Antalya Bean Salad (Antalya Usulü Piyaz)

Piyaz is what we call bean salads in Turkey, but the term is actually Persian and means "onion." Piyaz is usually prepared with northern beans and kneaded onion; dressed with olive oil and vinegar; spiced up with pepper flakes; and decorated with tomatoes, parsley, and hard-boiled eggs. Depending on the region, piyaz might have green onions or sumac. However, in Antalya, a beautiful city with magnificent beaches and historical places on the Mediterranean...

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Vegeterian Eggplant Stew (Etsiz Patlican Güveç)

If there's a hierarchy among vegetables, for me eggplant's place is secured at the top. Given the number of different eggplant dishes in Turkish cuisine, I think I'm not alone in my admiration of eggplant. In Turkish cuisine eggplant is used in various ways; we bake it, fry it, grill it, roast it, stuff it, paste it, puree it, use it as filling for pastries, wrap it around kebaps, and even make jam with it. There are a couple things to be careful...

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Turkish Poached Eggs with Yogurt (Çılbır)

 Çılbır (pronounced "chilber") is one of my all time favorite comfort dishes. The perfect harmony of eggs, yogurt, and paprika is simply delicious. It offers everything you'd expect from a comfort dish; it's easy to make, very light, and yummy. For those reasons I wasn't surprised when I came across it in Marianna Yerasimos’ 500 Hundred Years of Ottoman Cuisine; if çılbır made it to the palace kitchen, then there's no need for discussion over...

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Red Lentil-Cauliflower Coconut Curry

This is completely an experimental recipe that came out because I wanted to make red lentil coconut milk curry soup. But then I wanted to make use of the cauliflower I had in the fridge for days and the frozen shredded cabbage (I don't know what I was saving for). It turned out to be so good that I think this will be one of my specialty dishes. With all the cauliflower florets and potatoes, it was way thicker than any soup should be so we had it...

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Middle Eastern Lamb Stew (Orta Doğu Usulü Kuzu Güveç)

The only best-results-guaranteed lamb stew recipe I have takes between 2-3 hours of cooking. So it's not a recipe for emergency cravings. Although it's very easy to make, you have to start 3 or 4 hours before the meal. That's why I consulted the recipe book that came along with my precious smart pressure cooker when I was craving lamb stew and was too hungry to wait for 3 hours. I got the pressure cooker and the recipe book almost two years ago,...

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Mushroom Cookies (Mantar Kurabiye)

This is a long lost recipe for me. Although I used to love these mushroom cookies, I completely forgot about them until the other day when I was thinking about what to make for my friends who'd come over for tea. Now, having a tea party is a very important social activity. You have to serve something with Turkish tea. It might be a cake, some sort of phyllo dough pastry (puff pastry or phyllo dough), cookies, potato salad, some kind of poğaça, or...

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Puff Pastry Bundle (Üçgen Milföy Börek)

Börek is a general name for phyllo pastry filled with various things most common of which are feta cheese, ground meat, potato, and spinach. It's usually easy to find phyllo dough in Turkey since there's a yufkacı, phyllo dough store, in every neighborhood. However, if it's a Sunday or a vacation day when yufka places are closed or if it's an emergency (an unexpected guest for tea) or if you're out of Turkey where it's hard to find phyllo dough,...

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