The Hungry Turk

Ode to Eggplant

Oh Eggplant Eggplant,

Your purple makes me chant.

But why are you so bitter?

Don’t you like my descant?

 

You know I’ve always loved you,

Like a panda chewing bamboo,

So where is all that bitterness coming from?

Did I forget the corkscrew?

 

Is it because I ate all that sauerkraut?

If that’s so please don’t freak out,

Because I will have to lay you down in salt

To make all that bitter dark juice flow out.

 

Isn’t great, isn’t grand?

Don’t you just feel like in a dreamland?

Oh I love you Eggplant,

Even when you are so bland!

Eggplant Salad

Serves 4 to 6 as a side dish

 

4 medium size eggplants

2 large pieces of canned roasted red peppers, rinsed and diced

1 Roma tomato, deseeded and diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

Juice of 1 lemon

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup Italian parsley, chopped

Poke a few wholes in the eggplants and roast them at 425°F (220°C) in the oven for about 40 minutes, until they collapse. If you can do this on a grill with real fire, it’s even better. Peel the skins off and puree them roughly with the help of a knife. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well to combine. Serve chilled.

Note: If you have fresh red peppers available where you live roast/grill them as well. Unfortunately for me, the fresh ones are very hard to find in Montreal. That’s why I use the ones that come in jars.

Quino... What?

Quinoa.

Huh?

Ki-noh-ah

Come again?

…

That was pretty much my reaction the first time I heard about quinoa about three years ago. Native to the Andean region in South America, quinoa started showing up on the shelves of healthy food stores only a few years ago. And it’s healthy, alright. This tiny winy seed is one of the rare plant-based sources of complete protein, it is gluten free and it is loaded with fibres, magnesium and phosphorus. Despite, its grainy looks, quinoa is indeed a seed and belongs to the same family as the good old spinach and beet. During the period of the colonisation of South America, the Spanish favoured the cultivation of maize and potatoes over quinoa (due mostly to the seed’s spiritual stature among the natives and its bitter taste coming from the saponin coating) and that’s why quinoa didn’t make its world premier sooner.

I discovered quinoa right at the time when I was starting to get tired of my inability to cook rice. Now, don’t get me wrong. I know how to boil rice. But for some reason I haven’t quite mastered the art of cooking rice the Turkish way. And to be honest I’d rather not eat rice if it comes down to eating boiled rice. But more on that in a later post.

Back to quinoa.

It’s pretty fuss free to cook quinoa. The only important part is to rinse it well before cooking it to get rid of that bitter-tasting saponin coating (I invite you to Wikipedia what saponin is because my understanding of bio-chemistry is not quite up to the challenge of explaining it here). Then all you need to do is to boil it for about 20 minutes, or until the little seeds start opening up. If you want to be more fancy, you can first boil it for 10 minutes, rinse it under cold water and then steam it for another 10 minutes. This two-part method makes quinoa very fluffy.

I personally like quinoa served along with a stew or in a salad. Also, I tend to purchase both red and white quinoa and mix them together at home for a colourful combination. Here is a bon appétit recipe I made using black quinoa, which, because of its coarser texture, added a nice crunch to this summer salad!

Quinoa, Chickpea and Spinach salad

Serves 6 to 8 as a main dish

 

1½ black quinoa, rinsed (feel free to use any other type of quinoa if you can’t find the black one)

4 cups baby spinach leaves

1 19 oz (540ml) can of chickpeas, rinsed (those cans are packed with a lot of salt that you really don’t need)

1¾ cups English cucumber (the long ones) or 2 small cucumbers, cut into small cubes

1 1-pint container of cherry tomatoes, halved

1 cup fresh mint leaves, torn

1½ cup feta cheese, crumbled

¼ cup sherry vinegar

3 teaspoons smoked paprika

½ olive oil

Place the quinoa in a large pot of salted boiling water and cook for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes drain it in a sieve and rinse under cold running water. In the same pot, bring a few inches of water to a boil. Set the sieve with quinoa over the pot and covered it with a kitchen towel (or paper towel) and a lid. Steam quinoa until fluffy and dry (about 10 to 15 minutes). Transfer to into a bowl and let cool down.

In the mean time place the spinach, chickpeas, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, fresh mint and half of the feta cheese in a large bowl. In a separate small bowl combine the paprika, sherry vinegar and olive oil. Add the cooled down quinoa into the spinach mixture and pour the vinaigrette over. Mix until well combined (the salad should have a red hue). Place the remaining feta cheese on top and serve.

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!