Turkish Feast

One of the "few" places I'm dying to see

Well, my original plan was to post some Vietnamese dishes but my friends convinced me that I should rather do something that is closer to European taste, closer to our taste. After all this blog is about the diversity of culinary delights so I should not always deal with the Far-East only. That’s why, together with my friends we decided to make a house-party at a friend’s accompanied by a little cooking. Since my appetite for no-one-ever-heard-about kind of ingredients is endless, my friends were the ones who chose the cuisine this time. We wanted to choose something that is really popular at Hungarian youth right now, different from everything that we did before, healthy and not too complicated, so we agreed to try Turkish food this time. It proved to be great success.

Some say that Turkish food is really close to Hungarian cuisine. Whether it is true or not, I don’t wanna be the one to decide, but it is definitely true that there is a misterious bond between us and Turkish food. We simply like everything about it and we can never get bored of it, unlike Chinese fast food restaurants. Although getting to know Turkish cuisine does not equal visiting fast food restaurants regulary, I think we can still get a hint about what its main characteristics are. Freshness, a lot of veggies, a lot of meat, exotic spices, fresh herbs, yoghurt and so on and so on. There is basically nothing that I do not like about Turkish cuisine and since my best friend is a fan of Turkish language we could google real Turkish cooking sites to find some authentic recipes, do some brainstorming and get some inspiration for creating our own ones.

Today I am gonna share 5 easy recipes, maybe they are not that special anymore, since you can find Turkish recipes on basically every gastroblog, but I think these five dishes proved to be a perfect combination for us, who wanted to eat something simple but tasty, while drinking cocktails and enjoying the night together playing board games. These were all perfect house-party dishes and I am sure we all agree that it was much more fun than ordering two Hawaii pizzas. Somehow we managed to spend long hours by cooking – lot of talking and a little bit of cooking – but with preparation everybody can make these dishes very easily. Another great advantage of these dishes is that it is really a low cost menu if there are 4-6 people at least. We managed to stay under 3 euros per person, which is not a negligible factor for university students who spend most of their money on… let’s say that their money-spending preferences are different.

So let’s see what we got today and if you are ready:

Lahmacun

Ingredients (for 6):

Dough:

• 1 lb of plain white flour 
• 0,7-0,8 oz yeast 
• lukewarm water 
• a pinch of sugar 
• a pinch of salt 
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Topping:

• 1 ½ lbs minced lamb (or beef) 
• 1 big onion 
• 3-4 cloves of garlic 
• diced red bell pepper 
• 1 tbsp tomato puree 
• ½ tsp sugar 
• 1 ½ tsp salt 
• ground coriander 
• ground cumin 
• fresh parsley 
• fresh mint 
• fresh basil 
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Preparation:

1. Put the flour in a big bowl and make a hole in the middle. Pour the yeast, the sugar and some ounces of lukewarm water into the hole. Mix it well while adding more water and leave it to rest for about 15 mins for the yeast to start working. 
2. When the yeast has frothed up, you can start mixing the dough. Add some salt, some tablespoons of olive oil and knead the dough well for about 10-15 mins. You should get a pizza-dough like dough. When it is ready put it into a bowl, cover it and leave it to rest for 1 hour. 
3. Meanwhile fry the onions on a little bit of oil and when it is golden-brown add the minced meat and all the spices. Fry until ready and at the end mix in some tomato puree and a teaspoon of sugar. Last step is to add the fresh chopped herbs to preserve their flavours. 
4. When the dough is twice as big as before it is ready to work with. We should make little tortilla-thin circles or whatever shape we like, put the topping on them and bake the lahmacun for 10-12 minutes at 200 celsius degrees. 
5. Serve it with fresh parsley and lemon juice.

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!

Chicken Pide

Dough:

• 1 lb of plain white flour 
• 0,7-0,8 oz yeast 
• lukewarm water 
• a pinch of sugar 
• a pinch of salt 
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 2 eggs

Topping:

• 1 lb diced chicken thigh meat 
• 2 diced eggplants 
• 1 diced red bell pepper 
• 1 lb diced tomatoes 
• 1 onion 
• 3-4 cloves of garlic 
• pepper 
• ground coriander seed 
• oregano 
• cumin 
• cayenne pepper 
• salt 
• fresh herbs (mint, parsley, basil)

Preparation:

1. Put the flour in a big bowl and make a hole in the middle. Pour the yeast, the sugar and some ounces of lukewarm water into the hole. Mix it well, while adding more water and leave it to rest for about 15 mins for the yeast to start working. 
2. When the yeast has frothed up, you can start mixing the dough. Add some salt, some tablespoons of olive oil, 2 eggs and knead the dough well for about 10-15 mins. You should get a pizza-dough like dough. When it is ready put it into a bowl, cover it and leave it to rest for 1 hour. 
3. While you are you waiting for the dough to rise you can prepare the topping. 
4. Fry the diced chicken together on the previously fried chopped onion until ready (5-6 mins). Add all the spices –salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chopped garlic, oregano, cumin, coriander. At this point add the previously fried eggplant, the diced tomatoes, diced bell pepper. Leave it to simmer for about 5 minutes. 
5. When the dough is ready, make rectangle-shaped pieces of the dough, put the topping on them, fold the sides to create a boat-like shape and bake them for about 15-20 mins at 170-180 Celsius degrees.

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!

Chickpea Salad with Roasted Pepper

Ingredients:

1 lb chickpeas

5 roasted sweet peppers, sliced

1 diced chili

chopped red onion

chopped garlic

16 oz yoghurt

mayonnaise

juice of half a lemon

salt

ground black pepper

ground cumin

ground coriander seed

Preparation:

Probably this is one of the easiest dishes that I have created. It is very simple, you should just mix everything well, season the salad according to your own taste with the spices listed above and leave it to rest in the fridge for about at least 1-2 hours. The only hard part may be, if you do not manage to get roasted peppers in the grocery store, to make them yourself which may consume a little bit of your time. But do not be afraid, I almost always prepare the roasted peppers by myself and it is not such a big deal, you just need to be patient. Just burn the peppers until coal-black on the oven, but literally coal-black and then put into a plastic bag for 2-3 mins. After that using cold water it is very easy to peel off the skin of the peppers.

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!

Mint Chickpea Cream

Ingredients:

1 lb chickpea-cream (made of chickpeas using a food processor)

juice of half a lemon (if not enough, some tablespoons of water to get a smooth paste)

chopped garlic

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp cumin

fresh parsley

fresh mint

½ tsp paprika

2 tbsp olive oil

Preparation:

This dish is a very new creation, born out of need. We wanted to make Hummus, but we were out of cash so we did not wanna buy tahini, then we thought that we would substitute it with yoghurt to get the right consistency but then we realized that we were cooking for a bunch of people among whom there was a friend of ours with lactose-intolerance. So we had to create something new and we kinda liked the outcome. Just mix everything together and after some hours of cooling serve it with extra virgin olive oil and paprika (still resembles hummus a little bit). The reason why I really like this dish is that you can season it as you wish. Garlic, mint, parsley can never be too much:D

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!

Sutlac – Turkish Rice Pudding

Ingredients (for 8 people):

1,5 l milk

1/3 lbs rice

10 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp corn starch

pinch of salt

Preparation:

I have to tell you that I am not a dessert person, but there are some that I can kill for. This is definitely one of them. I know you can get it in every Turkish fast food restaurant but until yesterday I had never tried it coz when I am in a restaurant I never eat desserts. But thanks to my best friend who was basically the one who proposed the idea of trying Turkish food wanted to make this amazing dessert and who am I to say “NO”. I never say no to anything when it comes to food so I was eager to try this Turkish rice pudding and I loved the first spoon and I loved the second one even more.

1. Pour the milk into a big pot and when it starts boiling add the rice and stir it for 25-30 mins at a low temperature until the rice is ready. 
2. Meanwhile add the sugar and one pinch of salt. 
3. When the rice is ready we add the corn starch mixed in some ounces of milk and we cook it until it gets thicker, like a pudding. 
4. When it is ready pour the pudding into little bowls and serve the sutlac cold with cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Help yourselves! Bon appétit!