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Funny enough my friends around me have been asking me to make kısır for them, like all my life… It started in high school as far as I remember, being alone at home frequently, I had the whole gang at … Continue reading
For a decent portion of döner, you need decent meat. You need high quality meat. Because döner is made from meat and animal fat, to be precise, tail fat. But… The smell of the meat was very unappetizing, the meat used was fron various low quality cuts, nerves and all were present, not to mention the inedible, tough and greasy at the same time meat, leaving your mouth greasy and tummy sour. Will not return…
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We were taken by the smell of the wood fire, and followed by my nose and hungry instincts, we end up at a local, family run pide restaurant at Milas. After all that rush at pazar and the morning kokoreç has left … Continue reading
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It was an early morning we hit the road from Yalıkavak, for Milas, for the local open market, the famous Milas pazarı. It was a bright sunny day, despite the February weather we have been witnessing at the end of … Continue reading
All it takes is some flour, salt, water, kneading, time, fire. Then you have a bazlama, a flat bread, one of my favorite of all breads, especially if prepared by Yurdagül with that local flour mixture of hers, some whole wheat, some rye, some white flour. Eat it right out of fire with some butter and salt, a cup of tea. If there is any left, I prepare a sandwich, enjoy it with cold beer…
As an offal enthusiast, I am embarrassed that I have not written any word on one of my favorite offal meals. Kokoreç!
Kokoreç is basically lamb intestines, wrapped around sweetbreads on skewer and grilled horizontally over the charcoal fire. But not easy as is. Preparation is harsh, when you think of all the intestines, which needs to be cleaned thoroughly!
My first kokoreç was chopped intestines sauteed with spring onions. It was a dish prepared Thessalonian style, where my mom’s roots are from. The women of the house used to clean the intestines those days, not the butchers. Patience and mastership was needed for this laborious process. Cleaned under the cold running water, by turning the intestines gently inside out with the help of a medium thick knitting needle, hours we are talking here.
In Istanbul you may find kokoreç being prepared on the small eateries, but the real kokoreç is prepared on wheeled carts. That thick skewer is being grilled slowly on charcoal fire, ready to be cut and chopped coarsely, grilled more while you watch the fat melts and the bubbling sounds fill your ear and the smell makes you crazy. Then some salt, oregano is sprinkled on top and, I like it best with some cumin and spicy chili flakes. Followed by filling in the bread that has been heating up on the skewer,then wrapped in paper and… you eat!
It has been the most enjoyed street food of many offal lovers for years and years. Everyone has a kokoreç usta, knows his coordinates and whereabouts his timing and so on. Most of them even given their cell phones to their fans, hence it makes it easier for us to find them in Istanbul.
Those white aproned heros are our saviours after along nite out, after a long day at work, or just for indefinable pleasure of eating kokoreç grilled on charcoal.
As I would say, well most of us who can not resist the cruchy, chewy, delightful meaty taste, would say the same after the first bite:
Usta, bana bir çeyrek daha! -Usta, Another quarter bread for me!-
It has been a very long time for me since my grandmother has left me, endless… She was the one who thought me a lot of things about food like the first time I put my hands on a big tripe to wash it on a big kitchen sink under the hand freezing running cold water. Those trotter, tripe soups simmering all night long, the smell of the kitchen after a pot full of strawberry jam made, scratching the bottom of the pan with my small fingers, eating the unbaked cake batter…
Tarhana soup was one of her things, which she used to prepare during summer months, when the ingredients like pepper and tomatoes are at their best and let it dry on a thin tea towel under the sun. Soon to be a rich, thick, floury soup, tarhana was loved by the whole family and scooped down on the winter days.
Tarhana is a very common soup all around Turkey, being prepared at almost every region, city, villages, with different ingredients, techniques. As I don’t have my grandmother with me anymore neither her magic hands, tarhana I consume on winter months is prepared by Yurdagül, our long faithful helper at where my mom lives in Yalıkavak. As is cooking, no tarhana she sends me is the same every year, which I love.
She uses döğme (wheat), flour, home made drained yogurt, red peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, mint and of course Yalıkavak’s parching sun and lovely breeze. She first brings to boil the onion, tomatoes, peppers in little water, after a little cooled down she adds wheat, flour, garlic, mint, yogurt and mix them together, forming a thick batter. Then she covers this big pot with a piece of tülbent, a see through cotton cheesecloth, to avoid the flies. She punches and kneads this mixture, every now and then for 3 to 5 days. After this yeasting process she tears little pieces size of meatballs and lays them under the sun for a couple of days, when the texture is dried out -but not completely- then she crumbles them through a sieve and let this dry a couple of days more. Portions it to her family, me, my mom, the other lucky ones, this has been one of my favorite shipments along with the other home made goodies.
Turning tarhana into a soup with some stock, maybe adding some mince meat or not, some pepper paste or not, drizzling it with butter and chilies… or not…
Sometimes all it takes is just a bowl of soup, to remind our most loved ones, most happy times hence they are never forgotten.
Note from Tuba: I wrote this piece to my granny, missing her everyday and to all the loving grandmothers of our world!
A sweet autumn noon, I took a bus to Oğuzeli to capture the the preparations for winter, wondering what is left out. After a bus drive for 40 minutes, I arrived the tiny town, without knowing it was such a small town… A little roundabout, baker, butcher, little grocery shop also selling fruit and vegetables outside, the streets deserted, some town people hanging around the butcher, no children around I guess they were at school.
Soon I started my walk with Hüseyin, who is in the vegetable drying business, vegetables like cucumber, aubergines, Antep pepper, zucchini which are all staple for Antep locals during winter months. Those beautiful dry vegetables, needled on a thin string and hung up on the roofs. There were not much left though… But you have the idea.
After the walk made us hungry, I politely asked lahmacun for lunch. Knowing that lahmacun is made from scratch here in Oğuzeli, like old times, like when there was no lahmacun and kebab restaurants all around. You buy your vegetables, take it to butcher, he makes the topping of lahmacun, then take it to the bakery where it is finished.
Hüseyin got his little tray and we went to the grocer to buy the zerzevat, meaning vegetables, and spices. Then to the butcher, feeling happy as a school girl waiting for candies only this is better than candy! He told the butcher how many lahmacun we would want, then left the tray to him. The butcher of Oğuzeli… I think he is everyone’s favorite person in this small town, when you think about the meat consumption on every meal.
Cut some meat from ribs, some fat, and some from the brisket of a mutton carcass, then started cutting all the ingredients with zırk. Everything is getting smaller and the tiny shop started to fill with the fragrance of garlic, Antep pepper, tomatoes, pepper paste then the fatty mutton meat. All you need a loaf of bread or a pide, to swipe all the escaping juices.
I was not the only one there, we were sharing the tiny shop with this small boy, standing quietly, waiting for his turn to come, for him to tell his mother’s order. On the counter waited biber dolma, peppers filled with mince meat and hot pepper paste, waiting for its owner, they soon will be baked in the neighbourhood bakery as well. A humble lunch for a local. Jealous!
After all slurping, waiting, and praying he finished cutting everything with zırk, he put the mixture in the tray. While hopping to the baker, right across the butcher and grocer I was testing my patient. This was too good to wait! At least I had my photo machine to stall me…
A little flour on the counter, the baker started playing with the lahmacun dough, stretching it, then topping it with our mixture, passing on to the shovel, soon they will be cooked in the wood burning oven. While I was there chatting, more trays arrived and lined up on the counter, waiting for their turns.
The taste… Well, there is nothing like a freshly made from scratch lahmacun in the world!
The mutton, the spices, the aroma, the taste of the wood, eating on the newspapers, the friendship over the table, everyone around stopping by for a bite, tucking in with your hands and the fat is dripping from your elbows…
There are no restaurants in Oğuzeli, but friends and a butcher, a baker, a grocer…
