Mualla

The harmony of aubergine, green lentils and peppermint. Another vegetable dish cooked with olive oil.

Ingredients
1 kg aubergine
1 cup green lentils
1 onion
5-6 spoons of olive oil
1 spoon dry peppermint
2-3 pieces garlic

1. Boil green lentils in some water until softens
2. Peel aubergines, in a stripped way and cut into pieces
3. Cut onions and garlic into pieces.
4. Drain lentils, and mix them with onions, garlic, salt and dry peppermint.
5. Place aubergines into a pan. Distribute the lentils mixture onto augergines.
6. Add olive oil and a few spoons water.
7. Cook at low heat until augergines soften. Watch for augergines to release their juice. If necessary add some water.
8. I love the raw olive oil taste and add some olive oil when serving.

Green Beans with Olive Oil

The secret for delicious vegetable dishes is NOT to use any water. In order not to use water, vegetables should be cooked in low heat for long time.
This is a very simple but very delicious recipe.

Ingredients
1 kg fresh green beans
1 kg tomatoes
1 onion
2 fresh pepper (red or green)
5-6 spoons olive oil
one pinch sugar and salt

1. Clean green beans and cut them into pieces.
2. Cut onion and peppers into small pieces.
3. Put olive oil, onion and pepper in a pan and fry.
4. Add beans onto onion and peppers and decrease heat level to low. Close the lid of the pan. If heat is low enough, vegetables will release their juice and won't burn. Leave beans to be cooked for about 20 minutes.
5. While beans are being cooked, peel tomatoes and cut them into pieces.
6. Add tomatoes onto beans and close the lid. Don't stir. Leave to be cooked for about 20 minutes. If tomatoes are not juicy, add some water.
7. Add sugar and salt.

Istanbul Imambayildisi (imambayildi)

Imambayildi is a well known vegetarian dish in Turkey. Here I'll give a recipe of the Antakya version. Ironically, in Antakya we call the name of this meal as 'Istanbul Imambayildisi', meaning 'Imambayildi of Istanbul'.

In Turkish cuisine we have a main group of vegetarian dishes which are cooked by olive oil. We name this dishes as 'zeytinyaglı', meaning 'with olive oil'. This is a classical recipe of this type. A summer meal:

Ingredients
1 kg aubergine
1 kg tomatoes
1 root garlic
1 onion
1 full spoon dry peppermint
1/2 cups of olive oil
salt

1. Peel aubergines, in a stripped way and cut into four pieces vertically.
2. Fry aubergines in olive oil. Using olive oil for frying is one of the musts of this dish.
3. Peel the tomatoes and cut into small pieces.
4. Put tomatoes into a deep pan and cook until all its juice is gone.
5. Cut onion and garlic into pieces.
6. Add fried augergines, onion and garlic into tomatoes and let them boil for 5 minutes at low heat. Don't forget to add salt.
7. Serve with dry peppermint. This is also a must.

That's all.

Şam Tatlısı

Şam tatlısı means "desert of Damascus". This is a desert known in all over Turkey with minor differences. This is a traditional Antakya recipe.

Ingredients:
1/2 kg semolina
1 egg
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 kg sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnut
1 spoon full cinnamon
baking powder
vanilla
1 lemon

1. Mix egg, yogurt and 1/2 cups of sugar in a bowl until sugar is desolved. I generally use a fork to mix, not a mixer. Because we don't want the dough to rise too much.
2. Add semolina, cinnamon, baking powder, vanilla and lemon peel to the mixture. The dough must be thicker than a usual cake dough.
3. Distribute half of the dough on round a baking pan.
4. Put walnut on dough and distribute remaining dough over walnut layer. Pay attention that total thickness of the dough must not be greater than 3 cm.
5. Bake it in an oven of 200 degree Celcius, for about 20 minutes, till both sides of the dough are roasted equally.
6. Meanwhile, put remaining sugar and 1 cup water in a saucepan and boil the mixture for 5 minutes. When boils, add 1 drop of lemon juice into the sorbet.
7. When cake is roasted, take it out of the oven and let it cool down for 15 minutes. And then cut it into pieces in the pan.
8. Pour the sorbet on the cake and let the cake absorb the sugar in it.

good appetite!

Humus (Hummus)

I'd like to start with my favorite starter, humus. I guess it's known somehow in the western world, however, as most of the things, not known in its original form.

Here is a real traditional recipe of this middle eastern starter.

ingredients
1 cup boiled chickpea. It should be very well cooked, otherwise it cannot be smashed appropriately
1/2 cup sesame paste (tahini) (which we call 'tahin' here, smashed sesame seed with all its oil)
1 lemon
1 small piece of garlic
salt
red pepper
2 spoons of olive oil
a few piece of pickes
a few parsley leaves


1. Put chickpeas, crushed sesame seed, garlic, lemon juice and salt into the blender and blend until you get a smooth mixture. If necessary add a few spoons of hot water.
2. Put the mixture onto a flat plate.
3. Put olive oil onto the mixture and decorate with pickels, parsley and red pepper.