Ezogelin (Red Lentils with Bulgur) Soup

Ezogelin Soup - Red Lentil Soup with Bulgur

Ezogelin Soup

Red lentils uncooked

When cooking red lentils, first they turn yellow but keep their shape

As you continue to cook, lentils will start softening

After fully cooked and mixed with a mixer, lentils will look smooth

Ingredients:

• 2 cups red lentils
• 6+1 cups chicken broth or water
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 small onion (about ½ cup) chopped
• 3 cloves garlic mashed
• 1 tablespoon tomato sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• Crushed red chili to taste (or paprika)
• ¼ cup fine (Number 1) bulgur (cracked wheat)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Wash and drain lentils. In a large pot combine 6 cups of broth or water and lentils. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let it simmer until lentils are cooked, about 15-20 minutes. They will first turn yellow but will look intact, then as they cook they will start dissolving into a mash. Remove pot from heat, set aside. Using a hand held blender, mix the lentil soup about 1 minute until it looks smooth. 

In a skillet, sauté onions in olive oil for about 3 minutes. Add garlic and tomato sauce, red pepper and cumin, stir. Slowly add remaining 1 cup of broth or water as you continue to stir. Add this mixture to the lentil soup in the pot.  In a fine strainer wash bulgur and add to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place over medium heat. When it starts to boil, reduce heat to low, let it simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

You may need to add more water to achieve desired consistency. 

Often I save some of this soup in smaller containers in the freezer. On a cold day it comes in handy as a starter or even as a main dish.  

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Celery Roots Braised in Olive Oil

Celery Roots Braised in Olive Oil

Ingredients:

• 2 celery roots
• 1 medium onion
• ½ cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 can organic garbanzo beans, drained
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 cup boiling water
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Peeling of the celery roots  is the most challenging part of this recipe. First cut of the top side where the green stalks come out. Discard leaves, but not the stalks. Cut the stalks about 1 inch long  pieces. This will give you a flat, stable surface to work with. Peel off the outer layer with knobby parts. Once it is completely peeled, wash celery roots & stalks well and drain. Cut each root in quarters, then, cut each peace in 1/4 inch thick slices, set aside.

In a pot sauté onions in olive oil for 3 minutes.  Add celery, tomato paste and boiling water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Add garbanzo beans, stir, cover pot and let it simmer until celery is tender. Add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
 

This is normally served at room temperature like most olive oil based vegetable dishes in Turkish cuisine, however,  it can be serve hot as well.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Holiday Quinoa Salad

Holiday Quinoa Salad

Quinoa Salad with Red & Green Peppers

Ingredients:

• ·         1 cup organic quinoa
• ·         ½ cup olive oil
• ·         1 medium onion
• ·         1 small green bell pepper, chopped
• ·         1 small red bell pepper, chopped
• ·         ¼ cup water
• ·         ½ cup canned organic garbanzo beans, drained.
• ·         Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook quinoa based on directions on the box. Set aside.

Thinly slice onions. In a skillet roast onions until they are caramelized. Add chopped red and green peppers.  Stir them on medium heat for 2 minutes. Add water, cover the skillet and let it simmer until peppers are tender.

In a bowl combine all ingredients. Adding salt and pepper to taste. Transfer into a serving dish.

You can also serve this hot as a pilaf accompanying a main dish.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Black Bean Salad

Black Bean Salad

 I have to admit that there's nothing Turkish about this recipe. Practically no one has heard of black beans, cilantro or quinoa in Turkey. Until 10 years ago avocado and using corn in salads were unheard of. But, here I go. In fact, when we first came to the U.S., I bought a bunch of cilantro, mistaking it for the Italian (flat leaf) parsley. I could not stand the aroma of it at first. Living in California, starting with chips & salsa, I eventually not only got used to the taste of cilantro, I now look for it in certain salads and dishes. In this recipe, however, if you don't like cilantro, you can substitute parsley. 

When Cathy, Dianne and I had one of our potluck lunches, Dianne had prepared Black Bean Salad for us. I had brought fish and quinoa pilaf, Cathy brought dessert. We decided to add a couple of spoonfuls of quinoa to the bean salad, it was delicious. So I added it to the recipe as an optional ingredient. Hope you like it. 

Black Bean Salad

Black Bean Salad with Quinoa

 

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can of black beans, rinsed, and drained (or 1 1/2 cup of cooked black beans)
• 1 1/2 cups frozen corn, defrosted (or fresh corn, boiled, drained, cooled)
• 3 green onions, chopped
• 2 pickled or fresh jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
• 2 fresh medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped (about 1/2 cup)
• 1 avocado, peeled, seeded, and cut into chunks
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro or parsley
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped basil
• 2 tablespoon lemon or lime juice(about 1/3 lemon, or 1 lime)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2-3 tablespoons of cooked quinoa (optional)

Directions

If you are going to use quinoa, cook according to the instructions on the box. Set aside, let it cool. Rinse and drain the beans and corn. In a large bowl, combine the beans, corn, onions, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, quinoa (optional), cilantro (or parsley), basil, lemon (or lime) juice and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix all ingredients with a spoon. Add avocados last to avoid mashing them.  Chill in the refrigerator for at leaset 1/2 hour before serving.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Roasted Eggplant Salad

Roasted Eggplant Salad

 

 When people see me buying eggplants at the supermarket, sometimes they ask "how do you cook them?, do you steam or stir fry?". Most Southern Californians' eggplant encounters are limited to Eggplant Parmesan and a few Chinese stir fry dishes with eggplant. Turks claim, however, that there are 41 different eggplant dishes in Turkish cuisine. I'm not sure if this is true, but I can think of at least a dozen great eggplant based dishes. I will start with one of my favorites, the roasted eggplant salad. I love the smokey taste of all vegetables roasted on barbecue. This recipe does not call for garlic, however, if you are a garlic lover, I suppose there's no harm in adding a couple of cloves of garlic to it. Enjoy!

 
Ingredients:

• 2 large eggplants
• 1 medium size red onion
• 8 cherry tomatoes
• ½ cup olive oil
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt to taste

Directions:

Wash and poke eggplants with a skewer on both sides a few times. This is to make sure it cooks well inside when you roast them. Place the eggplants on barbecue on medium heat. Roast them on all sides until the eggplant feels soft when you touch with a fork. Skin will look mostly brown, charred at places. Remove from heat, place them in a container, let them cool. Peel the skin put the eggplants in a container, pour half of the lemon juice over the eggplants to avoid darkening of color. 

Cut the onion in quarters lengthwise. Cut the pieces into thin slices. Cut tomatoes in half.
Drain eggplants. Cut eggplants into byte size pieces. Place them in container. Add onions, remaining lemon juice salt and olive oil. Gently stir with a spoon. Place in a serving dish. Garnish with tomato halves and basil or mint leaves.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Lemon Frozen Yogurt

Lemon Frozen Yogurt

Lemon Frozen Yogurt

My family had a vacation home in Kusadasi, a coastal town on the Aegean. We used to spend our care-free summers there growing up. I have many fond memories of spending endless hours at the beach with friends, playing cards on our neighbor's front porch during the hot, lazy hours of the afternoon and in most evenings taking the horse buggy to the open-air movie theater with the gang, buying salted sunflower seeds (not popcorn), watching mostly Turkish movies. My dear friend Nakiye who was born in the US, recently moved to Turkey was not yet as callous to the sob stories of these movies as the rest of us, so while our tears seldom and quietly went down our cheeks, she would be sobbing her heart out while mumbling to herself "these Turkish movies... these silly Turkish movies..." Back then, Kusadasi was a small charming fishing village, but since it is the nearest port to the famous ancient city of Ephesus, foreign and domestic tourists alike started to swarm the place. It is still a quiet town October through April, but in the summer its population grows almost 10 fold from 60K to over half a million.

The town faces west, thus the sun sets into the sea. One of the most beautiful, romantic sunsets you've ever seen in your life. Kusadasi is hot and dry during July and August. During the heat of the day, if you were to visit our neighbor, long time family friend and Nakiye's mother Turkan teyze, you can count on her refreshing Lemon Frozen Yogurt on any given day.

Lemon zest makes this frozent yogurt very refreshing and light. It is very easy to make. You can either use regular yogurt or non-fat yogurt. It is excellent as fruit yogurt as it is as frozen yogurt. You can also serve it with mellon balls.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 lemons (zest of one, juice of 2 lemons)
• 3 cups of yogurt

Directions:
Scrub lemons with warm water, dry. Using a fine grater remove the peel of one lemon, set aside the zest to use. Squeeze the juice of two lemons. Place yogurt, sugar, lemon juice and zest of one lemon in a large bowl. With a mixer, blend all ingredients until smooth. Put the mixture in a freezer safe container. It will freeze overnight.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Seabass Stew

Seabass Stew

If you look up “Blue Cruise”, also known as Blue Voyage, you’ll discover the beauty of the Turkey’s southwestern coast and the magical excursions along this coast. These voyages take place on the old sponge divers’ wooden sailing boats, called gulets. Usually there’s the captain, a cook and one other crew member on these boats that accommodate about 12 passengers. You get together with very close friends or family members and arrange a cruise. First time you go on a blue voyage you are amazed every day and you keep telling yourself “this is life, why complicate it”. After the first time, you are hooked, looking forward to the next opportunity to do it all over again. One of the favorite foods on the menu without a doubt is fish stew. I watched our master cook Cemil Dayi (uncle Cemil) to write down the recipe, only to find out there was nothing to it, that simple! 

It is a very simple but delicious dish. Pretty much you start with fresh fish and add a bunch of fresh ingredients to it, let them simmer for a while on low heat and you have a very tasty fish stew. So good that you’ll dip your last bit of bread into its sauce until the pot is wiped clean. 

Ingredients

• 4 pieces of seabass about ¼ lb each
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 6-8 cloves of garlic
• 2 red bell peppers
• 4 sweet chili peppers
• 4 medium size tomatoes
• 1 lemon
• 4-5 dry bay leaves (optional)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:

In a large pot put olive oil. Peel and slice the onions and place them in the pot. Put pieces of fish over the onions. Peel and cut garlic cloves in half, add to the pot. Core and slice all peppers lengthwise. Slice tomatoes and lemons (do not peel). Place peppers, tomatoes over the fish. Add lemon slices on top. Add bay leaves (optional). Add salt and pepper to taste, cover with a lid. Place over medium heat. After it starts to boil, reduce heat to minimum. Let it simmer, about 1 hour. 

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Green Beans Braised in Olive Oil

Green Beans Braised in Olive Oil

There are several kinds of green beans in Turkey. Some are broad, some not. Fresh form of black eye beans called “borulce” are sold as Chinese String Beans in the US . In Turkey all of the green beans are cooked the same way. Typically, they are served at room temperature as side dishes.  In the Aegean region of Turkey, however, sometimes they are served hot with yogurt on the side. I like them both ways.

Green Beans

Chinese String Beans (Borulce)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb green beans
• 1 large tomato
• 1 large onion chopped
• 4 table spoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• ½ cup hot water
• Salt to taste

Directions:

Cut the ends of the beans, wash and drain.

Peel and grate the tomato. If you don’t want to peel, you can chop it in blender. Do not liquify.

Place olive oil and onions in a heavy sauce pan. Sauté for 2-3 minutes.

Add beans, tomato, water, sugar and salt. Bring to boil over medium heat, then reduce the heat to low. Simmer until beans are tender, about 30 minutes.

Remove from heat. Transfer into a serving dish. 

Afiyet olsun! Bon Appetit!