Tomatoes

This may seem silly, but finding the perfect tomato in the USA is no longer possible. But in Sultantepe at the Thursday bazaar, these are found RIPE!

Sardalya - Sardines wrapped in grapeleaves

Fresh sardalya in Turkey are incredibly delicious and a healthy source of vitamin D as well as Omega 3's.

Ingredients

2 pound Sardines fresh, cleaned, boned, but with head and tail intact (if the fishmonger will do it)
2 Tomatoes chopped
2 pieces Garlic chopped
Salt/pepper to taste
36 Grape leaves preferably fresh, but if in brine, wash well
2 tablespoon Olive oil

Grape leaves: If fresh, pre-boil for 30 seconds to soften. If in brine, wash well to remove as much salt taste as possible.

Lay out a grape leaf (thick veins facing you); trim stem; place 1 sardine on top. Make a mixture of chopped tomato, garlic, salt/pepper and stuff each sardine with a teaspoon or so of the mix. Wrap a grape leaf around each fish leaving the head and tail slightly showing; place in a nice oven pan that can go straight to the table for serving. (I use an oval clay dish that displays the fish very nicely.) Add any remaining tomato mixture to the top of the fish; drizzle olive oil over top. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until leaves begin to brown and the pan is sizzling.

Serve with lemon wedges on the side. Affiyet olsun!

A new recipe, but it's not food!

I had a facial last week - this woman is amazing - I'm not certain if she is really, really good or if I am a glutton for punishment! After 3 hours of cleaning, massaging, masking, and poking (ouch), she closed my pores (my genetic background provides me with large ones) with ice, but not just any ice! And she insists I use this formula at home. I did make it once - but at home I'm not in the mood to run up and down my stairs to the freezer each time I clean my face. Here, in the apartment, it's a lot shorter distance to the kitchen.....

Bring to a boil 1 bunch of parsley in 5 cups of water; turn the heat down for a moment, bring it a boil once more and turn off the heat. Add 1 handful of daisies; 1 bunch of peppers (I have no idea what kind of peppers); 1 bunch of 'ada cay' - a Turkish tea. Let this cool. Add the juice of 3 lemons. Then strain it finely. Add a cup of daisy oil; 1/2 cup of lemon oil; 1/2 pepper; 1/4 cup rose oil.

Freeze in tubs the size of margarine tubs, but don't fill all the way as you will need to take it out; turn it over; use it from the bottom where the oil has settled. Just wipe it over your face after cleaning - it is incredibly refreshing; makes your skin soft; closes those large pores. And forget the Peppers! And if anyone does this, please let me know how it works for you! Maybe I should patent this before publishing - oh, well.

Palamut pilaki and Ispinak Borek

Great to see our longest friends (I can't say oldest without getting into trouble) here in Istanbul last night. They're both doing well, which at our age, is the most important thing.

I fixed a wonderful spinach pie (better than Olga's) and fish. Here in our mahalleh (neighborhood) we have a tiny shop that makes nothing but yufka (fill dough). So we buy 3 or 4 pieces, fresh, and I can do a hundred things with them! Last night I simply sauted an onion in a tiny bit of vegetable oil until soft, then added about a pound of fresh, slightly chopped spinach until wilted. I added about 2 oz. of white (feta) cheese and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. I melted about 4 tablespoons of butter and layered half the yufka in a metal baking dish with a little butter sprinkled around on top of each layer; added the spinach mix; repeated the remaining yufka/butter routine and baked about 30 minutes in a 325F oven. If you have access to corek otu (a black sesame seed-like spice) or regular sesame seeds if you don't, sprinkle a little on top before backing.

Palamut is not easily available in the states - it's other name is Bonito. We bought a fairly large one and had it sliced steak-style. It was very simple - I placed the slices into a baking dish and covered it with 1 sliced onion; 2 chopped onions; 4 fresh bay leaves (that I picked yesterday); salt; pepper; 3 garlic chopped garlic cloves; a bit of fresh parsley (or dill); 1/4 cup of vegetable oil; 1/2 cup white wine; topped it all off with thin lemon slices; baked 25 minutes in a 375F oven.

Last night's dinner....

Good friends joined us for dinner last night - menu included a cold artichoke heart dish (1st course); sauteed lamb served over a bed of eggplant puree with rice pilaf as a side dish (2nd course); salad; and two desserts - neither of which I made. One was ayva tatlisi from the famous Kanat Lokantasi (a Black Sea style restaurant); the other a fabulous lemon cheesecake from Palit Patiseri which has been around since 1957. I need to prepare for tonight's dinner right now (more guests), but I'll get these recipes up soon. If anyone wants them right away, let me know!

Defne

Hubby and I took a long walk along the Bosphorus shore road today from Uskudar to Salacak and Harem, then up the hill to take photos of the beautiful bird cages carved into the ancient mosques along the way. Because it's spring and the first April we've spent in Turkey, a lovely small flowering tree caught our attention. The shape of the leaves was very familiar and as I got closer I knew is was a bay leaf tree! I snapped one off, put it in my pocket and we continued on. Then we realized that there are bay leave trees all over this area! We didn't pay any attention to them before because without the flowers they just look like a scrub tree! I picked some off a branch in the garden of the ancient Ayazma Cami (mosque) and tonight I'll use it in the fish dish I'm planning to make.

Attempting to cut/paste a recipe into my blog -

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS WITH MEAT

Serving Size: 4

Cuisine: Turkish

-= Ingredients =-

2 medium onions

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 cup water ; hot

2 tablespoon rice

2 pounds green peppers ; small and thin skinned, if possible

3/4 pound ground meat

1 bunch chopped dill

1 bunch mint dried or fresh

3 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 tablespoon dolma bahar (a blend of nutmeg, black pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, paprika, and chili powder - you can find this in Middle East markets or make your own according to your taste)

2 lg. tomatoes

~~ -- COOKING LIQUID -- ~~

2 tablespoon Margarine

2 teaspoon Salt

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1 1/2 cups Water ; hot

-= Instructions =-

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil. Add ¾ cup hot water and rice - cook 10 min.

Slice the lids off the peppers at a level that you can replace them after stuffing. Clean insides of peppers.

Add meat, dill, mint, pepper, and 1 tsp. salt, and dolma bahar to the sauted onion and garlic and knead for 5 min. Peel, seed, chop tomatoes and add. Stuff peppers. In pan, add 2 tbsp. margarine, 2 tsp. salt, tomato paste and 1-1 ½ glass water (to the mid-level of the stuffed peppers). Cook on stove top 40-60 min. Serve hot. Watch for evaporation of water - add if necessary.

Istanbul - day 6

We've finally settled down a little after a chaotic start to this trip. Two of our sons and a cousin came with us and are now off to do 3 weeks of military duty here. Our close friends (downstairs neighbors) even had dinner ready for all 5 of us - Turkish hospitality!

I couldn't wait to get to the outdoor market down the hill from us to see what was in season. In the last 10 years we have been coming/going I don't think we've been here in April before. The guys only had one day to run around and see the sights before taking off and I wanted to make a really nice dinner. Hubby and I carried bags loaded with fresh fruits, vegetables and levrek - small sea bass fresh from the Black Sea.

First dinner was stuffed peppers (1st course) and grilled fish (2nd course) with potatoes, a lovely salad and baklava. I had sent the men down to choose their own dessert!

Green peppers are different here - they're small, thin-skinned and very tasty - not bitter like the American peppers.

I don't have an outdoor grill here. Living in an apartment has it's 'rules'. If your neighbor can smell your food, you should offer it to them - our balcony is so tiny and there are so many apartments close by that I'd have to be able to feed at least 15 people in our building alone! So - no grill. But the oven does a terrific job of high heat baking - and a little wine and olive oil goes a long way. A whole levrek is about 3/4 lb. cleaned. I simply roll them around in a tiny bit of olive oil; add whatever herbs and spices seem wonderful at the moment (fresh dill, salt, pepper, fresh onions, lemon slices, kekik [oregano]) and bake at 400F for 20 minutes; raise the heat to 450F for 5 minutes and we had the best tasting fish! Sometimes I add pitted olives to the insides (if I have time to pit them).

I need to learn how to add my recipes to the blog - I've collected/made over 100 Turkish recipes since we moved in to the apartment 10 years ago. We'll see...let me know if you're interested.

At the frozen lake this weekend - haven't been here since summer except to check security. The sun is shining and everything is incredibly white and bright! I've decided to spend some time revising my recipes and thinking about whether it will ultimately become a regular cookbook - or whether my draft of "My Life and Food" will become a book - or if I should convert it to a blog. So, I'm 'playing' with this to see what pans out to be the most comfortable for me.

Obviously, there's a story behind all this. Patience please!