Mosiac

We are saying farewell to Gaziantep and to Turkey for awhile returning to Australia.  Before we left Antep I had to see the new Mosiac Museum.  It was fantastic and well priced at 5 lira per person.  New modern buildings with a fantastic amount of mosiacs.  They found these mosiacs on the banks of the Euphrates River and took most whole and put them into this museum.  If you have a chance to see it it is worth the trip.  Todays Zaman had this to say about it.

Turkish Delights

In my own country we have a brand name that sells Turkish delight which is covered with chocolate and marketed as Turkish delight.  That is delicous but when in Turkey it is interesting to find out that Turkish delight - Lokum covers a whole range of sweet meats and not just the globulous squares we usually see. They start with the squares with or without nuts, long sausage things on strings, marshmallow rolls to not so sweet triangles with nuts in the middle.  There are a whole lot more that I havent spoken about but will likely do in the future.

This is string dipped in a juice and starch mix made into this

Usually grape juice and starch boiled together then poured onto a cloth to dry then cut into rectangles and folded into triangles with some crushed walnuts in the centre

Typical type of turish delight roll

this probaly has pekmez and pistachios

Mixed tray with the Antep speciality

This one looks nicer as it is full of walnuts

Antep speciality - paste made from pistachios and (honey)sugar made into rolls

I say let the kids have the lollies for the festival, I will take these any day over those. 


http://verygoodrecipes.com/turkish

Şeker Bayram

My posting this month has been slow as we are on holiday and I cant always access the net.  Şeker Bayram (Lolly festival) follows the month of Ramazan, this holiday lasts for about 3 days during which the Turks go and visit thier families and hand out lollies (candy) to the children and some give money.  Some children will go door to door of known neighbours and family members collecting as much as they can. Its probably not the Turkish version of Halloween as there is no dressing up.  The streets of some areas are filled with large bins of lollies. 

These are all very tempting, we were given about 2 kilos of lollies from a close friend.  My babies were very excited.  This is a very popular holiday with the kids.  What is your familys favourtie holiday?

Yuvarlama

Yuvarlama is a regional special of where I am at the moment - Gaziantep.  It is delicous and has variations.  Today is the day it is eaten ( the day after Ramazan has finished) so this morning at 8am a neighbour came and gave us a generous amount for our breakfast. A bowl of rice pilav also came.

Neighbour 1

After eating this another neigbour came and gave us thier offerings.  Neighbour 1 had the tiny köftes made without meat and had a couple of pieces of meat in the yogurt soup.  Neighbour 2 had the köftes made with meat and some chicken in with the yogurt.  Neither had used a meat stock to thin out the yogurt.  As you can see even though the recipe is standard people do whatever they like or whatever they can to suit the budget.

Neigbour 2 yuvarlama with rice pilav

Making the köfte

What is Yuvarlama when it is broken down? It is a dish made with little rice bubble sized meatballs made usually with fat free mince(ground beef)and coarsely ground rice flour.(Neighbour 1 had just made the köftes out of rice)  These are then steamed and added to a yogurt soup that has a very small amount of beef or chicken and chickpeas.  Then on top of that they have a bright green mint sauce.

This is a time consuming job as you can imagine, most people make a kilos worth of meat and 500gr of rice flour and then make tiny tiny meatballs.  All the neigbours will sit with each other and get them all done over the period of a couple of days.

Here is the recipe.

1 kilo of fat free beef mince

500gr of rice flour

1 egg

Knead all this together until it is a dough.  Using oiled hands take tiny pieces of this mix and make rice bubble sized pieces. Set aside.  Steam over hot water in a colander until they are cooked (they usually change colour)

1 kilo yogurt

250gr of either cooked meat or chicken, diced or shredded

1 cup of cooked chickpeas

salt

meat stock if wanted or water

oil

mint

Take the yogurt and put into a saucepan add in 1 cup of water or stock and whisk together.  You dont want this too thin or too thick.  Should be the same consistency of a tinned tomato soup.  Put the saucepan on the stove and heat slowly wisking well, dont bring it to the boil.  Add in the cooked meat and chickpeas and then 4 cups of prepared köftes.  Add in more water to cover and cook on a medium heat until everything has come together nicely which will take about 15 minutes.  Take off the heat and make the mint sauce.  Using about half a cup of olive oil and 4 tablespoons of mint put into a small saucepan and mix well, keep on the heat for a couple of minutes.       Pour ontop of the Yuvarlama and serve.

A couple of things to remember - you can make the meatballs with just the rice flour - you can use chicken mince to make the meatballs - you can omit the egg if you are making the meatballs with meat or chicken - if you dont like mixing meat and dairy do a chicken version or a meat version with rice meatballs.

http://verygoodrecipes.com/turkish

Drying Veggies

This was taken on my friends balcony

This was taken from my window to the neighbouring roof top and she is drying eggplants

Gaziantep is famous for its dried chillies and eggplants that are then turned into stuffed dolma later in the year.  You can buy them pre dried at the various herbal/dried goods shops or make your own.  Making your own is preferred by most of the local women as they know that it is fresh and done properly.

An assortment of dried eggplant, zuchinni, okra and chillies

At the moment in the Bazaars you can get a kilo of eggplants for 25kurus so now is the time to buy for drying.  The hot chillies are also very cheap and most women have started if not finished this yearly chore.

The women will sit on the streets for hours with thier neighbours cleaning out the little eggplants.  Each household probably doing at least 50 kilos each.  The women will do one household at a time.  The more neighbours you have the less of a chore it becomes as everyone helps each other.

After hanging the eggplants or chillies in the sun until they are dried they then store them ready for winter eating. At this time the women also make huge amounts of pickles and dried pepper and tomato paste as the prices are down and the sun is still hot.  Last year I just did 20 kilos of each but wont be doing any this year as my neighbours have given my enough to cover our needs.

Some women also dry zuchinnis for stuffing and tomatoes.  I personally think that the dried tomatoes are the best as the taste is fantastic.  If you dont have enough sun to do this you can find a decent dehydrator and make these yourself.

http://verygoodrecipes.com/turkish

Urban Foraging, Ramazan

As you all know from my previous posts I am into Urban Foraging/Gleaning.  I have gone to ancient castles and picked caper berries, gleaned black pepper corns at ruins and picked various wild greens along the streets and parks. But what about something that is not technically gleaning or foraging but is still finding a full meal in a public place? Well in Turkey during Ramazan(Ramadan)this is made possible at various spots sponsored by local governments.  They set up huge tents and serve free food every night for anyone who is interested for the whole month of fasting.  So yesterday evening we lined up at our local tent to see what they were offering.  

The caterers happy to be serving

Everyone waiting for the signal to eat

The food was really good.  They gave out a lentil, rice soup and hot stuffed rice filled peppers.  There wa also a small amount of fried dessert and a couple of olives to break the fast.

I say be adventerous when it comes to foraging and gleaning(as long as it is legal) you just never know where it will lead you and what you can find.


http://verygoodrecipes.com/turkish

Tarkan

Hello to all my readers.  I havent been able to post for a couple of weeks as Im sure you have noticed as I am having technical problems on this end and with a 2 year old and a 4 year old it makes it nearly impossible to be able to go out to the internet cafes. 

Until my next installment hope you enjoy this Tarkan video.  I like Tarkan so hope you all do too.