Artichokes Stuffed with Fresh Fava Beans (Zeytinyağlı İç Baklalı Enginar)

Usually fava beans and stuffed artichokes are cooked separately. They're both famous dishes of the Aegean cuisine. Fava beans can be found throughout Turkey, but it's hard to find fresh artichokes outside the Turkish Aegean coast. Tasty artichokes grow close to coastal lines in iodine-rich soil. Artichokes stuffed with fresh fava beans is one of the unique dishes of the Aegean cuisine. Their union is a feast that I first tasted in Izmir.You can find...

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Lemon Jelly (Limonlu Pelte)

We're going through really hot and humid days here which made me remember a dessert mom used to make. When I came back home from a hot day on the beach, she would serve me a cold slice of this lemon jelly which was soooo refreshing after hours of burning with salt under the sun.I called her to get the recipe. I had missed it a lot; it was already gone before I thought of taking a picture.You can try this with lime, too. And if you cannot find petit...

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Stuffed Poblanos (Etli Poblano Dolması)

This is a classic "almost" Turkish recipe with the substitution of poblanos for small bell peppers. I've been craving stuffed peppers for a long time, but small green bell peppers haven't showed up at the farmers market yet. I hate flavorless huge bell peppers at the stores. A sensible Turk would not call them peppers. They don't smell or taste anything like peppers; their skin is really thick; and they hold almost half a kilo of rice. So I decided...

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Baked Okra (Fırında Bamya)

Among the numerous delicious vegetables that I hated as a kid, okra is the only one that I still don't like. After college, I started to eat, cook, and deeply love leek, fava beans, artichokes, etc., yet even the idea of tasting okra gave me shivers. Okra is fuzzy. Okra is slimy, very slimy. Based on observation I can say people either love it or hate it. Also, okra lovers seriously believe that others would like okra if they eat a well cooked okra...

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Sunchokes with Orange Juice (Portakal Sulu Zeytinyağlı Yerelması)

This weird looking vegetable is north American; it's in the sunflower family. It was called "sun roots" by Native Americans, but for some unknown reason was named "Jerusalem artichoke" by a French man sometime around 1600s. It's nothing like an artichoke and it is not from or related to Jerusalem. In Turkish, we call it yerelması, which literally means "earth apple"; the same term that French use for potato, pomme de terre. In Italian, I learned,...

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Meatball Casserole (Sahan Köfte)

When I was a kid, I thought meatball casserole was a way to ruin delicious meatballs. So, rather than being excited, I was always disappointed to see meatballs cooked that way: juicy with mushy tomatoes and peppers. But years have passed, and now I agree with Aaron; meatball casserole is the best way to have meatballs--except for grilled meatballs.2 potatoes, cut in rounds1 belle pepper or 4-6 banana peppers, cut in big pieces2 tomatoes, cut in rounds2...

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Turkish Tabbouleh (Kısır)

Kısır is the Turkish and different version of a Mediterranean/Arabic dish called tabbouleh. Although there are many differences between these two dishes, the main one is that the Turkish tabbouleh has tomato and pepper paste. In Turkey the recipe for kısır varies from region to region. In Adana they use more water than anywhere else or in Antakya (Hatay) they don't use water at all; they knead bulgur with tomato and pepper paste until it gets soft....

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