All posts filed under: Food

Turkish pancake

You say Crumpet, I say Akitma! – Holey Pancake Day Out in Canakkale

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One of our family rituals for spring is a visit to MIL’s village to collect some spring food items. The day always starts with the most anticipated breakfast with akitma. It’s meant to be a carb-loading day, which happens only once in a while, so why not just enjoy it? Akitma is a pancake leavened with yeast, which fits somewhere between a pancake, English crumpets and French crepes. The texture and the holey appearance place it very close to English crumpets though. This cross-cultural root of akitma made me look deeper into the history of crumpets, pikelets, pancakes, etc. The fact that akitma is eaten specifically in this Thracian region of Turkey coincides with Bulgarian pancake, ‘katmi‘, though the latter has more eggs. I’m not a food anthropologist but it might be fair to say that akitma is the holy mother of  the later more-refined crumpets in the Victorian era? The more I eat it, the more I appreciate the honeycomb-like holes and spongy texture. Butter, honey, or anything put on it will be trapped in all those tiny …

duck confit

Making Duck Confit at Home in Gascon Style: Ultimate Slow Food, A Tradition to Preserve

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Yes, I repeat. Duck Confit is the easiest yet the most misunderstood food in the world. Let me explain why in this post and show to how to tackle the most sublime epicurean delight, which some might consider ‘too classic’. But as a devoted listener of A Taste of the Past, I have deep appreciation for traditional foods. This post inevitably made me dig into the album of the best moments in my life. It was supposed to be written before the duck season in February, or even earlier. Despite its delay, I thought I’d post it after tucking away my second batch of duck confit this week at the winery, in the deepest corner of the fridge, not to be tempted and open it up any time soon. It will sit there for at least one month to further develop the true confit flavours. If I can make duck confit with a small convection oven, so can you! Neither slow cooker nor sous- vide is required. Imagine numerous dishes I can make with this …

Life in the Vineyard – Part 3: Nomad Chef’s Food Story

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Sarkoy, though famous for wine, doesn’t have much to offer in terms of food and, having realised that earlier on, I brought survival packages of foods, spices and freshly ground coffee and my travel mate, a Vietnamese Phin filter. As you know, where Namie goes, there is food, not just food but thought-provoking food. Since I don’t like repeating a meal and my tummy has a limit for white bean stew (kurufasulye) and meatballs (kofte), I opted to cook instead of eating the food delivered to the winery. I try to cook no matter how tired I am, as long as I can lift a knife. The process of thinking what to cook is a therapeutic mental exercise and my body benefits from the simple clean food I make. Without fancy tools and pots, let alone a proper stove and a decent knife, I’ve been cooking just as fine as I’m a well-seasoned cook. The food produced from my tiny kitchen with an electric single hot plate and a kettle is getting more sophisticated day …

Life in the Vineyard – Part 1

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As I mentioned in the last post, I was at Chateau Kalpak Vineyards to help out during the Art Festival, and I’m back home for a little break. The festival was wrapped up successfully with the public exhibition on the last day. A group of journalists visited during the festival so there should be an article in a Turkish magazine somewhere, but I’ll also share the atmosphere and some art works by the artists when I return to the winery where my camera still is. In the meantime, you can have a peek at some random photos I took. Unfortunately, I couldn’t blog because WiFi wasn’t available in the studio. Even if there had been WiFi, I wouldn’t have been able to. Because I was crazy busy throughout the one-week long workshop, multitasking around the clock; serving, cooking, photographing, interpreting, and drinking, etc. I also led a winery tour for the first time and it was fun! The reward was waking up to this beautiful view every morning and sipping wine on the terrace, watching …

Chasing the Season: Sardines Wrapped in Grape Leaves

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These days a lot of photos of Ahi Tuna are circulating on social media, teasing me who can’t even get any fish. Commercial fishing is banned from May to September in Turkey to protect fish population. You can still get farmed fish, though. However, I won’t resort to Norwegian farmed salmon, so I’m hanging in there waiting for the healthiest little fish to appear. And they have! But my stubborn FIL keeps saying firmly, “Not tasty yet. Wait till July!”  Ahhh~~~ I know if I’ll be rewarded with big fat sardines if I wait a bit longer. I’m usually great at delayed gratification but not with fish. So one day I decided to risk upsetting him, – he’s very serious about fish – and bought some without telling him. They were not as big as FIL would have liked but still pretty fat. The farmers market is full of goodness. Look at the 5 different kinds of cherries! And here you go, the fresh green chickpeas. This is one of those vegetables that you buy …

fig jam cheese platter

Tradition vs Reality: Unripe Fig Jam and Summer Scents

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Summer finally! I’ve started to drink white wine! Especially this kind of job can’t be done without wine, can it? I miss those gypsies (or flower ladies) peeling and selling them in streets of Istanbul. I couldn’t see any peeled ones being sold here. So? I decided to do it with skin on but still had to trim them. Alas, I immediately regretted my decision as soon as I got on to it. Why? The sap was sticky! Yes, I was wearing gloves but still it was sticking to the gloves and everywhere. I mainly followed this recipe and this and this (video) when I could easily ring up my recipe source! Basically, you need cleaning out the bitterness, squeezing the little figs and a heck of sugar. I’d seen this jam flashing the vivid green colour and had only tried it once because of the sugar. I am human and I do like desserts – I eat sweets after every meal! – but there’s a level of sweetness I can tolerate. I always ask ‘az serbet(less syrup)‘ …