I love fish. I love tons of dishes with tons of different kinds of fish. And I love soup! But I could never be so much fond of fish soup. For some reason, the idea of fish in a lot of liquid did not appeal to me (although they come from tons of liquid!). Until I met Finnish salmon soup…
Ever since I started doing catering and other eating events as a full-time job, I’ve been making hummus. The amount of chickpeas I’ve seen since last year has long passed the total amount I’ve seen until then. People love hummus here, and they always want to have it in their events!! So in order to keep my sanity, I started to come up with different kinds of hummus. This one is my favourite so far.
When I saw these tiny green beans in Hauler oriental market, I knew I had to buy a package and try to do something with them!!
When my friend asked me last week if this was muhammara before eating it, I said no. Or kind of no. We used to call it çemen back at home. But then some people say that çemen is something else. This is not exactly muhammara either! So what is that dish?? Well, here is definition: this is a walnut / paprika spread with spices which resembles muhammara, with the recipe coming from mum! I will call it, “le spread”.
I came back from Turkey in such a weird, panicky way after all the coup attempt and whatnot, that the only thing I could bring with me happened to be a mezze cookbook that I bought at Istanbul Airport. This spinach pastry is inspired by a recipe from that book. The main difference: I didn’t put the freaking dill in my version!!
I made this salad the other day and my friend who saw its photo said that it looks like Easter, with all those colours on the plate.. I must admit, 6 years living in Finland, and I still don’t have much clue about Easter. My greatest contribution to Easter was I think putting on rabbit ears once and having my photo taken as a tribute to Easter bunny..
I used to be very picky with food, when I was a kid. But I was picky in a weird way: I would eat veggies like okra and eggplant, which noone in the family except me and my mum loved, but skip easier-to-like stuff like cauliflower. I think I had a prejudice against cauliflower, I don’t even remember tasting it much. This was until I lived in Paris at the age of 24 – in the middle of an expensive city where tiny little euros were not flying easily into my wallet, I learned to appreciate this vegetable thanks to its affordability. And ever since, we have a loving relationship.
Celeriac. One of my favourite vegetables. When I was a kid I was one of the pickiest little brats in the whole world possibly. But I always ate the strangest things without any problem, like okra, or eggplant or celeriac. I say strange things because in my family only me and my mother would eat those vegetables, the others would always find something to hate about them. With celeriac, it was the smell. But for me, celeriac’s smell is the best part of it!
As I grow older, I feel closer to Black Sea than Istanbul, even though I lived in Istanbul for most of my life. It is the people, the stories, the food and the nature that affect me. Most of my father’s family live in Sinop, my real home by the Black Sea coast, and my childhood is filled with stories about Circassians, Laz people and Georgians; I am half Circassian through my father, and I always loved those stories. So it felt only natural and familiar when I prepared this dish from Georgian cuisine today; Georgia, our next door neighbour. I ate this dish only once more than a decade ago in Istanbul when a Georgian friend made it for me. This one is a very “expat” version, as I cannot find the real cheese that should be used with it, but I tried to get as close as possible to the real thing. We can at least think that it is a delicious inspiration from Georgian cuisine if not 100% real thing!
A bad, bad flu… I am writing this blog post in bed, because I’m sick. I think it was expected, no? I mean, weather forecast being around -25C last week? I tried to avoid that and stay at home but there is a limited time you can stay at home – the girl’s gotta work. And so this week, since Monday morning, I’ve been in bed, knocked out. Added to this, David Bowie died, there was yet another big explosion in Istanbul.. Yes, I feel bad.. But let’s move on to the recipe, shall we?
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