concept of "Muhallebici" is one of those great traditions most Turkish people take for granted. This is where some great traditional Turkish desserts are served until late night (well into the morning) and some simple dishes such as Pilav with roast chicken and chicken noodle soup are also served. (We had a sampling of both before our desserts. We decide to share "Keskul", a traditional pudding made out of an almond base and milk. It's fragrant, rich and often topped with ground pistachios and coconut. If you're a metabolism-punishing freak, or a suicidal diabetic, you can also add a scoop of sweet cream ice cream on top. (we did.) The rest of the different desserts are too many to go into detail here, but I can tell you that one pudding includes strands of chicken breast as the main ingredient, and another is enjoyed with spoonfuls of rose water. An adventurous bunch of late night eaters are these Turks.
A couple of days later we make a trip to Konyali, which is one of the best traditional Turkish / Ottoman kitchens in Istanbul. It's somewhat pricey, but the extensive menu of Otto-Turko specialties remain the same as they were 60 years ago in this establishment.
Fresh 'pide' bread (yeastless puffy bread) is served with some rosemary-marinated olives and light olive oil whether you want it or not.
We order some Turkish appetizer classics: "Arnavut Cigeri,"
chunks of lamb's liver covered with flour, salt and pepper and then flash fried, then traditionally served with red onions marinated with sumac and parsley.
We also get Fennel Root braised with chunks of lamb and dill.
When eaten slightly warm, this is heaven with a river of olive oil running through it.
We of course had to try "Ic Pilavi," which has hundreds of variations in Turkey, but all symbolize abundance and festivity. It is a pilaf heavily spiced with black pepper and cinnamon, which then is slightly sweetened with caramelized onions, raisins and pinenuts. It's rich, heavy, and.. just plain GOOD. Most versions also include at least five different kinds of meat not excluding chicken liver, rooster and turkey.
My main dish arrives: Hunkar Begendi.
It is a traditional ottoman dish which consists of roasted eggplants cooked with butter, aged cheeses and black pepper, and then topped with braised lamb stew. Some sort of lamb gravy tops this dish although my grandmother would disagree with that particular addition. If you could have this for breakfast, you would save two meals' worth of money. You could imagine why.
We finish our modest meal with some truly amazing turkish coffee, served with plain turkish delight in a thick brass cup . This particular cup of turkish coffee was one of the best i've ever had, complete with espresso-like tiger stripes and 'telve,' powder-fine coffee grounds hitting your tongue every sip. If drip were wind-powered, this cup was nuclear.
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Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 2
(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 2
Lunch at grandmother's: She starts us off with some red lentil soup. I think it's enriched with some polenta and of course, butter, so half a cup is already a substantial start. I add a good deal of hot pepper flakes.
Fava: A simple, yet a-hard-to-get-it-right sort of dish that is made with pureed fava beans, lots of olive oil and dill.
It's dense and very creamy.
Roughly chopped shepher's salad,
followed by olive-oil braised artichoke hearts.
Pre-empting the possibility that we might be sinning if the main dish didn't include some sort of meat, we dig into this version of Orman Kebabi,
which is chunks of tender lamb roasted with caramelized pearl onions, tomato, button mushrooms and then topped with aged cheese and lots of oregano. Did I mention...
that this was also served with some tomato-rice pilaf?)
AND some braised vegetable medley"?
A few days later I visited one of my favorite bakery / coffee shops in Istanbul with my friend Ali Riza, and his girlfriend Itir. The shop is called Beyaz Firin (White Oven). It's a bakery with overwhelming choice where you can order it off the shelf and have yourself a 3000 calorie breakfast almost instantly.
We shared: Roasted Egglplant and chicken quiche,
Pogaca with Dill (A pouch-like pastry filled with local feta cheese),
and a "mini-kol-boregi" Which is a personal-sized flake-pastry-pie filled with ground meat and onions and then topped with sesame seeds. I think the amount of butter that goes into making one of these is kept secret. It's better that way.
We finished our breakfast off with some almond and pistachio cookies
and of course,
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Glorious Gourmet Gluttony - Turkey, Winter 2007 Part 3
(Almost) Everything I ate in Istanbul - Winter 2007 - Part 3
A day later I found myself waiting for a friend in the damp cold of Taksim. When I realized I was next to one of my favorite restaurants from my childhood, "KONAK", I decided to get..
..some Lahmacun to go. It's officially one of my favorite things to eat: Almost wafer thin crust topped with onions, minced lamb meat, tomatoes and pepper flakes and parsley, which is then flash-baked in a coal oven. I finished this particular one in under 32 seconds.
That same night my friend Ali promises me some amazing culinary experience and takes me to the backstreets of Taksim to find this hole-in-the-wall restaurant called 'Umut Ocakbasi".
"Ocakbasi" is a certain kind of kebab-house where you can sit right in front of the grill where they prepare all the dishes AND have a nice chat with the 'grillmaster' . It's kind of like a Japanese Hibachi grill experience, except it's more of a 'working-man's-feast' sort of a setting.
The decor sublime in its rinkydinkycité.
The grillmaster exudes..umm... grilling mastery...
ome 'mezes' arrive without us asking for them, always a good sign. The fluorescent lighting fails to make the food look bad.
Creamy feta cheese with cucumbers and tomatoes,
Chopped, coal-roasted onions topped with olive oil and hot peppers,
Fire-roasted eggplant salad,
Cacik (thick yogurt, cucumbers, and lots of mint),
Onion salad with sumac and parsley,
And "Ezme", which is a freshly made tomato paste with onions, parsley and olive oil
Cop sis arrives.
It's small bits of lamb chunks skewered with giant metal rods and quickly grilled for a minute and traditionally eaten with lavash bread and lots of cumin. A few rods are also supposed to feature chunks of lamb liver, but our waiter informed us that we were too late for that days fresh delivery of liver.
We finish the meal off with Adana kebap. Knife-minced sheep meat is spiced with peppers and quickly grilled over charcoal. The smoky gamey goodness of this classic dish is unexplainable in words, on a blog, facebook, or anywhere else where you're not actually eating this thing.
