Joy of cooking for friends

Tre-bon ! 

By now, you probably have realised that I like cooking, eating and drinking...Especially, when I have good friends over my house, the joy of cooking and gathering around the table for a nicely home cooked meal gives me a great pleasure. A couple of days ago, one of my best friends from Germany was visiting me in Istanbul and I wanted to cook a full course dinner of salad, soup, smoked eggplant salad, and slowly oven cooked lam shank. I know that I have not been posting new recipes lately, so this is a good opportunity to share these with you.

Green Salad

Difficulty: 1/10
Cooking Time: 5 - 7 mins
Ingredients:
1 Fresh Lemon
Pinch of Fresh Mint
French Onion
Olive oil
Arugula
Salt

Simply cut everything into a large bowl, add olive oil, squeeze the lemon and give its salt.

Roasted Lamb Shank

Ingredients:
Served for 6
Difficulty: 8/10
6 lamb shanks
Salt
Pepper
Butter (50grs)
Olive oil (half a cup)
2-3 Carrots
1-2 Potatoes
2 Large Onions
5-6 Cloves of Garlic
Aluminium Foil
Steam pressured cooking pan

6 pieces of Lamb Shank

Other ingredients

 Peel all your ingredients and chop onions, potatoes, and carrots into large bits. Place your steam pressured pan on the stove, and let it get heated up. Add your butter and olive oil together and let them slightly start sizzling. Now its time to add, black pepper and salt...

After drying out your lamb shanks with paper towel, slowly add the shanks into your pan. This way, you will seal your shanks. Keep on stirring the shanks and do this until they turn to slightly brownish color.

After about 5 minutes stirring them, you can now add your remaining ingredients with the shanks. Don't stop stirring, and avoid getting them burned out.

Now it is time to add some water on top and wait until it starts slowly boiling.

You are now ready to place the top of the pot and click to seal it it safely and securely. Then wait until steam starts blowing out of the top. Once you see the steam coming out, ease the fire on the stove and let it cook about half an hour.

Once half an hour is done, DO NOT OPEN the steam pressured pot immediately. Let is sit under the cold running water under the tab for about 10 minutes and slowly release the air out and then carefully open the top. You are half way there....

Take out all your shanks, and some of the other add-ins, place them into an oven-proof glass (or porcelain) tray. Add some of the sauce in it, then cover it with aluminium foil. Make sure to make some hole on the foil with the help of your fork.

You are now all set to place your foil covered tray with shanks, into the pre-heated (200C) oven to sit there for 2 - 3 hours.

SOUP of the DAY

Do you remember that we still have some hot sauce along with potatoes, onions and carrots in your pot. This will turn into a great soup with the help of a small hand blender. All you need to do is, use your hand-held kitchen blender to chop everything to let it turn into a nice soup.

Remaining sauce of the main dish

Blendered soup

You can chop and pan fry some bread crumbs to dress this soup which makes an excellent add-on taste

Smoked Eggplant Salad (Meze)

4-5 Eggplants

Olive Oil

2-3 Cloves of Garlic

Salt

1 Peeled Tomato

Difficulty : 5/10

Cooking time: 30-45mins

Place your smoking pan (if you don't have such pan, you can place your eggplants directly on to the fire) on the stove. Let it heat for 5-6 minutes...Chop the heads of eggplants, and make sure that you scratch them with the help of a knife's tip. Let them sit and turn them in every 5 minutes, until they start getting wrinkled and dried. Once they are in such condition, peel them off carefully, and chop into very small pieces. Grind the garlics, and add them into your mesh, followed by some olive oil. Dress it with peeled tomato slices and serve cold....

Time for the GrandReveal....

After 3 hours of slowly cooking, you are now ready to take your tray out of the oven, and de-foil it. Since I had a German friend, I thought that a cold and non-filtered Efes beer would go nice with it...

Enjoy....Afiyet olsun !  :)

Coming up soon: A week in Luxembourg and its surroundings with great friends

Its more than just coffee, its "The Turkish Coffee"

In today's crowded, loud, fast and almost virtual lives of ours, some of us drink coffee, some of us drink tea to keep up with this crazy pace. I must admit that I am more of a coffee drinker rather than tea, and I always looked at it like being a dog or cat type person. The bitter capitalist perception didn't lose any time to come up with multibillion dollar chains of coffee shops chains like Starbucks, Cafe Nero, and Gloria Jean's to satisfy people's unsatisfiable, capricious and endless requests of their customers. I always found it very funny to watch people when ordering their coffee at the counter of Starbucks: "-One decaf cappuccino, with skimmed milk foam, no syrup, but extra cacao and with a touch of cinnamon" Yes you re right, for a guy like me who loves to keep things simple in Life, Love and Food, such complexity gives me the creeps.

However, Turkish coffee is probably one the oldest known type of coffee and cooking technique  in the world. Although the name refers "Turkish", coffee beans are not grown in Turkey, its just the way its cooked and grinded and it goes back to 14th century. Today, I am not going to get into details in its cooking techniques, the way its served, or where it came from. My purpose of writing this article is to give you another perspective at Turkish Coffee and its ritualistic culture.

Let me take you back in time....back to 1700s. Pretend that you are an important person and got invited into the palace. Upon your arrival, you are welcomed by the butler and offered Turkish Delight in Gulbahar

Turkish delights in Gulbahar 

This is symbolising an old Turkish proverb which can be translated as; "Lets eat sweet, and talk sweet" implying to have a nice conversation during your stay. It is also believed that, having a Turkish Delight would increase your blood sugar, easing your excitement before your acceptance by the Sultan. Then arrives the Palace's CoffeeMaster (Kahvecibasi -Tur.) along with three concubines from Harem to serve your coffee, without looking directly to your eyes. Talking about being picky and capricious in Starbucks in today's world? Think again....

When I was a kid, my mother had frequent morning coffee gatherings with her friends. They would talk, and laugh for hours. Back then, I never understood it, but now, I realize how important of a role which Turkish Coffee plays in our lives. After an excellent meal, a difficult day, during business meetings, pre-marriage family introductions, before the final examinations at college, and in many different occasions, Turkish Coffee contributes to our lives; quietly but sacredly for centuries.

Hope to have my Turkish Coffee at a Starbucks in NewYork sometimes. Is it too much to ask? That is my caprice

For further reading on Turkish Coffee, here are some of the links I recommend:

Wikipedia

Mehmet Efendi Turkish Coffee Producer

How to cook perfect Turkish Coffee (YouTube Video)