Eggplants Stuffed with Tomatoes, Onions and Garlic in Olive Oil - Imam Bayıldı

Eggplants Stuffed with Onions and Garlic in Olive Oil - Imam Bayıldı

The name of this famous dish  "Imam Bayıldı" means "Priest Fainted", supposedly with pleasure after eating this dish. The original recipe calls for frying the eggplants first, before cooking them with the rest of the ingredients. Based on my friend Fatos' recipe, I've tried roasting them instead. It turned out delicious, so my recipe was modified forever.

It has simple ingredients, yet is a very tasty eggplant dish. Traditionally served at room temperature as a side dish or as meze/appetizer. I hope you enjoy it as much as "imam" did.

Ingredients:

• 6 medium eggplants
  ( I use light purple Japanese eggplants since they have less seeds in them)
• 4 table spoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 6 cloves garlic, each cut in 2-3 pieces
• 3 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped

Directions:

Wash and roast the eggplants on barbecue. Put aside, let them cool down, peel the skins, set aside.

Cut onions in half and thinly slice. In a pan, sauté onions in olive oil over medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add garlic and tomatoes. Add sugar (optional), salt and pepper to your taste. Cover and let it simmer over low-medium heat until all vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. If the tomatoes are juicy, you won't need to add any water. If not, add a glass of boiling water to the pot to let the vegetables simmer in the sauce. Right after removing it from heat, add chopped parsley, gently stir.  This will be the filling for the eggplants.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Arrange eggplants in an oven safe dish. Gently open the middle part of the eggplants lengthwise. Using a spoon, place vegetable filling in the middle of each eggplant. Try to take the vegetables only, leaving most of the sauce in the pot. Using a spoon, pour some of the sauce left in the pot around the eggplants. Place the dish in the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes. Let it cool to room temperature. Transfer to a serving dish, enjoy!

Onions, garlic and tomatoes cooked in olive oil

Add chooped parsley to the filling

Arrange roasted eggplants in an oven-safe dish

Middle of the eggplants are gently opened to put the filling in

Eggplants are filled with cooked vegetables

Fresh out of the oven

Imam Bayildi - Eggplants Stuffed with Onions, Garlic and Tomatoes

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Menemen - Scrambled Eggs with Onions, Tomatoes and Peppers

Menemen - Scrambled Eggs with Onions, Tomatoes and Peppers

Menemen is a close cousin to omlettes, but it is typically a summer lunch classic in Turkish cuisine. Compared to omlettes, menemen is not as dry and all the ingredients are mixed with eggs.
It is quick and easy to make, uses ingredients that are ever present in a Turkish kitchen during summer months.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, cut in quarters and sliced
• 2 table spoons olive oil
• 4-5 sweet long peppers or 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
• 3 large tomatoes, skinned, finely chopped
• 4-5 eggs, beaten
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Peel and cut onion in 4 pieces, thinly slice each piece. In a skillet, sauté onions in olive oil on medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add peppers and continue to sauté for another 4 minutes. Add tomatoes, cover the skillet and let it simmer on low heat until all vegetables are tender, about 6-8 minutes. 
Add beaten eggs to the pan. Gently stir with a spoon,  making sure all ingredients are evenly mixed. Add salt and pepper to your taste and continue to stir gently until eggs are cooked. Transfer to a serving dish and serve hot.

Sauté vegetables in olive oil

Vegetables cooked

Beaten Eggs

Eggs are added to the sautéd vegetables

 

Menemen ready to be served

Menemen

  Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Plum Preserves - Erik Reçeli

Plum Preserves

At the peak of summer, local farmers markets are bursting with colorful fruits and vegetables. I bought two different kinds of plums. One had deep purple skin, yellowish meat inside. It was very juicy and sweet. The other kind had greenish skin and bright red meat inside. As mouth watering as it looked, it was very tart. I thought it would make great preserves, and it did indeed!

This is good with cream cheese over toast, but, you can also use it over ice cream or cakes as you would use raspberry sauce. Recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar, however, depending on how tart the fruit is, you may need to add more sugar.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb plums
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Directions:

Wash plums, remove pits and cut each one into slices. Place plums in a bowl. Pour sugar over them. Leave for about 4 hours or overnight (in the refrigerator). Plums will release their juices, forming a syrup. Place plums with the syrup in a pot. Add lemon juice and bring to a boil over medium heat. When it starts to boil, reduce heat to low and let it simmer. Remove any foam that might form on the top with a spoon. Take a small spoonful of the cooking mixture, place on a plate, let it cool and taste to see if it is sweet enough. Add sugar if necessary, stir gently. Cook until plums are translucent and the syrup thickens, about 20-30 minutes. Skins of plums will be floating in the sauce. Let the preserves cool to room temperature. Place in a food processor or a blender. Blend for a few seconds until the plum skins are blended into the sauce forming a fairly smooth texture. Pour preserves in glass jars and keep in the refrigerator.

Plums

Sugar poured over sliced plums

Plums start releasing their juices

Plums in syrup formed by sugar & released juices

Plum preserves

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Arugula Salad with Tuna and Roasted Eggplants - Ton Balıklı Roka Salatası

Tuna Salad with Arugula and Roasted Eggplants

Ingredients:

• 1 5 oz can of Solid Tuna in water
• 1+3 table spoons extra virgin olive oil
• Juice of ½ lemon
• ½ cup cooked garbanzo beans
• ·         2 small to medium Japanese eggplants
• 1-2 cups fresh Arugula leaves
• 1 slice of goat cheese or feta cheese
• Crushed red pepper (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

If you use canned garbanzo beans, drain well. In a non-stick pan sauté garbanzo beans in 1 table spoon of olive oil for 3 minutes, set aside.

Drain tuna well. In a small bowl, mix remaining 3 table spoons of olive oil and lemon juice.  Add 1 table spoon of this dressing to tuna, mix well. Add black pepper (optional) to your taste. Set aside.

Wash and dry eggplants. Peel  portions of the skin lengthwise, leaving it with a striped look. Cut the eggplants in half and cut each peace into thin slices. Roast eggplant slices on a grill until they are tender.

Wash arugula leaves. Cut them into bite size pieces. Place the leaves on a serving plate. Drizzle the olive oil-lemon juice dressing over the arugula leaves. Put tuna on top of it. Add garbanzo beans and the slice of cheese to the plate. Sprinkle crushed red pepper (optional), salt and pepper to your taste.

Peeled and sliced eggplants

Roased eggplant slices

Roasted garbanzo beans

Tuna Salad with Arugula and Roasted Eggplants

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Walnut Stuffed Figs – Cevizli Kuru İncir Tatlısı

Walnut Stuffed Figs – Cevizli Kuru İncir Tatlısı

I grew up in the Western part of Turkey. The region we lived in (Aydin) is famous for its figs. When I was a kid, figs were never sold in the market or stores. Most everybody in our town had fig groves. For those families like mine who were not farmers, your neighbors would send you baskets full of fresh figs almost every morning. They were huge baskets (or maybe I was little), lined with grape leaves at the bottom to serve as a cushion for the fruits, a layer of grapes on the leaves and figs on the top. They only pick the very ripe ones and so early in the morning that there would still be dew on the fruit. 

Figs are very rich in fiber. For this reason I guess, adults used to warn us kids that if we drink too much water after eating figs, we would have diarrhea. Luckyly nobody ever listened to the advise. We did eat figs and drank water to our hearts' desire, and of course, nothing happened.

Come winter, we had dried figs. Most evenings, for dessert, people used to eat dried figs with walnuts stuffed in them. I call them fig bombs. They are delicious though not exactly your low calorie snack. 

Figs stuffed with walnuts: Fig Bombs!

My grandmother used to make this dessert with dry figs at least a couple of times every winter.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb dried figs
• 2 cups warm water to soak the figs
• 1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 table spoon unsalted butter
• Handful of walnuts for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Wash and drain the figs. In a bowl, let the figs soak in warm water for 30 minutes.

Put butter in a shallow pot. Heat the pot until butter melts. Spread the butter to the bottom as evenly as possible. Turn off heat.

Remove figs from water. Cut the tops. Open up a hole at the top. Fill each fig with walnuts. Place them in the shallow pot with the openings at the top.

In a separate pot, combine milk, water and sugar. Warm it, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Add the milk mixture to the figs. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat, let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat. Let it cool to room temperature. Transfer to a serving plate. Garnish with walnuts.

Dry Figs

Tops removed, ready to be stuffed

Coarsly chopped walnuts

Figs stuffed with walnuts

Stuffed figs cooking in milk-sugar mixture

Walnut Stuffed Figs – Cevizli Kuru İncir Tatlısı

 Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Shepherd's Salad - Çoban Salatası

Shepherd's Salad -  Çoban Salatası

Especially popular during summer, Shepherd's Salad (Çoban Salatası) is light, refreshing and easy to make. It is a combination of finely chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, onions and flat leaf parsley (optional) dressed in lemon juice and, of course, extra virgin olive oil.

Shepherds take their food with them every morning as they take the herd to the hills and valleys. They would take whole tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and onions with them. When they get hungry, they would chop all the vegetables, mix them together and the result is a delicious, light meal. The olive oil - lemon juice dressing mixed with the juices of cut tomatoes is delicious and perfect to dip your bread in.

This salad is similar to the Greek Salad. When I visited Greek Island, I saw that the difference between Greek Salad and Turkish Shepherd's Salad is that in the Turkish version, the vegetables are finely chopped whereas the Greeks cut them in larger pieces. Greeks top the salad with a big, thick slice of feta cheese. Turkish version does not have any cheese in it.

Ingredients:

• 2 large tomatoes, finely chopped (preferably skinned)
• 2-4 small sweet green peppers, cored, seeds removed, finely sliced
• 2-3 Persian cucumbers, skinned, finely sliced
• 1 small onion, cut in quarters, finely sliced
• 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley (optional)
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Directions:
In a large bowl combine all ingredients, mix gently with a spoon. Transfer to a serving dish. Serve chilled.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!

Cucumber Salad with Yogurt

Cucumber Salad with Yogurt

Here's a refreshing salad for hot summer days that is easy to make. I use small cucumbers that are sold as Persian cucumbers. They have very thin skin, so if you wash them well, you can eat them without peeling the skin. Real authentic Turkish version of this salad is called CACIK, which is more like a cold soup than a salad. It has the same ingredients, but water is added to the yogurt to make it thinner. You eat "cacik" with a spoon. It accompanies many main dishes like kebabs, stuffed eggplants, cooked dry beans, etc. The recipe below is thicker than traditional "cacik". Since it is thicker, you don't have to have a separate dish to serve it and a side salad suits the Western taste better than a cold soup. Hope you enjoy it.

Ingredients:

• 3 Small Persian cucumbers (about 2 cups)
• 1 cup yogurt
• 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
• 1/4 cup fresh dill, finely chopped
• Salt to taste
• Sprigs of fresh dill or parsley for garnishing

Directions:
Clean and peel cucumbers. Cut in quarters lengthwise. Cut long pieces into thin slices. Combine yogurt, garlic(optional), dill and salt in a large bowl. Mix well with a spoon until smooth. Add cucumber and gently mix with a spoon making sure the yogurt mixture is well blended with cucumber. Transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with fresh dill. Serve chilled.

Afiyet Olsun! Bon Appetit!