The Hungry Turk

Long Live Jamie!

I’m sure that I am not the only foodie with an absolute crush on Jamie Oliver. He is an inspiration to many not only because his cooking tastes and looks beautiful, but also because it is so simple to recreate at home. His passion for food is so genuine and contagious that, after reading one of his recipes or watching one of his TV shows, you want to jump into the kitchen even if it is just to crack an egg. And, oh, he also has a wicked British accent (and yes, after a few years living in North America, it sounds like the most exotic thing in the world).

Last week, during a rare occasion when my usually suppressed sweet tooth gene decided to act like an alpha male, I started to crave dessert. My dinner HAD to have a dessert component in it. After flicking through a few cookbooks, I ended up going back to my much-trusted Jamie collection and settled for the “Lovely Lemon Curdy Pud” (from Happy Days with the Naked Chef). Unfortunately the first trial didn’t go too well. The light lemony taste was there but the texture was a miss (too liquid). Determined to get it right, I tried it again during the week with a few measurement adjustments. And bingo! Total satisfaction!

I think this recipe is great for both a casual weekday dinner and guests. It takes about 5 minutes to put together. You can start preparing the batter as your guests arrive, put it in the oven just before you sit at the table and forget about it. You will only have to get up towards the end of your dinner to get the the dish out of the oven and let it cool down just a little bit. Delicious served on its own. 

Lemon pudding à la Jamie Oliver

Serves 6

¼ cup (¼ stick) unsalted butter, softened

⅓ cup sugar (I used organic golden sugar)

Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 large eggs, separated

6½ generous tablespoons plain white flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup and a tiny less milk (about 250ml)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Note: You can use 6½ tablespoons self-rising flour and scrap the baking powder

 

Preheat your over at 400°F (200°C). Butter a ceramic pie dish (or a Pyrex one).

In a small bowl whisk together flour and baking powder. In a separate medium bowl, beat together softened butter, lemon zest and sugar with a handheld mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks on at a time until blended. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the milk, and beating until well combined after each (this avoids unnecessary splatters).

Whisk egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff and fold them gently in batter. Pour batter in your buttered pie dish. Place the dish in a roasting pan about one third full of water and bake for about 45 minutes (this induces even cooking and avoids the pudding from cracking from top).

You can keep the leftovers covered in the fridge for a few days. Re-heat before serving.

Bon appétit!

Go Team!

Until recently, I was not a runner. I did not enjoy it. The few times I went out for a run I came back with the frustration caused by pain and boredom rather than the satisfaction induced by physical exercise.

Then one day everything changed. About this time last year, I received a Team in Training flier in the mail. They were offering to fully train me, the helpless runner, to become a marathoner. In return I was to fundraise for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. This came at a time when I was looking for a personal project and a way to give back to the community. So I decided to give it a chance. I went to an information session, and since then I have been hooked.

I started off slowly. Last September I ran the half marathon in Montreal and fundraised for the Society. Then I continued my involvement with Team in Training as a fundraising mentor for the spring 2010 season, where participants were training for the BMO Vancouver Marathon and the Paris Marathon. In two weeks time I will start my training for the Nike Women’s Marathon which will take place in October in San Francisco.

Yep, the whole thing.

42.2 km.

26.2 miles.

A few hills.

In order to supply my body with the necessary nutrients during the training period I will have to tweak my diet a little. Carbohydrates (a.k.a. pasta), for instance, will be an important component of it. I will make sure to keep you updated on my dietary adventures and supply you with different runner friendly recipes.

In the meantime, here is a Team in Training related savory muffin recipe. Last weekend was the final group training session for those going to Vancouver and a potluck was organised after the long run. I brought these muffins. The corn flour, feta cheese, dill and parsley bring in a nice little Mediterranean twist to the everyday breakfast muffin.

Savory Muffins with Feta Cheese, Parsley and Dill

Makes 12

1 cup plain white flour

2 cups corn flour

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil (this time I used grape seed oil but other vegetable oils will be fine too. If you want a more accentuated taste substitute ¼ cup vegetable oil with olive oil)

2 cups yogurt (could be low fat)

200 gr. feta cheese, crumbled (get the hard type)

½ a bunch parsley, picked and finely chopped

½ a bunch dill, picked and finely chopped

1 tablespoon sweet paprika (more according to taste)

2 tablespoons ground dried tomatoes (more according to taste - see note at the end)

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Unless you are using paper cases, grease your muffin tins very lightly with vegetable oil.

Whisk the white flour, corn flour, baking powder, paprika and ground dried tomatoes in a medium size bowl. In a large bowl, beat the eggs by hand, and blend in the oil and yogurt. Mix until well combined.

Slowly add the flour mixture into the eggs. It’s pretty easy to this by hand. The batter is supposed to be slightly less liquid than a normal muffin batter. If you think your batter is too dry, add in more yogurt. Add in the feta, dill and parsley. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda. Wait until it fizzes out and add it to the batter. Mix until everything is well combined, but try not to overmix the batter, otherwise your muffins will come out too hard.

Spoon out the batter in the muffin tins, filling them almost to the rim. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. They are ready when a wooden tooth pick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

Voila!!!

Note: I am not a big fan of dried tomatoes, especially the kind sold in oil. I find that they have too strong of a taste that overwhelms everything else in a dish. But last year my aunt gave me a bag of dried ground tomatoes that she had purchased from a farmers market in Anamur on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, where my maternal grandmother is from. They are a nice addition to any Mediterranean inspired dish. You can recreate them at home simply by grounding roughly dried tomatoes (not the ones sold in oil) in your food processor.

It's Complicated

I love food; there is no doubt about it. And the Turkish cuisine is my temple, the guiding principle to everything I cook. But when it comes to talk about it with non-Turkish people I get all baffled. The question “what’s Turkish cuisine like?” causes short circuit after short circuit in my delicate brain.

There is a Turkish word, however, that sums it all up: “keyif”. Zargan translates it into “pleasure of life”. If you were to visualize it, imagine sitting on a sunny patio in a mid-June afternoon. You’re sipping on a light beer, having home-style potato chips and catching up with your best buddy. That’s keyif, and that’s what the Turkish cuisine tries to recreate over and over again.

Turkey is divided into seven regions (Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia) and there are in total 81 cities. Needless to say, the cuisine varies from region to region, from city to city and well, really from household to household.

In my family a typical dinner table consists of a protein (mostly red meat cooked together with vegetables), a starch (usually rice), one or two vegetarian dishes (either vegetables or legumes cooked in olive oil), a green salad and bread, loads of it! Dessert can consist of a variety of things but fruits are almost always there, not cooked in any way, just as fruits (here grandmothers come in handy in the peeling process).

And that’s just my family. Go to eastern Turkey and meat will weigh more heavily on the table (the famous kebabs; kebabs in an accentuated plural). In the Aegean region, anything that contains olive oil is king. If you decide to visit a “meyhane” in Istanbul (the ultimate Turkish drinking and eating experience: good luck to anyone who tries to remember their name for the rest of the night), you will not only encounter a variety of “mezes” but also all sorts of red meat, fish and the most sought after delicacies: brain, kidney, liver etc. prepared in a variety of ways.

The Turkish palate goes beyond what the West knows as “döner kebab”. It is a pity that a blandly cooked piece of meat served with all sorts of absurd sauces (Hawaiian?!?) should symbolise the historically and geographically rich eating culture of a country of over 70 million  inhabitants. In order to shed more light on the complexities of the Turkish cuisine, the Hungry Turk will have dedicated posts on types of dishes, regional specialties and family traditions.

In the meantime, practice on your “keyif” and take advantage of the beautiful spring weather.

The Essence of It All

I am where it all started. Here my palate doesn't need nouvelle cuisine or molecular extravaganza to be satisfied. Here tastes explode without warning at every street corner and I worry, I really do, that I won't have time to experience it all...

Here is Istanbul and I am the Hungry Turk.