Gullac Ramadan 3

In Turkish culture, there are some certain dishes which are made on special days or occasions. Sesame Rings, which I wrote on before,  are one of them. And today I want to share another special dish made just in Ramadan month. This is a simple, but tasty dessert called gullac (güllaç in Turkish letters). I don’t want to translate it into English as it might be nonsense. And I didn’t  rename it in English as I couldn’t find what I could call it. If you have any suggestions seeing the photos or reading this post, I’d be so glad to hear. In Turkish gül means rose and aş means food; gullac  is the abbreviation of güllü aş, which means food with rose. Noone calls it güllü aş today, gullac is easier to pronounce, so it is the modern name of this yummy dessert. So what is the relation of rose with this dessert? Actually, it’s not the rose, but rose water which has that relationship. Rose water used to be the main flavor in this dessert in Ottoman culture because of its refreshing effect. However, today, it depends on your taste to add rose water or not. Some people use it, some don’t. Personally, I don’t love its flavor in gullac much, so I prefer not using it. But it doesn’t mean it tastes bad, it gives a quite refreshing flavor to the dessert.

Another Ottoman tradition about gullac is that it’s always decorated with pomegranate and I love to see these cute red beads on the white surface of this dessert. I think they complete each other and address to our eyes first. And I love to add a third wonderful ingredient for garnish. Pistachios! When you have these three at the same time, the pleasure you feel doubles.

You can see gullac at patisseries and at markets just in Ramadan. Just like dates,in Turkey it is special for Ramadan. This simple and easy dessert is made from gullac sheets. You may think that they are similar to phyllo sheets, but these are totally different. Gullac sheets are so white, thin and crispy. Today, people don’t make these sheets themselves as it requires special talents. These are sold in packages at the markets. And there are about 15 sheets in a package. As far as I know, there are two big companies producing and selling gullac to markets, Saffetabdullah Gullaclari and Istanbul Gullac.

Gullac sheets are simply made of corn starch, wheat flour and water. In the early times of Ottoman Empire, people used to make sheets from corn starch, flour and water and they could keep these for months. As these sheets  are dried and got crispy, people used to soften them with milk and sugar. I guess it wasn’t a kind of dessert those times, but people used to have it as a main dish.  The best part of it for those peple was its simple ingredients. And keeping the dried sheets for long might be the second reason for people to love it. Then as the empire got richer, it turned out to be a dessert special for the palace and it became sultans’ favorite. And today, when you tend to buy the dessert (not the sheets) from a patisseire, you will see that it’s not that cheap. It has that fame as the palace dessert thanks to sultans, it deserves to be expensive, doesn’t it? Business people always know their job!

You can find how gullac sheets are prepared here. As you’ll read here, these sheets are completely natural, they don’t have any additives. Moreover, it is a very light dessert. These are just two of the reasons why people prefer gullac to end their iftar meal with something sweet. You know, in Ramadan, muslims don’t eat or drink anything from sunrise till sunset, so their body needs more sugar than usual because of hunger. Besides meeting people’s sugar need, gullac also strengthen their bodies with vitamins B and E it contains.

Gullac

Ingredients
-    10 gullac sheets
-    1 ½ kg milk
-    350g sugar
-    A cup of crumbled walnut
-    Pistachio and pomegranate for garnish

Put milk and sugar (and 1 tbsp rosewater if you like) in a pot and heat it until the sugar melts. Stir it occasionally. It shouldn’t be too hot to touch, so let it cool a little. When it gets warm enough, we can start to make our dessert. If you use it hot, your dessert gets mushy.

Lay a gullac sheet on an average size tray. Wet it with the warm milk. Repeat this with five sheets. After the fifth one, spread the crumbled walnut on it. Then lay the rest five sheets one by one and wet each of them with milk. When you finish with the tenth one, pour the rest of the milk on it. They don’t need to be very good in shape while arranging them in the tray. They will combine when they get wet with milk. After pouring the milk, you will see the sheets are rising, do not touch them. Cover it with stretch film and put it in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

I always leave the garnishing part to the serving time, otherwise pomegranates and pistachio may change the color of gullac. After taking it from refrigerator, cut it in squares or rectangles, garnish and serve.

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Three Layered Pudding

Üç Katlı Puding

Walnut is one of the ingredients I love and use most. I put it in several dishes as I adore its flavor. I sometimes add it in cake with carrot, I sometimes mix it with yogurt to make a savory food like celery root salad, I use it in most of the desserts like semolina halvah, or fig dessert. And this time I used it in this so easy dairy dessert. As you understand walnut is one of the main ingredients in my pantry. This may be beacuse I was taught in my childhood that walnut was a very valuable food.

We used to live in a village when I was a child because of my dad’s job. I was one of those lucky children as I had the chance of eating everything natural. As children of the village, we enjoyed a lot. When we visited some elderlies together, they would give us some walnuts either fresh or dried, but both with shells. There weren’t any markets or shops in villages those times (there still aren’t any of these in several villages of Turkey), so people didn’t have candies or chocolate bars to please children. They would use walnuts instead. As soon as we were given some walnuts, we would kiss their hands, put them in our pockets and went out. Fresh walnuts were our favorite because it was so enjoyable to carve its inside out with a knife and eat that white young and tender part. This wasn’t something easy, but we would love to work on it although this turned our hands into a dark brown color. When they gave dried walnuts, we would break them with the help of a stone in the yard and eat together.

Walnut is so precious for people in villages as it is a source of their incomes. They pick walnuts with a special method. There must be at least three people to pick them. The strrongest of them climb the tree. The rest hold a large piece of cloth just under the tree. The one on the tree shake boughs of it one by one to drop the walnuts on the cloth which the others are holding under tree. Then they dry these walnuts under sun and then sell them to bazaar owners or markets in cities. That’s why it has a great importance and we would be so happy whenever we had them in our pockets.

Therefore, I have had a love for walnut since my childhood and that’s why I use it in my dishes in several ways.

I made this pudding to welcome my parents who visited us two days ago. Originally, the bottom layer is crumbled biscuits, but as I know that my parents have the same love for walnut, I used crumbled walnuts instead.

Ingredients (servings: 6)
-    4 tbsp rice flour
-    1lt milk (5 ½ cups)
-    1 tbsp vanilla
-    1 ½ cup sugar
-    ½ tsp butter
-    ½ cup crumbled walnuts
-    3 tbsp cocoa
-    Grated coconut
-    6 hazelnuts

Mix milk, rice flour, vanilla and sugar together until all combined. Put it on medium heat and stir occasionally. Bring it to boil and keep mixing when it boil until it reaches the right consistency. It lasts about 8 or 10 minutes after it boils. Add butter to make it brighter. Take it from heat.

Put crumbled  walnuts as the bottom layer in 6 pudding cups. Then pour this pudding as the second layer in the cups evenly, but do not fill the cups yet. Leave a little pudding in the pot. Mix cocoa with this pudding and put it back on heat. Mix it continually and bring it to boil. Then pour this cocoa pudding as the third layer. Let them cool and then wait them in refrigerator at least 6 hours. Garnish them with grated coconut and a hazelnut on top.

We took the photo of this pudding with dad, he decided on the background color and gave me some directions. However, he couldn’t wait more and grabbed the pudding and asked for a dessert spoon to taste it. He had one full spoon and another and another and when he reached the bottom layer, he realized the walnut surprise which doubled his pleasure.

Kissing Hands

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Summer Dream

Yaz Rüyası (Meyveli Kup)

I have a very special reason for making this fresh dessert. Guess what? One of my close friends got engaged! Their engagement celebration was last weekend, but as it was held in a different city far away from here, I couldn’t join it. I thought that I could  invite her and congratulate her with this “Summer Dream”. I would also invite her fiance, but he doesn’t live here, so my only guest was my friend.

I know she adores dairy desserts, especially Turkish pudding with rice. But this time I made something different because I wanted to use some summer fruits in my dessert. I bought the freshest fruits from this week’s open market: peach and kiwi. I used them raw so that we could feel their real taste and not to kill their freshness.

The original name of this dessert is coupe with fruit, but my friend wanted to call it “summer dream”. I loved this name more, so I used it as the title of this post. I’m sure she was influenced by the fruits I used, but I believe that she was more inspired by her dreams about next two months. Their wedding is going to be in August, so she is very busy with planning the ceremony and thinking about her future life.

As I said I couldn’t join her engagement celebration, but she shared her happiness with me by bringing a few chocolate. During an engagement celebration in Turkish culture, chocolate or Turkish delight is served to guests. Future bride and groom keep some of them for their friends who can not join the celebration. They give these to their friends when they first meet them. They can even carry these in their bags to share with friends as soon as possible. There is another thing the future brides carry in their bags: a piece of red ribbon, again to share with friends. You may wonder what this red ribbon is. In engagement celebrations, the rings are tied to each other with a red ribbon. Generally a respected person put these rings on the bride’s and groom’s fingers and then cut the ribbon from the middle so that equal pieces of ribbon fall to their share. The bride to be keeps her part for a very good purpose. She cuts this part of red ribbon into small pieces and share them with her friends, the girl ones who are single. It is believed that they will find their soulmate with the help of this small piece of red ribbon. It is also believed that if the piece is short, they will meet him in a short time, if it’s long, it will take a long time for her to meet him. My friend was also carying pieces of red ribbon to give her friends, of course not for me as I’m already married.

So we celebrated her happiness together with this dessert followed by Turkish coffee. She told a lot of things about the celebration; how they danced, how people enjoyed themselves, and how she felt happy being together with  both her beloved and her parent. I wish her a happy life with her future husband.

Ingredients (servings: 5)
-    1lt milk
-    1 cup sugar
-    1 cup of water
-    6tbsp wheat starch
-    6tbsp rice flour
-    1tbsp vanilla
-    1 kiwi
-    1 peach

Chop the fruits as you wish.

Pour the milk inot a pot and mix it with sugar. Put the pot on medium heat. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, dissolve starch and rice flour in a cup of water. Add this little by little into the heating milk. While pouring it with one hand, stir it the milk continually with the other hand. Keep stirring it until it reaches the consistency of pudding. Add vanilla just before taking the pot from the heat.

Pour it evenly into small cups until half. Do not fill the cups completely. Put little chopped kiwi or peach on it. Then pour the rest. You will have fruits between two layers in this way. And you can decorate your dessert with the rest of the chopped fruits. Let them cool in the fridge at leat 3 hours.

Some time ago, Vanessa at http://mommygourmet.blogspot.com/ declared that she would hold a contest. The rule of the contest is to have a meal with a friend and write about this alongside the recipe. I’d like to send this post to her as we really enjoyed the evening with my friend.

Smart Peach

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Semolina Cake Recipe (irmik Pastasi Tarifi)

This recipe is especially for those who like dessert but do not want to gain weight as it’s very light and has low calories.

I learnt this cake from one of my best friends. She likes dairy desserts a lot and creates wonderful tastes in her kitchen. In the picture, you see the semolina cake we made together. It was a great pleasure to make something with her in the kitchen.

The best thing about this recipe is that it is very easy to make.

Ingredients

•    1lt milk
•    1 cup semolina
•    1,5 cup sugar
•    2 tbsp butter
•    1 tsp vanilla
•    1 lemon zest, grated
•    Walnut
•    Cinnamon

Put milk, semolina, sugar and butter in a pot. Stir it continually until it gets thick. When it has a pudding like thickness, take it from the fire.

Dampen a mold completely. There shouldn’t be water in it, it should be just a little wet.

Then pour half of the semolina mixture in this dampened mold. Sprinkle some walnut on it. Then pour the rest of the mixture. This way, walnuts will be in between these two halves.

Put it in refrigerator and wait. After it gets cold enough, pu it on a plate turning upside down. When you turn it, its top will be smooth, which seems wonderful.

Finally sprinkle some cinnamon and walnut pieces on it before serving it in slices.

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Turkish Rice Pudding in Oven Recipe(Fırın Sütlaç Tarifi)

My husband and I craved for Turkish rice pudding last night. That is called “Sutlac” in Turkish. Luckily we had all ingredients, so baked it. But we didn’t eat until today as we had to wait until they get cold enough. If you try this recipe, I’m sure this will be your favorite dairy dessert.

Turkish rice pudding is a traditional dessert of Turkish cuisine. Some of us cook it on the heat, some prefers burning its top in oven after cooking it on heat. In either ways, everyone agrees it has a wonderful taste. You may crave for it even while you have it in your mouth.

Ingredients

•    1lt milk
•    1 cup sugar
•    1,5 tbsp rice flour
•    1,5 tbsp wheat starch
•    1,5 tbsp rice
•    2 tbsp cream
•    1 teaspoon vanilla
•    1 yolk
•    1 cup water
•    1 teaspoon butter

At the very beginning, put the rice in a very small pot and pour 1 cup water into it. You will boil it until you finish the rest of preperation. At the end of boiling, it should be like mush (should still  have little water in it, not like rice in pilaf). (Never stir it)

Put milk and sugar in a pot and cook it over medium heat.

In a bowl, put rice flour and starch and add 3 tbsp milk(while it is stil cold) and a little water (about 3 tbsp or so). Mix them together until rice flour and starch get lost, the mixture will be like soup, neither creamy nor watery.

In another bowl, mix the yolk and add it in rice flour and starch mixture. Put 1 teaspoon butter in it.

Now check the sugar and milk over medium heat and stir until it boils. When it starts to boil, pour the mixture above little by little and keep stirring quickly. After a few minutes, add rice mush in it. Keep stirring all the mixture in the pot until it boils and and gets dense.

Finally, when it becomes like puding, add vanilla and cream into it. Take the heat off.

Pour it into small ovenproof bowls and wait until they get cold.

(You can also serve it after you wait these bowls in refrigerator for some hours. But if you want to reach the utmost taste, you should do the last step.)

When the bowls lose their heat, put some water in the oven tray. And place the bowls in this tray. Water in the oven tray should cover the body of bowls. The purpose to put rice pudding in oven is to burn the top, not to cook whole. That’s why we put water in the tray.

Preheat the oven to 200 C and place the oven tray in it. (be very careful not to have an accident). And bake it until the top of pudding has a  brown or dark brown color (at least 40 minutes.)

After they reach the color you want, take the bowls out and let them get cold. When they get cold, place them in refrigerator and serve it cold.

Some Turkish restaurants serve it with pounded nuts or pistachio, but I like it single.

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