The Hungry Turk

Pasta Night - Again?

As I started my marathon training about five months ago I never thought that I’d get bored of having to eat pasta at least a few times a week. The prospect of getting to try out different pasta recipes was definitely exciting, especially at a time when I had just started my own food blog. Little did I know!

I did get to try many different recipes but as I was making most of them for the first time, they needed adjustment before they were blog worthy. Don’t get me wrong, they were very tasty, it’s just that they weren’t always, erm, photogenic. And the thought of cooking the same food over and over again for the sake of its photographic quality was not appealing.

And in all honesty, I did get bored of eating pasta every Friday night to load up on carbs before my Saturday morning long runs. At times, I got so uninspired and bored of it that I could no longer bother to come up with a new recipe and resorted to the Turkish national fail-safe sauce: yogurt. I know that it sounds bizarre to mix pasta and yogurt, but believe me with a little drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt, it’s enough to make any plain pasta (or as a matter of fact rice) palatable.

Having said all this, I still have two weeks of training before my marathon in San Francisco and whether I like it or not, I have to gulp down all the pasta I can. As I was pondering how to break the monotony of my Friday nights, a very unexpected source of inspiration came to my help. A good friend of mine and a fan of the now defunct Gourmet Magazine brought to my attention that the publishers (Condé Nast) were issuing a special edition of the famous foodie magazine on quick meal fixes. I bought the magazine without a second thought, and there it was, my personal light at the end of the tunnel: Rigatoni with Marinara Sauce and Ricotta!!

We all know how well tomatoes and pasta go together (especially if you add some garlic and a few basil leaves). I do sometimes find, however, that the tomato sauce can  be slightly too acidic, especially when using canned tomatoes (and I have no intentions of using fresh tomatoes in sauces past August). So adding ricotta cheese to the ensemble sounded like a great idea.

It sure was as delicious as it was simple to make. Now, I just have to keep my inspiration going for two more weeks, after which I can tell “see ya later” to pasta dishes for a little while.

And please, Condé Nast, I promise I will renew my subscription every year and, if necessary, get additional subscriptions for all my extended family. Please bring the Gourmet Magazine back!

Rigatoni with Marinara Sauce and Ricotta (from Gourmet Quick Kitchen Fall 2010 edition)

Serves 4


1 28-oz can of whole tomatoes in juice, chopped and half the juice from the can reserved
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Pinch of hot red-pepper flakes (more to the taste)
5 - 6 fresh basil leaves, torn
1 pack (1lb or 450gr) rigatoni
1 cup ricotta
Grated Pecorino Romano to taste
Olive oil
Salt according to taste

Cook the garlic and red-pepper flakes in about one table spoon of olive oil until garlic starts turning golden. Add the chopped tomatoes and reserved juice and cook until the sauce starts thickening, about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add your pasta and cook until it’s “al dante”. At this point stir the basil leaves into the tomato sauce and in a large bowl mix together the pasta and the sauce. Serve with ricotta cheese and grated Pecorino Romano.

Easy Does It

22.4 kilometers.

Three hours.

Have you ever wondered what 22.4km looks or feels like? Let me explain it to you…

In Montreal, 22.4km is the distance between the corner of Sherbrooke and St-Laurent - where on a Saturday night you will see girls with mind blowing short skirts and boys with outrageously pointy shoes - and Bout-de-l’Île, which is literally the eastern tip of the island of Montreal. Cool people don’t hang out there.

In Istanbul, you’ll have to drive (no fool would walk it, let alone run it), 22.4km to get from Emirgan to Rumeli Feneri.

In Brussels… well, I should really say Belgium, 22.4km is just shy of the distance between Brussels and Leuven. Two separate cities.

If you wanted to avoid paying the taxi ride between Hyde Park and Heathrow Airport in London, you would have to trot about 22.4km to catch the next flight.

I think you get the point.

For me, 22.4km is the longest distance I have ever run. Unfortunately, it will keep its privileged status only until next Saturday, when 25km will take over the gold position.

That’s what I do on Saturday mornings… I go for leisurely jogs.

Spaghetti with Fresh Tomatoes and Zucchini

Food to Live By: The Earthbound Farm Organic Cookbook is the first cookbook I purchased when I moved to Montreal three years ago. The move was a turning point in my life as, in addition to many other things, it was also the first time I was going to live completely on my own. No family, no roommate… just me and the three square foot kitchen. So I had to take things in my own hands and cook for my own survival. This spaghetti recipe is one of my personal favourites. It’s so easy to prepare yet looks so beautiful and tastes so fresh that you can easily fool crowds about how much you laboured over it.

Serves 4

 

2 ripe medium-sized tomatoes, grated

1½ cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half

½ bunch Italian parsley, chopped

Handful of fresh basil, chopped

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Pinch of salt

Pinch of red pepper flakes

Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

1 pack of dried spaghetti (about 500gr/1 pound)

1 garlic clove, minced

2 medium-size zucchini, cut into ¼-inch cubes

 

Place the tomatoes, parsley, basil, olive oil, salt, red pepper flakes and ground black pepper in a medium bowl and let it sit at room temperature until all the flavours mix and develop, at least 30 minutes.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook your spaghetti until al dante. While the pasta is cooking, heat some olive oil on a large pan and add the minced garlic. After one minute, add the zucchini and cook for about 5 minutes, until the zucchini have sweated but still have a bite.

Drain the spaghetti and transfer to a large serving bowl. Add the zucchini and the tomato mixture and toss to combine.

Easy does it!

Easy Pea-sy

With mercury hovering above seasonal averages, all I want to eat are cool light meals. Of course eating a Caesar salad every day is not the healthiest option, though I seem to have developed an addiction for it lately.

A great alternative is to make legume salads. They are low maintenance, usually don’t take too long to prepare and can be served cold. They are also packed with all sorts of nutrients from proteins to fibres.

Here is a very easy chickpea salad recipe for your hot summer day dinner. Enjoy!!!

 

Chickpea salad with tomatoes and feta cheese

Serves 6

 

1 28oz (or two 19oz) canned chickpeas, drained and washed under running water

2 ripe Roma tomatoes, diced

1 shallot, cut in two and sliced lengthwise

1 cup feta cheese, roughly chopped

Handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

Extra virgin olive oil (I use it very abundantly, about 5 tablespoons, adjust it according to your taste)

In a large bowl, mash about a quarter of the chickpeas. Add the lemon juice and olive oil. Add the tomatoes, shallots, mint, feta cheese and the remaining chickpeas. Combine well. Taste and adjust the olive oil and lemon according to your taste. Chill for at least 30 minutes to let the flavours to develop. Transfer to a clean bowl before serving.

Yum yum!!!

PS: I should mention that this is a Jamie Oliver recipe. I saw my mom make it and assumed it was hers. My bad.

Growing Pains: Olive Oil

When I got the idea for this post, I pictured rivers of olive oil running throughout Turkey with nymphs bathing in them. After all, not only everyone I knew in Turkey used olive oil for cooking, but our men, the bravest among all men, rubbed it all over themselves before practicing Turkey’s national sport: oil wrestling. 

After some research, however, I discovered that there were neither nymphs nor mystical rivers.

And I guess I didn’t know that many people in Turkey.

All that I was left with were the manly men drenched in olive oil.

According to the Cambridge World History of Food, the domestic cultivation of olive trees started 5,000 to 6,000 years ago on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean basin. Olives quickly gained a reputation as the most productive source of oil and their cultivation spread throughout the region during the Bronze Age. It is also during this period that the island of Crete became the most important center of olive oil production.

During the Iron Age it was the Estruscans who imported olive oil production techniques into Italy, and the Phoenicians transferred their know-how towards North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. Fast-forward to the Roman Empire, and you could find olive oil in Gaul (France). And thanks to first the Portuguese in the 15^th century and then to the Spanish in the 16^th, olive oil became a global commodity, from India to South America.

What did the Turks do during all this commotion? Zilch!

Now I am going to bore you with some statistics but my economist brain cannot do without them (and besides, they are pretty interesting). According to the latest estimates from the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC), with 5% of world’s olive oil production, Turkey ranks fifth after Syria (Spaniards bring home the trophy with 42% of world’s olive oil production). So Turkey produces olive oil alright.

This is the excruciating part. Turks consume about 3% of world’s olive oil. With Turkey’s relatively large population in mind, this corresponds to a bare 1.2 kg of olive oil per capita. Compare this to the world’s biggest olive oil junkies, the Greeks, who, I don’t know how, “drink” almost 25 kg of the liquid gold per year.

Lamentable!

Considering that Turks are originally from the steppes of Central Asia and that they started settling in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) only at the end of the 11^th century AD, this should not come as a huge surprise. As nomadic peoples, they had to rely on butter and mutton fat for their cooking. This is also why, according to Stephane Yerasimos, olive oil (along with fish) didn’t feature much in the classical Ottoman cuisine.

Influenced by the indigenous Greek and Roman populations, much of Turkey’s present day olive oil tradition is concentrated in the Aegean and Marmara regions (86% of total production). The most renowned type of Turkish olive oil also comes from this region, from the olive groves surrounding the village of Ayvalık. There is some olive oil produced in the Mediterranean region as well, but competition for land from other agricultural products such as citrus fruit and bananas is fierce in this part of Turkey, and the poor olive tree is not given first priority (IOOC report on Turkey).

In western Turkey the group of dishes called zeytinyağlılar constitutes an everyday staple. These are vegetables cooked in olive oil. As they are served cold, they are very refreshing, especially in hot summer days. Also they offer a great alternative to those who have had enough of eating steamed greens. The onions and tomatoes that are at the base of most of these dishes give the good old veggies a more palatable taste. Many vegetables and legumes are cooked in this manner, from fava beans to eggplants. The Hungry Turk aims to feature as many as these dishes as possible. To start off the olive oil saga, here are two dishes that I cook often at home.

 

Zeytinyağlı fasulye (Green beans in olive oil)

Serves 4 as a side (or if you’re my boyfriend serves one as a main dish)

 

500 gr green beans, extremities cut off (In Turkey mostly runner beans are use for this dish, but they are harder to find abroad, especially in North America. If you are using runner beans you should also take off the strings otherwise they will get stuck in your throat).

1 medium size onion, diced

4 ripe tomatoes, diced (Those in North America, use Roma tomatoes. They are meatier and ripen well off the vine.)

1 carrot (optional), diced

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup hot water

Italian parsley, roughly chopped, to decorate

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-based medium pot. Add the diced onions and cook them until they turn yellowish (do not brown them). Add the carrots, if using, and cook for a few minutes. Add tomatoes and green beans. Pour in the hot water and add the salt. Lower heat to medium-low and cook, with the lid closed, until the beans are tender (but not mushy). Turn off the heat and pour your beans in a ceramic or glass serving dish. Wait until they cool off completely and place the dish in the fridge, covered. Chill for an hour or so. Once chilled, drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil on the beans and decorate with parsley.

Zeytinyağlı kabak (Zucchinis in olive oil)

Serves 4 as a side (the above boyfriend note applies here too)

 

2 or 3 zucchinis, peeled zebra-like and cut into round slices (not too thin)

1 medium size onion, halved and sliced thinly lengthwise

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into quarters

4 ripe tomatoes, diced (Those in North America, use Roma tomatoes. They are meatier and ripen well off the vine.)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon sugar

½ cup hot water

Dill, roughly chopped, to decorate

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy-based medium pot. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes (pay attention not to brown them). Add the sliced onions and cook them until they turn yellowish. Add tomatoes and zucchinis. Pour in the hot water and add salt and sugar. Lower heat to medium-low and cook, with the lid closed, until the zucchinis are tender (but not mushy). Turn off the heat and pour your zucchinis in a ceramic or glass serving dish. Wait until they cool off completely and place the dish in the fridge, covered. Chill for an hour or so. Once chilled, drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil on the zucchinis and decorate with dill.

Enjoy!