cook-food

It is time for a new cake recipe! One day I felt like making a cake, a type of cake that I had never had before. So, I took a look at my pantry and refrigerator and got some ideas based on the ingredients I had on hand. I set out to make the cake without completely deciding what kind of flavor I wanted. As I made my cake, I made my decisions to add a little bit of this and a little bit of that. What came out was a cake with ground cardamom, ground pistachios and mastic gum! Yes, mastic gum. What is mastic gum? I get this question a lot…If you are not from the Mediterranean region or if you are not familiar with Mediterranean cuisine or if you haven’t traveled to the Mediterranean countries, most likely you do not know mastic gum. Mastic gum, ‘damla sakızı’ in Turkish is harvested from Pistacia lentiscus shrub, a native to the Mediterranean region which is from the pistachio family. Liquid is bled from the trunk of the tree and then sun dried into hard, small, translucent pieces that s...

The significance of bread in Turkish meals cannot be overstated. Every Turkish meal includes some sort of bread; either somun loaf, flat, pide or lavaş bread. Most Turkish people living in Turkish cities do not spend time making bread at home due to the numerous bakeries on almost every corner. The smell of bread coming out of these bakeries that make bread twice daily overfill the streets in the morning and in the afternoon. The most prevalent types of bread that can be found in Turkish bakeries are the Turkish somun bread and flat bread. Of course the breads may deviate from city to city in Turkey as every region has its own traditional cuisine. In Turkish villages, women get together and make flat bread (sac ekmeği) on iron griddle lit with wood or lavaş bread which is made in a tandır; a clay oven. The closest bread to Turkish somun bread is French bread which we (my husband & I and maybe other Turks too) consume in order to satisfy our cravings of Turkish bread while living i...

Today, I almost published a delightful, new cake recipe that I came up with last week. However, the pictures of the cake could have turned out a little better, so I will have to make this cake again sometime soon since there is no more cake now to photograph again. Instead, I will leave you with a common Turkish appetizer; eggplant salad. Since the summer has started to show its signs in most places, the markets are now full of seasonal vegetables, such as eggplant which is widely employed in Turkish cooking. This salad is mainly served as an appetizer, but I don’t always follow rules, so eat it as you wish. You may eat it as an appetizer, as a side dish or even as a main meal. 4 medium eggplants 2 Anaheim peppers 3 small tomatoes 1 shallot (chopped) 2 garlic cloves (chopped) ¼ cup parsley (chopped) 3 tbsp olive oil 1 ¼ tsp salt ½ tsp paprika ½ tsp red pepper flakes ¼ tsp ground black pepper Puncture the eggplants and peppers with a knife. Place in a baking tray along with the tomatoes...

Here is a light and tasty salad with one of the most work intensive vegetables. Artichokes taste wonderful, but cleaning out the outer, tough leaves to reach the edible part takes some time. This is one of the reasons why I choose not to cook with artichokes often. In addition, you buy two huge artichokes and end up with a little edible part. I do not purchase frozen or canned vegetables, so when I want to cook with artichokes I buy them fresh and go through the hassle of cleaning them and deciding which leaves are edible and which are not. Therefore, I have only cooked with artichokes only several times. Do you like cooking with fresh artichokes? For Boiling Artichokes: 2 large artichokes Juice of 1 lemon 1 tsp salt For Salad Dressing: Juice of ½ lemon ¼ tsp red pepper flakes ¼ tsp salt 1 tsp olive oil Fill a large pot with water. Add juice of 1 lemon and 1 tsp salt in the water. In the mean time, wash and trim the artichokes. Remove the hard ends of the leaves and add the artichokes...

Time flies by so fast that sometimes we cannot keep track of everything going on in our lives. One of those things that I have neglected to keep track of is Turkish Food Passion’s 1st and 2nd anniversaries! In the first week of April 2008, Turkish Food Passion came to life one of those mornings when I used to get up at 6:00 a.m. every day even on the weekends. As much as I like sleeping, I sometimes feel like it is a waste of time (especially naps) since I feel that I could be doing something productive instead of sleeping. In any case, this is how my blog started. This certainly is not the reason for starting Turkish Food Passion however it was a big motivator as weekend mornings would be reserved for blogging before my husband would wake up late in the morning. Despite the fact that I have been unmindful of Turkish Food Passion’s 1st anniversary and almost forgetting the 2nd anniversary which has past by a month, I am actually elated by what has developed into a rather large collecti...

The summer is almost here and what is better than a meal with summer vegetables? This summer vegetable salad which is made frequently in our household in Turkey is filling and very tasty. Since this salad is made with fried vegetables, I rarely make it, but when I do, I prefer using olive oil. Sometimes, I broil the vegetables instead of frying however it tastes best when the veggies are fried. The only missing vegetable in this dish is green, long peppers which adds a slight hotness to the salad. Other vegetables can also be used such as cauliflower and okra. Enjoy with your choice of veggies. 2 medium eggplants 2 zucchinis 3 medium potatoes 3 tomatoes 2 cloves garlic (chopped finely) ¼ cup flat leaf parsley (chopped finely) 1 tbsp salt ½ tsp ground red pepper Juice of ½ lemon 1 cup olive oil Scrape off the skin of the zucchinis and peel the eggplants in stripes. Cut the zucchinis lengthwise in half. Place each half flat bottom side down on a cutting board and slice. Put the sliced zu...