All posts tagged: Turkish food

Turkish food, caul fat

Happy Mother’s Day and Postpartum in Lockdown

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Hello folks, it’s been a very long time. Too many things have happened over the past year for me to even recount everything. Last year I was fully committed to wine making and WSET diploma and, as if they weren’t challenging enough, I decided to have a baby and carried her through the harvest. I thought I could take advantage of the super sense of smell on the tasting exams, which didn’t quite work out. However, it was proven quite useful when I was sniffing the fermenting wines and during the blending process of 2016 vintage. If my baby grows up to be a wine girl, no surprises there! My pregnancy was smooth and I quite enjoyed tucking into sucuk, kebab, katmar, kunefe and all other naughty desserts that I didn’t used to eat without feeling guilty. My cravings were for fatty and spicy food, and hubby drove to Istanbul and Izmir to provide me with the best croissants in Turkey. After 40 weeks, however, I started to get frustrated, not having any signs of …

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 …

Spring Tradition: Goat Kid Caul Fat with Liver and Fennel (Ciğer Sarması)/ Firriato Wine

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Spring is all round and farmers’ markets are once again vibrant with the colours and smells of spring. Despite my ongoing laments for Turkey’s lack of gastronomy, one thing I did miss while I was in London was this fresh seasonal local produce. All the wild plants started to come out, wild asparagus, fennel, ebegumeci, stinging nettles and what not. I’ve written an article about Turkish wild plants for Koreans since they are very keen eaters of wild plants. I might replicate it in English this spring. Anyway, I put together a classic tasting platter using the goodies I’d brought; Jambon Iberico with Asparagus and Brie, Smoked Salmon with Fennel and Avocado. Yummy as always… In my in-laws’ house, on the other hand, a different culinary tradition was happening. The Thracian region has a tradition of eating lamb liver but Canakkale has a very special delicacy, which is eaten once a year in spring months. Goat Kid… That tradition is the consequence of goat dairy production and, as the article says, it’s better to use it rather than waste it. I tasted kid meat for the first time 2 …

Smoky Eggplant Mushroom Risotto

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On a rainy evening, what can be better than a bowl of warm risotto? A warm lentil or pumpkin soup for lunch, and a risotto for dinner will set you right even if you’re not big on carbs like myself. The weather and the month December are two good excuses to indulge in dishes you don’t normally eat. And this risotto will be THE ONLY risotto I’ll be making repeatedly from now on, and I actually have made this three times already! Char-grilled eggplant puree, Patlıcan Salatası in Turkish, is my favourite meze and I can eat it every day ONLY IF grilling eggplants over the open fire was a less messy job, though it’s usually one of Mr.O’s jobs in the kitchen. Which version do you like the best? With yogurt, with tahini, or with olive oil, or with a bit of all? Do you have your own secret method of char-grilling eggplants? While I was looking for an idea, I came across two articles on the best way to char-grill eggplants. The first was …

nettle ravioli

Foraging – Homemade Ravioli with Nettle Leaves

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These days I wish one day were 48 hours. I feel like chasing time all the time. What you want to do and what you have to do don’t always meet, but at least we’re all running, aiming for that dream, I hope. I’ve been a kind of nomad cook for a while, cooking out of a suitcase. I dream about having a big kitchen with good lighting and being able to cook at daylight. However, I am still a cook on the road, changing places, and that is why I equip my kitchen with minimal cookware, but I’ve managed to cook and blog all along the years of moving around. I’ve drawn to foraging food,  since I got here, which has been so enjoyable, I mean, it gives the feeling of ‘living’, walking through the forests picking plants, weeds, nuts, fruit, etc. I’ve been discovering many weeds and plants that I’d eaten but hadn’t seen fresh. I saw ladies picking this creeper vine leaves and wondered what they were doing with them and I …

Suadiye Hidden Gem – Şaşkın Balık

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I am quite critical when it comes to reviewing restaurants because of my high(?) standards and low pocket. And I don’t judge a restaurant right after the first visit as my experience can be affected by various factors, some of which lead to a biased and subjective conclusion. If I don’t go to the same place twice, it already proves itself that I didn’t like it, therefore there is no need to write about it, unless it’s great without a doubt in every aspect. I came across this restaurant, Şaşkın Balık, which means Confused fish, all by chance and I couldn’t have been more pleased, knowing that I’d have another place added to my very limited eat-out list. Tucked away in a tree-lined small street in Suadiye, known as a rather posh area, this modest fish restaurant serves dishes that you don’t find anywhere else in Turkey. The chef, who friendly presented every single dish while explaining about the dish, makes sure he creates something different with his inspiration from other cuisines. Now I don’t …