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Cowpea Beans With Tomatoes

Have I told you before that I’m a teacher? After a long summer holiday, the school finally started yesterday. Although this is my sixth year in this job, I still get as excited as students. I couldn’t sleep well the night beforet as I had series of dreams about my new students. I got up very early, took a shower and had a quick breakfast. I was so curious about my students, so I coulnd’t help thinking continually about them. Would they be passionate enough to learn? Would they be too silent, expecting me to talk the whole class hour? What would they think about me? All these questions were attacking my mind. Although the class started at 9:30, I went to school an hour ago to get motivated and overcome my excitement. Believe or not, I couldn’t get rid of this feeling until I entered the classroom. It was like a feeling of an actress or a singer just before they go on the stage! When you take the first step on the stage (classroom in my case), all questions and negative thoughts go away leaving their place to a wonderful feeling of enjoyment! I understood that I missed those curious looks from a crowd of students. Happily, we had great time and enjoyed the lesson together on this first day. Hope it goes on in the same way until the end of the term.

After school I went to bazaar (farmer’s market) and bought some fresh vegetables from there. It was so crowded as we’re close to winter and we know that in winter it’s hard to see vegetables as fresh and delicious as the ones in Summer and Fall. People were buying more than they usually do. Because of the crowd, I didn’t have much chance to compare the prices. In fact, I got so happy when I saw one of my favorite summer vegetables there that I wanted to do the shopping quickly to go home and cook this tasty ‘green bean like’ vegetable for dinner. I knew that this was the last time to see it at the market before winter. As I wanted to share it with you, I couldn’t pass up this chance!

It is called ‘borulce’ in Turkish. When I look up to dictionary, it says ‘cowpea beans’ for its English meaning. I’m not sure if it’s grown in any other countries. However, when I made a quick search, I saw that there are dishes around the world with its dried version, called black-eyed pea (a very cute name!). We also make dishes from it in Winter, but as we have the chance of buying it fresh in Summer, we use it in different ways. Borulce is a common vegetable of Aegean and Mediterranean regions of Turkey. People in other regions generally learn it from their friends or relatives in these two regions. I’m originally from The South of Turkey (Mediterranean region), but now I’m living in Central Anatolia, where people are not familiar with this tasty vegetable. They may think that it has the same flavor with usual green beans, but they are totally different. Although it’s a member of bean family, it has a more outstanding flavor. Unlike green beans, borulce is thin and has a cylinder shape with and acidulous flavor, which makes it an appealing savory food accompanying Turkish raki. I must also say that although people may add meat in a dish of green beans, it’s never put in a cowpea bean dish.

There are several ways to cook it, but I wanted to share the most common way in Mediterranean region. Agean region has some different versions and I’m going to tell about them in its next season.

Domatesli Borulce

Ingredients
-    1/2kg  cowpea beans
-    4 medium sized tomatoes, diced
-    1 onion, diced
-    3 tbsp olive oil
-    Salt to taste

Clean and wash the cowpea beans. Chop them as small as a half finger. If there are any tough ones, use just their seeds. You see those seeds in my dish in the picture.

Saute the onion in a pot. Add the cowpea beans and stir. Cook it until the beans change their color, about 5 minutes. Then add tomatoes and salt. Stir it once and cover it. Cook it on medium heat for about 30 minutes until the beans get soft enough.

Serve it either warm as the main dish or cold as a savory food.

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Imambayildi

This beautiful vegetable with purple dress is one of my favorite, and of all Turkish people, so we have many different dishes made from it in our cuisine. I always think that eggplant (patlican in Turkish) is like a woman ready for a party with her showy clothes, looking so charming. In Turkish we even use eggplant to define the color purple, we call that color ‘eggplant purple’. We generally see these beauties during summer and fall at bazaar. They have mainly two kinds in Turkey. One of them is short in height and plump, like a pear in shape, but fatter than it, which we call “bostan patlicanı” (garden eggplant) in Turkish. And the other, which I used for this dish, is in average size, like a zucchini and we call it “kemer patlican”. I don’t know if these two kinds have special names in English. If you know, I’d be so glad to hear.

It’s always good to know what eggplant dish you will cook before buying as it depends on the dish to buy either pear shaped or zucchini shaped eggplant. For example, if you’re planning to stuff them, pear shaped eggplants are perfect. It is easier to carve and stuff these as they have a shorter body. However, if you want to make eggplant kebab,then you must prefer zucchini shaped eggplants. The body of these are better to be cut in circles. You know the size of these circles must be almost the same with meatballs. As you see in pictures here, we also buy zucchini shaped eggplants to make imambayildi. Why? Because traditionally this dish must be in a boat shape.

As for the name of this traditional Turkish dish, I didn’t translate it into English as it may sound nonsense. The pure translation is this: The Imam Fainted. Funny, isn’t it? I love not only the dish itself, but also its name. There are several versions of the story of this name. But I want to share the most common and the shortest one. Here it goes!

Once upon a time, there was an imam in a country. He picked some eggplants from his garden on a hot and muggy summer day and took them home. He asked her wife to cook a tasty dish with these eggplants. His wife wanted to make a different dish and she first fried the eggplants, cooked tomatoes, peppers etc in another pot and combined them in a boat shape, then cooked it in oven. However, she put too much oil to the dish. The imam couldn’t refuse to eat it, but fainted at the end of his meal with the effect of hot weather and too much oil. His wife screamed “the imam fainted!” (imam bayildi). Since then, this dish has been called imambayildi (two words combined).

In another version, it is said that the imam fainted even before eating, when he saw the amount of the oil in the dish as oil was so expensive those times.

I don’t love frying something in a pan as I have to clean all the kitchen afterwards, I prefer doing this process in oven. How? It’s in the recipe.

If you get curious enough about imambayildi, let me stop telling stories and give its recipe:

Ingredients (servings :4)
-    4 medium sized eggplants (zucchini shaped)
-    1 medium onion, diced
-    2 green peppers, chopped
-    3 medium sized tomatoes, peeled and diced
-    3 cloves garlic, minced
-    2 tbsp minced fresh mint
-    2 tbsp minced parsley
-    Olive oil
-    Salt to taste
-    2 sugar cubes
-    ¼ cup water
Wash the eggplants. Peel them lengthwise, leaving strips. Cut the green parts around the stems, but leave the stems.

Wait the eggplants for about 15min. in a bowl of salted water to remove their bitterness. Then squeeze them gently and dry with paper towel. To let the heat enter their inside, pierce them on their several parts with a fork.

Preheat the oven to 200C.
Oil a small oven tray and lay the eggplants in it. Then pour 1 ½ tbsp olive oil on each. Put it in oven and cook until they get tender enough (about 30 minutes). You can check it with a small knife.

Meanwhile, we can prepare the filling. Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a pot and saute the onion. Add peppers and saute. Add tomatoes and garlic, cook it about 5 minutes. Put 2 sugar cubes and enough salt in it. Add fresh mint and parsley, stir a few times and take it from fire.

Take the eggplants out from oven. Cut their stomachs so gently, not too deep. Grab a dessert spoon and give it a boat shape by moving their sides gently aside.

Now put the filling mixture evenly into their opened stomach. Drizzle little olive oil on each eggplant. And pour ¼ cup water in the tray. Cook it in oven at 180C for 40 minutes.

This is a kind of traditional Turkish olive oil dishes that may be served warm or cold either as a main dish or as a side dish. Personally, I love to eat it dipping some bread into its ‘stomach’ and a cup of yogurt goes very well with it.

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Celery Root Salad

Kereviz Salatası

One of my favorite vegetable is celery; I love both its root and stalk and use them in various ways. I know most people hate the smell of celery root or stalk while it’s cooking, but that’s what I love. That scent definitely makes me hungry. I generally use its stalk in some soups, and put its roots in some olive oil dishes or stews. This celery root salad is new to me, I learnt it yesterday and I couldn’t wait more for sharing it with you.

One of our relatives moved to their new house a few weeks ago. There is a lovely tradition here: If someone close to you (in terms of relationship, not distance) moves to a new house, you visit them with a gift for their new house. But you shouldn’t do this by the time they move as it takes some time to establish themselves in their house. Finally we called yesterday  and told that we wanted to visit them if it was ok for them, too. The lady of the house is so good at cooking that she always prepares amazing dishes whenever we visit them. So yesterday we knew that a fabulous dinner table would be waiting for us. We thought that the best gift for this couple would be a bottle of Turkish Efe raki as they both love it. When we were in the market to buy raki, I saw a pair of lovely wooden candlesticks just before we left. Of course we bought them as well.

It was a wonderful dinner and night together with them as usual. They were so kind to serve the raki we brought and to put the candlesticks on the table with lighting candles in them. In Turkish culture, if guests bring something to the house as a gift, they expect the houseowners to serve (if it’s a food or beverage) or use (if it’s an object) it in front of them. This is a sign of how valuable the guests are.

We ate all the dishes with a great appetite, but one of them was new to me and I still can’t forget its taste in my mouth. They were so generous to share the recipe, so I’d like to thank to them here. I made this tasty appetizer for dinner today to serve with a kind of meat stew. All of it was gone in just a few seconds.

Ingredients
-    1 celery root
-    3 tbsp mayonnaise
-    A handful of walnut, crumbled
-    ½ cup (greek) strained yogurt
-    3 cloves garlic, mashed
-    1tsp salt
-    Basil leaves for garnishing

In a large bowl, dilute the strained yogurt with little water. Add mashed garlic and mayonnaise, mix them well.

Grate the celery root in another bowl and then add it to yogurt. Do not wait the grated celery root long before mixing it with yogurt as it quickly starts to blacken.

Now toss the crumbled walnut, sprinke salt and stir. Place leaves of basil and some walnut pieces on the top before serving. This is a wonderful savory food to serve with raki.

Eurovision Song Contest

Celery and Turnip were so excited as this was their first concert before international spectators. Guess what? They were also in Moscow for Eurovision song contest. No, they weren’t contestants there, they were invited as honorary singers. All vegetables and fruits felt so proud of their friends when they saw them on the stage. When they saw the crowd clapping hands and accompanying their song, they decided to participate the next contest. They enjoyed all songs in the competition and they would like to congratulate Norwegians for being the winners. (drawing by mom)

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Purslane with Yogurt

Yogurtlu Semizotu

This is one of my favorite savory foods served in almost every drinking house with Turkish raki. I know I’ve mentioned this drink several times. I’m just waiting for the right time to write about it. That “right time” means when we meet friends and drink raki together. But I promise I’ll do it soon. There must be several savory foods/appetizers on table while drinking raki and this one is one of the most commons. In fact, anything with yogurt goes perfect with raki. However, we often make this food as an appetizer near our lunch or dinner as soon as purslane starts to be shown on stands at open markets. And in Turkey, we’re having just the season of this herb these days. So we don’t want to miss any chance of making something from it. I remember that I wrote about a green salad of purslane a few weeks ago, and this will be the second dish of purslane I’m going to write. Maybe I should create a new category for purslane here as I’m planning to add several dishes from it. As you understand I adore it and I wish I could grow it myself in a pot in my balcony or I wish I had a herb garden. For those who haven’t met purslane yet, I must say that it’s a bit savory, especially its stems, which we’ll not use its stems in this savory dish. But if you want to try the stems, you should use them in any kinds of soup, and you’ll see how it enhances your soup.

We had black beans for dinner yesterday and purslane with yogurt was our appetizer near it. It’s a part of our culture to have something with the main dish; either a kind of salad or a kind of savory dishes like this one. And here is the easy recipe.

Ingredients
-    A bunch of purslane
-    3 cloves garlic
-    1 cup plain yogurt
-    1 tsp salt
-    1 tbsp olive oil
-    1 tsp red pepper flakes

Wash the purslane well, and pick just its leaves and put them in a bowl.

Mash garlic in a bowl, add salt and mix them with yogurt. Put the purslane leaves and mix again. Then take this mixture on a plate, drizzle olive oil on it. Finally sprinkle red pepper flakes right on olive oil and serve. If you like, you can garnish the plate with a few leaves of dill. This dish is definitely an appetizer as you want to eat more main dish when you eat it. That is, it triggers you to eat anything with it.

From Spinach To Purslane

Mrs Spinach is a successful businesswoman and she always does right things at right times. As winter is leaving little by little, she knows that it’s time for her to leave, too. As she is sure that people are always in search for herbs and greens at open markets, she decides to call her best friend, Mrs Purslane as the substitute. She is the only one to run the herb company as successfully as Mrs. Spinach. As she believes in the emotion of sending snail mail, she is writing a letter to Mrs. Purslane now. Hope she’ll come soon. (drawing by mom)

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Albanian Liver

Arnavut Cigeri

We decided to have raki for dinner tonight and one of our favorite appetizers (savory foods) to eat with raki is Albanian liver. It certainly goes perfect with raki. We used to buy it prepared until today. I don’t know why we didn’t try to make it at home before.
How did I decide to try it at home? I came accross with this so appetizing dish in three different restaurants in this week when we went those places during lunch break with friends. The one who ordered it wasn’t me, but some friends. As I had got the flu, I prefered some healing soups. (I’m still trying to recover with some herbal tea and honey mixture, the worst is the headache!) And while watching them eating Albanian liver, I thought that I should share this incredible taste with you. And as usual, I asked its recipe to the chef of one of those restaurants. And we made it to have with our raki for dinner today.

According to the chef, the most important point of this appetizer is the freshness of liver. As it is difficult to find fresh meat in supermarkets, he sugessted buying liver from a butcher.

Besides being an appetizer for raki, it can also be eaten as a main dish with rice pilaf near it. It is served with fried cube potatoes in some restaurants while fried onions accompany in others. But in both cases, there should be a salad or piyaz near it. If you prefer eating it with your raki, then optionally you can pour little yogurt on it.

Ingredients
-    500g veal or lamb liver
-    ½ cup flour
-    1 tsp salt
-    2 tsp red pepper flakes
-    1 cup vegetable oil
-    1 onion

Peel the membrane of the liver and remove the nerves from it. Then dice it. If your butcher does it for you, then skip this part.

Put he flour in a bowl and toss the diced liver pieces in this flour, they should be coated well with flour. Sprinkle salt and mix again.

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the liver pieces for 2 minutes, not more.While frying, turn over continually. If you overcook, it will be too dry and hard to eat. Another important point to make it is that you should fry just a handful of liver pieces together. You shouldn’t try to fry all of them at once. The outer of them should be crispy and the inside should be soft. When they are fried, take them with a colander on a plate.

Slice the onion in rings and after all liver pieces are cooked, fry these onion rings in the same frying oil and put them near the liver as a kind of garnishing.

Take 2 tbsp of that frying oil in a small pan and fry the red pepper flakes. Then pour it on the liver.

Finally, you can garnish it with any kind of greens like dill, parsley, scallion, garden cress, etc.

I know it doesn’t sound so healthy, but I think we can give this reward once or twice a month.

Hospitable Turkish People

Turkish people are famous with their hospitality. When they have a guest for dinner, they try to serve various dishes and expect their guests to eat all they have on their plates. Finishing what you have on your table means you are satisfied with the dishes and if you ask for more, it’s even better. This makes the hostess happier, she takes it as a compliment.

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Leek With Olive Oil

Zeytinyagli Pirasa

Leek is one of the vegetables that many children hate eating. In Turkey, moms struggle a lot to have their children eat it. There becomes an invisible fight between moms and children and the winner of the fight depends on moms’ different kinds of methods. Some moms threaten them to tell their father that they don’t eat leek. Some remind their children of poor people who can not find any food. Some make leeks talk to their children, leeks say that they feel so sorry when they are refused and they ask crying why children don’t love them. You decide which method is more effective.

You may ask the method of my mom. I think she was luckier as we had some vegetables in our garden including leeks and she used to take me with her to pick some leeks. She used to love the vegetables she grew with dad so much that she used to pick all vegetables by flattering and talking to them. As a child I thought that these vegetables were like members of our family, so never refused eating it. And I understood how delicious it is when I grew older, it’s one of my favorite dishes now. Most children feels the same when they grow, but of course there may be some stubborn ones.

Olive oil is the key point of this dish. If you have the chance of finding natural olive oil, it becomes more tasty. It is served  cold or warm (but not hot) as a main dish or a side dish/appetizer.

Ingredients
-4 leeks
-1 carrot
-1 lemon, squeezed
-1tsp salt
-1tsp sugar (or one cube sugar)
-1/4 cup rice, washed
-1/4 cup water
-1/3 cup olive oil

Some people also add onion, but as leek itself is coming from onion family, I think making it without onion is better.

Cut the tops of the leek and wash them well. Cut them into diagonal slices. Set them aside.

Peel the carrot and cut it vertically into four pieces, then slice them as big as a half finger.

Put half of the olive oil in a pot and saute the carrot slices first. Add sugar and then the leeks. Stir them well and add the lemon juice and cover the pan. Cook it over medium heat for 15 minutes and then add rice, water and salt in it. Bring the heat to the lowest and cook it until the rice cooks. After it is cooked, let it cool in the pan. And finally drizzle the rest of the olive oil on it before serving. This is another important tip; when you add some raw olive oil before serving, all the dishes with olive oil tastes even better.

Mom And Child Leeks

The child leek comes home with a big disappointment and tells her mom that she doesn’t want to go out any more. It is her first day at school and she’s learnt that children don’t like leeks. It is a shocking reality for her as she’s always dreamed of meeting some human friends and presenting its taste to them.

When the mom leek sees her daughter at the garden gate with a down face, she decides to ask some help from her. She wants her daughter to forget her sadness for a while. While they are hanging the washed clothes together, she tells her daughter that all children will love them if they are cooked right. (drawing by mom)

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Lentil Balls

This special appetizer is another popular dish among Turkish women. Just like Kisir, it is an  indispensable taste of their gatherings in the afternoon. Of course it doesn’t mean that men doesn’t love lentil balls. Thay also love it as a snack. But maybe because generally women meet at a friend’s house in the afternoons, and make it together, lentil balls are more popular among them.

As Kisir and Lentil Balls are both made of bulgur (pounded wheat), they are alternatives for each other. And it is both a tradition and a must to serve tea with or after them. Bulgur easily makes you full and if you can not dominate your appetite and eat much, you may feel bad, have some trouble with your stomach. In this case, tea is your life saver. It definitely relaxes your stomach.

Unlike Kisir, lentil balls have lentils in its ingredients besides bulgur. You’ll taste the perfect combination of bulgur and red lentil with these lentil balls. There are two types of bulgur; small grain and big grain. Bulgur with big grain is for pilaf. We need bulgur with small grain here just like kisir.

Ingredients (servings: 4)
•    1 cup red lentil
•    2 cups bulgur
•    3 cups water
•    3 tsp salt
•    3 tsp cumin
•    1 tsp red pepper flaes
•    1 tbsp tomato or red pepper paste
•    1 tea cup olive oil
•    1 big onion, diced
•    3 scallions, chopped thin
•    Half bunch of parsley, minced
•    Lettuce and lemon for serving

Clean the lentil, wash it and drain. Pour 3 cups water in a pot, add 1 tsp salt and the lentil in it. Boil it over medium heat until  tender (about 20 or 30 minutes). Lentils should be easily mashed after boiled. Take the pot from fire.

Add 2 cups bulgur into the same pot, while it is still hot. Combine it with bulgur and put the lid on. Wait it for 15 minutes until bulgur absorbs all the water in the pot. Then transfer this mixture in a large tray.

Saute the finely chopped onion in olive oil until golden brown. Add pepper paste, 3 tsp cumin and red pepper flakes into it. Saute it for a few minutes more.

Pour the sauted onion into the lentil – bulgur mixture. Add 2 tsp salt and start to knead it. They should be combined very well. But be careful, if it’s too hot to knead with hands, just start mixing it with a spoon and then when it reaches the heat enough to touch, knead it with hands for about ten minutes. Then add finely chopped scallion and parsley into it, knead it just to combine these greens into it, do not work on it much.

To serve it, take a piece from the mixture and shape it in your palm (one hand is enough) in two or three movements. You’ll see a nice shape with your finger marks on them. Put some leaves of fresh lettuce and place these lentil balls on it. Serve it with lemon slices.

Note: There is a special style of eating these balls. Put one of it in a lettuce leaf, squeeze lemon on it and roll. Now you can have a bite and want more.

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