Perfect Turkish Rice..

Posted on September 26, 2014 by livingtheturkishdream

I’m not a great cook, never have been and probably never will be, but for the past few months I’ve been cooking more often and trying my hand at some Turkish dishes after being ‘trained’ by Berkay. He rarely compliments my food, it’s never salty enough or oily enough, but a few days ago he told me my attempt at Turkish rice was great, and that’s good enough for me! ‘Turkish rice’ as I call it, is a tough one to master but I think I’ve nearly got it. I know it’s a favourite of some so here’s our version!

Ingredients for 2-3 people:
1 cup white rice ( In Turkey, we use Baldo rice, you may be able to find that in certain supermarkets in the UK but if not, basmati rice will be ok)
2 tablespoons şehriye (This is like a thin pasta, if you’re in the UK look for ‘orzo’ pasta which is almost identical)
A knob of butter
2 cups of hot water
half a chicken stock cube
salt and pepper to taste
+ a shallow saucepan with a lid

Firstly rinse the rice in cold water, then you need to soak the rice in HOT water for around 30 minutes before cooking. After the 30 minutes, wash the rice again in cold water, the water should run clear. Drain it well.

Heat the butter in the pan on a medium heat and once melted, add the şehriye. You need to keep an eye on it and keep stirring so that it doesn’t burn. Wait for it to change to a darker, toasted color.

Once it has changed colour, add the rice into the pan and stir thoroughly for a couple of minutes, again make sure the heat is on medium so that the grains do not burn.

Now add the hot water, half the chicken stock cube and a little salt. Stir a few times, turn up the heat and bring to a boil.
Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to low-medium and cover.

Leave the rice to simmer for 8-10 minutes. Now, if there’s one thing Berkay has taught me it’s to NOT lift the lid to check if the rice is done, this is apparently very important. How do you know if it’s done if you can’t open the lid? Well, give the pan a little shake, judge the best you can and/or just turn off the heat and hope for the best! It’s difficult to judge – it can either end up soggy, stuck to the pan or perfect and there is very little time between each stage. I find that 10 minutes is the perfect amount of cooking time for 1 cup of rice with 2 cups of water.

Turn off the heat and keep the pan covered until you are ready to serve, again this is apparently very important!

Use a fork to fluff up the rice and serve. Berkay puts black pepper on his to spice things up a little.

Enjoy!

Do you like this ‘Turkish rice’? Have you mastered it or found a better recipe? Let me know (:

Yogurt with dinner? ..

Posted on September 11, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Hands up who has a Turkish friend, relative or partner who insists on eating yogurt with main meals? Berkay loves it, the sight and thought of it honestly makes me gag, there is just something about eating plain yogurt with dinner that is wrong to me, yogurt is for dessert! Berkay eats it with fish, chicken, pasta.. you name it. The other day he had a big bowl full with his omlette and chips!

It’s so funny to me, I just can’t get my head around it.
Do you like it? Did you ever think to try it before?

Apologies for the short post today, was out at a friend’s house til late and I’m so tired. I think a long post is due.. perhaps I’ll write one tomorrow. (:

How to make köfte

Posted on August 29, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

Berkay is the cook of the house, and today he made Turkish meatballs/ köfte from scratch to put on the BBQ. I thought I’d share his ‘recipe’ although he just judges everything by eye, so I don’t have exact amounts of specific ingredients.

Ingredients

Beef Mince (we used 400g and made 8 good sized meatballs)

2 Garlic cloves

One medium onion

Fresh breadcrumbs

1 egg

Black pepper

Salt

Dried chili flakes

Cumin powder

Olive oil

First, grate the onion and garlic into a bowl.

Next, make some breadcrumbs from crustless stale/dry bread. Berkay left half a loaf out this morning so it was hard by the time we needed it, he then put it into the oven for 5 or so minutes to make it even more crusty, but that’s not always necessary. He literally picked crumbs off the bread (but you could whizz the bread in a blender if you have one) and added them to the bowl with the onion and garlic, there is no exact amount here but less is best, you can always add more later if the mixture is too wet.

Then he added one whisked egg into the bowl, along with the minced meat. He also added the salt, black pepper, cumin and chili flakes at this point. Again, there are no exact measurements for this, to be safe you could add 1/2 teaspoon of each, but it’s entirely up to you and it depends on how spicy you like them. Berkay is a big fan of spicy foods so he added a good amount of chili flakes and salt. He added 2 teaspoons of olive oil too.

Now for the fun part, stick your hands in and give everything a good mix. You need to knead it all together for at least 5 minutes until everything is sticking together nicely, if the mixture is too wet you can add more breadcrumbs.

Take chunks of the mixture and roll into balls, then pat them down with your hands until they are around 1/2 inch thick. We made 8, but you could make more if you wanted them to be smaller. Put them in the fridge for 30-60 minutes to let them set a little.

Berkay cooked ours on the BBQ grill for around 15 minutes, make sure to cut them in half to check they are cooked through. You could also grill or fry them but you really just can’t beat barbequed köfte! Yummy.

Here’s an amusing photo of Berkay lighting the BBQ.. yes, that is my hairdryer.

Stuffed Mushrooms..

Posted on August 22, 2013 by livingtheturkishdream

I can’t cook to save my life, but even I can manage these (:
Perfect on the barbeque, yum yum.

Ingredients used:
3 mushrooms
3 garlic cloves chopped/crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
handful of grated cheese

>> Rinse the mushrooms and remove the stems.

>>Peel, crush and chop the garlic cloves. Berkay is the expert at cutting things ridiculously small!

>>Mix in the garlic with the olive oil, add salt if you wish!
Put to one side while the mushrooms are on the BBQ grill.

>>After 5-8 minutes and once the mushrooms are soft, spoon the olive oil/garlic mixture in.
Leave to cook for another 5 minutes.

>>Once they’re almost ready, spoon granted cheese on top and leave til it’s melted.

It couldn’t be simpler! (:
Here’s ours with the rest of our BBQ dinner, köfte (meatballs), Turkish rice, grilled tomato, pepper & onion. We also had the customary loaf of bread on the table of course. (:
Afiyet olsun!