Black olives flavoured with sage, garlic and lemon rind

Turkish cuisine offers a slew of marvelous ingredients that in the loving hands of a Turkish mama turn into exquisitely heart-warming treats.

Take for example salted olives, provocatively called in French à la mode grecoise. Those are black olives in salt, full stop. On their own, they are definitely an acquired taste: a complex mix of tart and salty, rich in flavour, lacking in fragrance, and somewhat on the dry skinny side.  

Now the task is to imagine oneself a Turkish mater familiae and think how to bring out olives' strengths and make good for their weaknesses. This is my take.

I peel and slice thinly one head of garlic, part a lemon with its rind and crush a handful of dried sage. I fold all that into a 200 ml olive oil, shake well and mix with 1 kg black salted olives in a glass jar. Let stay in a cool place, NOT in the fridge, for a couple of days, to allow all the flavours to fuse. Serve with Turkish bread, grilled halloumi cheese, sliced ripe tomatoes and whatever Mediterranean dainties you can get hold of.

Turkish manti soup recipe

Of course, it is mantı, not manti, the vowel harmony! I am always inspired by Turkish cuisine, it is such a potentially wondrous fare that somehow all too oft ends up very über-meh in most Turkish restaurants, even those catering the local clientèle in Turkey. I suspect that real Turkish food must be made by Turkish mama's loving hands for her family.

In the absence of such in my social circles, I have no choice but to be a Turkish mama to myself. So I venture northwards, to Finsbury, where round-the-clock Turkish grocers beacon with mouth-watering displays of ripe fruit and fragrant bread and then rows upon rows of roast pepper paste jars, bags of crackly bulgur, packs of salted olives and huge trays of syrupy sweets. Slurp.

A pack of thumbnail-sized ravioli, mantı, costs 1.39 quid. It's enough for three pots of delightfully tangy and zesty soup. I also insist that you invest in a jar of proper Turkish acı biber salçası, spicy pepper paste. Don't let the word spicy confuse you, this is nothing like Thai or Jamaican spiciness, more like Basque piment d'Espellete.

So here's for the recipe:

Slowly roast some crushed garlic in olive oil. Fold in a full spoon of tomato passata and a full spoon of acı biber salçası and fry a couple of minutes more. Add some dry mint and sea salt. Add a litre or so cold water and bring to a gentle boil. Add mantı and a tin of boiled chick peas. Remove from the fire after 5 min and serve with lemon juice and chopped coriander.

Ottomanic fiasco: Bazar @ Amsterdam

aaw, I should have known the moment I entered the place: the dim lights, the exotic crockery, the "world cuisines" menu, and a sure giveaway: packed to the rafters with under-35 Dutch yuppies. The daily dining out lifestyle is making quick in-roads into the Dutch psyche, particularly catching on among the above mentioned demographics. A dinner out does not need a special excuse any more, it is just a matter of convenience as well as enjoyment.

But what is there to be enjoyed remains to be agreed upon. In Amsterdam it seems to be candles and cosy interiors over the food served every time. The dim lighting masques the content of the plates and the designer furniture makes the restaurant a sort of extension of your living room perfect for pursuing the Dutch national ideal of gezelligheid (conviviality in a warm,cosy and preferably dimly lit milieu).

Bazar on Albert Cuypstraat got it all covered: there is just enough light to read the menu, the plates and cutlery are exuberantly picturesque and candles are sticking out of all imaginable places.

Although it claims to be a wereldeethuis - a restaurant of world cuisines, the food is mostly Turkish, on the level of your average dinner in Turkey - never bad enough to be sent back to the kitchen, but always making you long for the moment when you finally got it over with your dinner. Like I wrote earlier, I have had much better Turkish food outside Turkey than in the country itself.
These icecream-like balls are Irfan’s starter (€10.50):

• zaalouk, -the best of the bunch, a kind of cold Moroccan ratatouille;
• humuz - aka hommous, flat as a used condom;
• haydari, aka suzme - plain strained yoghurt without a whiff of herbs;
• sarma - aka dolma, stuffed grape leaves, as forgettable as they always are;
• peynir ezme - a spicy-ish feta-cheese spread that acquires its pungent taste and lively light orange colour from the biber salçası pepper paste - served in one big blob, it just was too rich to have allure;
• sigara böregi - filo pastry stuffed with cheese, a good solid B;
• pide - very underwhelming, considered that the only people that could possible beat Turks to making bread are the French. You can get better in any Turkish bakery in Amsterdam any day, and aren't reataurants supposed to be better and more special than our daily home-made meals?

The attractively served on a huge colourful bowl Bizar Bazar (€29) was a meat platter consisting of a mixed grill kebab, that had apparently never been in the vicinity of either charcoal nor grill, most likely just hot plates:

• very chewy pieces of mutton disguised as lamb, ingenuously spiced up with salt;
• pieces of dry and bland chicken breast,
• pieces of even dryer and blander turkey breast,
• pieces of rather passable spicy chicken sausage
• interspersed with pieces of onions, bell peppers and aubergines

as well as

• lamb stew with almonds (and SALT!) à la Persienne - way too conspicuously cooked well in advance;
• fried chicken, tasting suspiciously like frozen "spicy chicken wings" from your local discount supermarket (I once did go through that traumatic experience!)
• two long and raw green bell peppers;
• a mound of rather nice rice;
• a bowl of semi-retired tabbouleh, chopped parsley with bulgur and tomato bits;
• a bowl of bizarrely tough pickles, think slices of wood,softened by immersing in vinegar;
• and a handful of soft and anaemic French fries.

Big beers were in fact half-pints, the service - friendly, yet very unhurried. We were relieved when the dinner was over and we could go home. Wouldn't any comment be superfluous?

Pro's: Beautiful plates and wall tiles.
Con's: Utterly bland uninspiring food. Snail-speed service.
In a nutshell: Bleh. You won't see us again.

Monday 27th, 2010: Indian lunch, lobster dinner

Indian Lunch:

• Tikka Masala Chicken,
• Madras Chicken,
• Masala Dal,
• Biryani Rice,
• orange juice.

Lobster dinner:

• Turkish chicken and almond soup (Bademli ve Terbiyeli Tavuk Çorbası)
• chestnut mushroom oven-baked with truffle oil and goat cheese,
• salad du jardin with lime-wasabi dressing,
• boiled lobster with dill-butter dip
• watermelon
• 2006 Chardonnay-Vermentinu-Muscat, Vin de Pays de l'Ile de Beaute
• Stowell's Chilean Sauvignon Blanc

e vous remerci pour notre pain quotidien: Monday 27th, 2010.

Anatolian bulgur pilaff with vegetables (sebzeli bulgur pilavı)

never grow tired of Turkish food. I love the sheer variety of a cuisine that has incorporated so many ancient culinary traditions and given them a new lease of life in a very creative way.

Bulgur, cereal of cracked and parboiled wheat, is very popular in Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent. In Syria they make scrumptious kibbeh out of it but in Turkey's Anatolia it is the base for pilaff . It is a very filling yet healthy dish, suitabel for vegetarians.

Here is the recipe:

1. Lightly fry pine nuts, almond and pistachio flakes in clear butter. Scoop them out once golden yellow.
2. In the same butter fry dry bulgur, constantly stirring, until it starts giving out a pleasant nutty flavour.
3. Pour twice as much water as there is bulgur in the pot and put on smallest fire to steam.
   
4. Meamwhile, peel and cut julienne one big carrot. Fry it in a small amount of clear butter until just slightly crunchy.
5. De-stone and roughly chop two handfuls of dates.
6. Once the bulgur is ready (apprx. 25-30 min) - it needs to stay slightly chewy, not too fluffy - add the carrots, dates and nuts, mix well, allow to stay in the covered pot.
7. Finely chop and generous bunch of fresh coriander leaves and mix with the pilaff.
8. Serve hot with a dollop of Turkish natural yoghurt on top of each serving.
   

Turkish chargrilled sardines in grape leaves (asma yaprağinda sardalye)

y first visit to Istanbul was, in hindsight, quite traumatic. Back in 1999 I was a hardcore vegan and the sight of all the Turkish goodies sizzling tantalisingly on charcoals left me scarred for years.

That is why I have put myself through a self-administered culinary therapy. I recreate all the stuff I missed out on then in Turkey, here in London. Kuzu pirzola, grilled lamb chops, is a good example.

When I received the good news that I was accepted to the SOAS postgrad school, I celebrated Russian style, with a barbeque. The difference was that it was alcohol-free and apart from the scrumptious hand-made Colombian sausages I bought at Brixton Market, I also made Turkish sardines wrapped in grape leaves. I nicked the recipe from wonderful Ghillie Başan's mouth-watering Turkish cookbook. As all great things it is quite simple.

1. Make marinade of olive oil, grated lemon rind, juice of the lemon, aceto balsamico bianco, clear honey, one crushed chilli pepper, sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Whisk all ingredients together well. The quantities are not arbitrary. The rule of thumb is that the marinade should come out pleasant to taste, a balanced mix of sweet, spicy and sour.
   
2. Cover gutted and scaled sardines with marinade and let stay for a couple of hours.
3. Wrap the sardine in grape leaves and baste them with the marinade.
4. Grill on white-hot charcoals for a couple of minutes on each side. Do not overcook: when the eyes are white, it is done.
5. I serve sardines with grilled vegetables (tomatoes, bell peppers, aubergines, courgette, onions, garlic) and turmeric rice.
   

Grape leaves for stuffing and wrapping

rapping is a great way of cooking. Russians use cabbage leaves, Thais - pandan leaves, the Chinese - lotus leaves, the Japanese - bamboo leaves, Indians - banana leaves, Mexicans - corn husks. In Laos and Vietnam they stuff food into pieces of bamboo trunk. The whole shebang is about letting the wrapping flavour permeate the rest of the ingredients.

In the Near East, a vaguely defined area spanning from Greece and Romania to Armenia and Syria, grapes leaves (a.k.a. vine leaves) enjoy a wide coinage. Their flavour is not that strong but the pleasantly sourish kick they bring to food is well worth the trouble of wrapping. My parents are lucky to use fresh ones from their garden but I have to buy them jarred. Most of the preserved varieties I see in Europe are imported from Turkey. I buy mine in an Iranian-run shop at Brixton Market. The first dish I cooked in London using grape leaves was charcoal grilled sardines.

Topkapi: kapi - perhaps, top - definitely not

rdering sets can be a hit-or-miss experience. If you luck out, you get to taste the chef's fortes. If you get the short end of the stick, you end up with generic gunk churned out to stuff undiscerning tourists' faces.

I could not figure out what kind of deal I landed with my full set (£23.50) at Topkapi, a Turkish restaurant on High Street Marylebone. It seemed to be the chef's finest because my party, who all ordered à la carte, were working on something similar. On the other hand, I just couldn't work up any excitement over what I had on my plate.

First I had a selection of mezze. Cold: an aubergine salad, chopped pickles, tzatziki, hommous, a cod roe salad and a bean salad. Hot starters (temperature hot, not spicy hot) cam on one plate: half a sausage, a filo pastry, a few shavings of shawarma, a deep-fried calamari ring and a kibbeh. On top of that, Olga kindly gave me a piece of her baked portobello mushroom. A generous but uninspiring collection of little dishes I now had before me. None was downright thumbs-down but they all lacked that delightful fresh herbiness I expect from good Turkish cuisine. All in all, the yoohoo factor of Soviet canned tuna.

My main course was mixed grill. When I was ordering it, the fantabulous Pasha mix in Amsterdam's fine Babylon Alaturka still stood fresh in my mind. Alas, this too didn't live up to expectations. Same shawarma shavings from my starter featured prominently. A strange chunk of unidentifiable meat (I just hope I was not initiated into dog-eating that night!) was chewy and nearly tasteless. It reminded me of overdone ostrich but I dared not to ask. Then there was a small piece of chicken breast, so pink from sauce on the outside that I first took it for salmon. The first bite of the single lamb chop exploded with so much fat that I thought it was a pork chop. "Oh no, it can't be, this is a Turkish place!" The sides consisted of rather lame and greasy fried rice, the classic tomato-cucumber-lettuce mix and a scoop of finely sliced pickled red cabbage (ahem!). To give credit where it is due, the volume was enough to feed a good tired soldier and pieces of grilled bellpepper were scrumptious.

We shared a bottle of red Beaujolais Villages. I was the youngest at the table so I did not protest - the Asian in me is alive and kicking. The vin de merde turned out as horrible as usual, another proof that the Dukes of Burgundy had a very good reason to ban it from their dominions to preserve the reputation of Burgundian wines.

As it always goes, I was still half way with my main when everyone else was already toothpicking. I took my dessert (two pieces of mass-produced baklava from your Turkish corner shop) in a doggie bag. An evening of tea-drinking and conversation at Natasha and Pete's place that ensued redeemed somewhat the shabby meal (£130 for 5).

Pro's: Friendly service. Open fireplace.
Con's: Gives Turkish cuisine a bad name.
In a nutshell: Grade C version of Ottomanic gastronomy.

Topkapi Restaurant, 25 Marylebone High Street London W1U 4PH

Kuzu pirzola: Turkish lamb chops

urkish food is divine. Seven hundred years of imperial rule uniting such diverse regions as Egypt, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Greece, Algeria and the Ukraine have created a refined cuisine on par with world's majors such as Italian, Chinese or French. Rich farmlands, orchards and pastures as well as 7,200 km of coastline bring an amazing variety of fresh produce to the Turkish table.

I remember myself on my first visit to Istanbul back in my vegan years drooling over luscious uskumru dolması (stuffed mackerel). "Oh, but the poor animals!" I had to remind myself time and again. "Poor lambs need protection!" I kept spinning in my head whilst gawking at aromatic kebab skewers sizzling on open fire. It was truly an agony trip and it delivered the first chink in my animal rights activist armour.

Many years later I find myself recreating the missed pleasures of Turkey here in London. Luckily, it is easy. Most butcher shops in Brixton Market are run by Turkish or Middle Eastern people who know a thing or two about good lamb chops, for it is Turkey's very finest kuzu pirzola (lamb chops) that I set my mind on today.

Lamb chops don't need much frills. The outcome is down to the quality of the ingredients. The only thing I do with them is marinating them lightly in a mix of:

• a dash of aceto balsamico
• a generous amount of coarsely ground black pepper
• some sea salt
• a tablespoonful of honey
• one herb: it's dried oregano this time for the sake of authenticity but rosemary (I just got some from Olga's garden), mint or hyssop are also good.
  

The purpose of this marinade is to underscore, not to upstage the natural lamb flavour so it should be used in moderation. Half an hour is about enough for marinating especially if your lamb chops are excellent quality. About 3 minutes of frying on each side should suffice for lamb chops, they should come out à point, that is pink inside.

The side of stir-fried tomatoes and okra is just that: tomatoes and okra quickly stir-fried with olive oil, salt and pepper. This is a champion combination and there is nothing to add to it.

Bulgur is a Turkish cereal. It is available in most ethnic groceries, if you have those in your neck of the woods. The best way to cook it is by frying it first in butter until it is golden brown and then steam it on very low fire in chicken broth with a pinch of salt.

At a birthday party a couple of months ago I saw a Tunisian girl slow-roasting sultanas and pine nuts for couscous. I decided to do the same for my bulgur. I also added some pistachios, dried figs and apricots.

The final touch is chopped coriander. I use handfuls, you can hardly spoil a meal with it.

Turkish sweets (Türk tatlılar)

he other day I was in Shepherd's Bush and happened upon an Afghani grocer. The owners have lived in Moscow in the mid-90s so we had a nice chat in Russian. They had all kinds of amazing stuff among which I recognised a familiar sight.

The translucent ones are chewy and called lokum. The speckled white blob is full of spices and called macun. They all are very sweet and taste great with black coffee.

Russia meets the Steppe: manty

ozy or manty is another dish Russians borrowed from their steppe neighbours. It is enjoyed along a vast swathe of land from Mongolia to Russian Finn-Ugric Northwest.
The legend has it that Genghis Khan's hordes learnt this kind of cooking in China. The name is also said to derive from Chinese mantou (饅頭) even though manty is more like baozi (包子).

As is the case with most dishes from the area, the ingredients are simple and the outcome is well worth the labour-intensive and time-consuming preparation.

1. Mix 3 cups flour, 1/2 water, one egg, a tablespoonful of vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. You may need more water as flour types vary from country to country. Russian flour made from soft wheat requires less water.
   
2. Knead continuously for 30-40 minutes into perfect homogeneity which is essential for the right result. Cover and put in the fridge for at least 40 minutes.
   
3. Mix mince or, even better, finely shredded meat with an equal amount of finely chopped onions (apprx. 6 onions per 1 kg of meat) Originally, fatty chunks of meat were used, very much prized during the harsh winters of the inhospitable Eurasian interior. Modern urbanite life calls for healthier options: I suitably use Tartare mince. The only condiments really needed are salt and pepper, I use best quality: hand-raked Guerdaine sea salt and powerfully fragrant Vietnamese peppercorns.
4. Roll the dough into thin rounds apprx. 12 cm diametre. Wrap 2 tablespoonfuls of mine but leave a tiny hole left at the very top.
   
5. You can buy multi-level manty steamers in Russia but I don't have one. I use a bamboo sieve lined with a banana leave instead, that's my Asian background for you. Steam 40 minutes on a very high fire. This brings out juice from the onions and the beef to produce copious amounts of aromatic bouillon.
6. Manty are eaten with hands. The trick is to bite off the tip and drink the juice lest its splashes out. Be careful: it will be piping hot!
   

Traditionally manty are served with a mixture of melted butter and vinegar (tastes way better than it sounds) but I make a dip of sour cream and horseradish - also very Russian. To make them Turkish, you may add some sumac to the mince and serve with yoghurt and garlic.

Turkish bulgur with pine nuts and Cajun chicken

Bulgur is a cereal popular in the Middle East: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. I lightly fry it in butter first and then steam it in 3 shares of water. Bulgur is a tough cookie and this can take up to 40 minutes. It should come just a wee bit chewy, al dente, and I enhance its natural nutty fragrance with slowly roasted and chopped pine nuts, cashews and pistachios.

This chicken is to die for. Here I mix Chinese, Hungarian and Cajun influences to marinate slivers of skinned breast filet in lemon juice, lemon zest, liquid cane sugar, ground paprika and toasted garlic:

• half a kilo of skinned chicken breast cut into slivers;
• one lemon, zested and squeezed;
• 3 nice glubs of liquid cane sugar;
• a teaspoonful of ground paprica;
• half a head of garlic, peeled, sliced and toasted.
  

The longer chicken soaks the better: overnight in the fridge is the optimum . I griddle-fry for the nice sear marks and serve with the bulgur. Chopped coriander blends in perfectly into this symphony of tastes.

Here is a theme song for this fragrant Turkish meal (warning: this is NOT, under any circumstances, a homoerotic video!):