Savory Spinach and Feta Cake (Ispanaklı ve Beyaz Peynirli Kek)

In several previous posts I have mentioned the importance of afternoon tea time in Turkey and the snacks that we would have with our tea. This cake is a total green deliciousness that my mom used to make for our lazy afternoon tea hours. Years later during another tea gathering with her friends she learned a recipe for sweet spinach cake (I know it sounds weird, but it doesn't taste anything like spinach. Spinach is there just to make it green and distract the ladies from gossip by causing curiosity for the source of its color), and unfortunately stopped making this one. I never cared much about sweet cakes, so this one is definitely my most favorite green cake.

As you can see from the ingredients, it is a very flexible cake. You can add more herbs or take out the ones you don't like; use feta or grated mozzarella or cheddar; use crushed pepper flakes and make it spicy or very spicy. It's all up to you. Because of the spinach puree and the amount of flour this is a moist, spongy cake, not a dry one.



























serves 6-8 people

1 lb spinach
2 cups flour
1 cup oil (olive, canola, or vegetable; I used half olive and half canola)
3 eggs
1/3 cup Turkish white cheese or feta cheese, crumbled
1/3 cup black olives, sliced (you can use canned olives but they won't bring any flavor to your cake)
1 green bell pepper or 2 green chili peppers, fınely chopped
2-3 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tsp oregano leaves
1-2 tsp salt (depending on how salt the cheese is)
2 tsp baking powder


























-Put washed spinach in a food processor with a couple of tbsp of olive oil and make into a puree. You should have approximately 2 cups of spinach puree.
-Beat 3 eggs with salt in a mixing bowl until it doubles in volume.
-Add remaining oil, spinach puree, dill, parsley, peppers, green onion, sliced olives, and cheese to eggs and mix with a spoon.
-Add flour and baking powder to this mixture and mix.
-Grease a baking pan, any shape you prefer, with butter. Pour the mixture and bake in a preheated oven at 350-360F for 45-50 minutes. Baking time might vary with different shapes and ovens. Check with a knife or wooden skewer/toothpick.

Wıth all its greenness this is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging that was started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and is now organized by Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once, and is hosted this week by Katie of Eat This.

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Strawberry Jam (Çilek Reçeli)

In the farmers' markets in Turkey strawberries are sold in two different piles on the same stand. One pile is for small strawberries which are sold for "jam" (reçellik) and bigger strawberries, the ones for the table (yemelik), would be in the other pile. I haven't seen this at the American farmers' markets, but you can always go to a strawberry farm and pick up your "jam" strawberries. That is exactly what we did. Last weekend we were at the Washington Farms in Athens and picked up gallons of delicious strawberries for jam and the table.


























This easy and guaranteed strawberry jam recipe is from my mom.

If you are planning to keep the jam in the fridge, the ratio of stawberry to sugar is 1 to 1. If you will use 1 lb of strawberries, you need 1 lb of sugar or 1 kilo of sugar for 1 kilo of strawberries. However, if you intend to make multiple jars of strawberry jam and to preserve them in your pantry, than the ratio of strawberry to sugar should be 1 to ~1.2.


























5 cups of strawberries make ~3 cups of jam, ~18 oz jar

2 lbs small strawberries (if you start with big ones, slice them into two or three pieces), washed and stemmed
2 lbs of sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp water

-Place the strawberries in a pot and add 2 tbsp water and cook on medium. Once it starts boiling, start the timer for 10 minutes.
-After 10 minutes of boiling, add sugar and stir gently. Once it starts boiling again, turn it between low-medium and set the timer this time for 25 minutes.
-Stir infrequently and carefully skim any foam with a slotted spoon.
-At the 23rd minute add lemon juice.
-Turn it off and pour in a clean glass jar. Close the lid and let it cool. Store in the refrigerator.

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Cheese Pastries (Peynirli Poğaça)

Although there are tens of different kinds of poğaça (savory pastry), none resembles anything like Italian focaccia, where the term poğaça derives from. There are two main ways of preparing savory pastry dough: with or without yeast. Non-yeast pastries are favored by many for their rich-in-butter-nature; yet, most people make pastries with yeasty dough because it requires less amount of oil. Since I don't bake poğaças very often, I see no harm in indulging myself with feta and butter.

makes ~25 cheese pastries

2 sticks of butter, melted
1 egg, white for the dough, yolk for brushing the tops of pastries
3 cups of flour
~1/2 plain yogurt
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white cheese or feta crumbles
1/4 cup parsley, finely chopped
sesame seeds

-Mix cheese and parsley in a small bowl.
-Put flour in a bowl. Pour butter, egg white, and salt. Mix well.
-Start kneading and add yogurt as much as you need to make slightly soft, easy-to-shape dough.
-Roll walnut-size pieces in your hands to make balls. Press the ball between your palms to make a flat round, ~3-3.5 inches in diameter.
-Place a small amount of cheese+parsley filling in the middle of the flat round dough. Make it in to a ball by bringing the edges into the middle and covering the filling.
-Place on a cookie tray. Brush the tops with egg yolk and sprinkle sesame seeds.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes.
-Traditionally poğaças are served with tea, but you can also serve them for dinner as a side. Although there are tens of different kinds of poğaça (savory pastry), none resembles anything like Italian focaccia, where the term poğaça derives from. There are two main ways of preparing savory pastry dough: with or without yeast. Non-yeast pastries are favored by many for their rich-in-butter-nature; yet, most people make pastries with yeasty dough because it requires less amount of oil. Since I don't bake poğaças very often, I see no harm in indulging myself with feta and butter.

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Green Olive Rolls (Yeşil Zeytinli Rulo)

In Turkey patisseries are real life savers with their wide range of offerings that include baklava, böreks, cakes, cookies, meringues, milk puddings, poğaças, syrupy desserts, Turkish delights, etc. When you're late for work or school and do not have enough time for breakfast; when you're in need of sugar; when you want to bring dessert to a dinner party; when you are having people for a tea party; or when you just want to have some sort of pastry, you know there is a patisserie around the corner. Although they may differ in terms of their specialties--for example, one patisserie may not carry baklava and syrupy desserts and the other may not offer eclair and puddings, without exception all patisseries would serve small savory and sweet snack pastries. These butter loaded crispy pastries are generally referred to as kuru pasta in Turkish, which translates as "dry pastry." Even the smallest, not too fancy neighborhood patisserie would have at least six different kinds of pastry, 3 savory and 3 sweet that are usually baked in the afternoon just in time for the tea parties.

The olive roll pastry was my neighborhood patisserie's specialty, in those good old days when I used to live in Ankara. Hand fulls of buttery crispy rolls with pitted black olives in the middle were what we used to grab from the patisserie twice a week on our way to the coffee house that I and my friends frequented after school to play backgammon and cards.

I replicated the recipe, but was too lazy to pit olives, so in stead of black olives I used cocktail olives. The result was delicious. However, the dough should be a bit thinner than it is in the pictures. Not surprisingly, I didn't do a good job rolling the dough.


























makes approximately 50 rolls
3 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup crumbled white/feta cheese
1/4 cup plain yogurt
~ 50 cocktail olives
1 egg yolk, beaten
nigella and/or sesame seeds



























-Make a smooth dough with flour, melted butter, feta, and yogurt.
-Roll the dough to o.2 inch thickness (don't take my rolls as an example, I couldn't locate the roller so had to use a glass jar!).
-Cut 1 X 3 inch rectangles.
-Place an olive on the rectangle shape dough and roll. Place the rolls on a greased pan making sure the fold would be at the bottom.
-Brush the rolls with beaten egg yolk and sprinkle nigella and/or sesame seeds.
-Bake in preheated oven at 350F for 25-30 minutes.

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Zucchini Börek (Kabak Böreği)

Börek is a common name in Turkey and neighboring regions that were influenced by Ottoman cuisine for a pie made with flaky pastry: phyllo or yufka. Börek can be made in different forms (bundles, rolls, rounds, squares, etc.) and with different fillings (eggplant, ground meat, milk, potato, spinach, and white cheese).

This particular recipe is my mom's signature dish. This is the dish that I asked her to make every time I went back home from boarding school, college or from the States, and that my friends ask her to make whenever they come over for tea, for dinner, or for a visit. I haven't made zucchini börek before simply because it is hard to find Turkish yufka here and phyllo doughs that you can find in the stores are too thin (harder to deal with), starchier (fit better for baklava than börek), and come in rectangles rather than rounds as we have them in Turkey. However, for the first time I haven't been to Turkey over a year now. I decided that I couldn't wait for another year for zucchini börek.


























~30 sheets of phyllo dough=1 box (since they're really thin, a couple will be lost along the way)

for the filling
2-3 zucchinis, grated approximately 4 cups of grated zucchini
3 eggs
1/2 cup finely chopped dill
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint or 3 tbsp dry mint flakes
1/2 cup crumbled Turkish white cheese or feta
1 tbsp paprika (or Hungarian paprika)
1 tbsp or less black pepper
salt (depending on how salty the cheese is)
1 tsp spicy red pepper flakes (optional)

for brushing phyllos
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt (nonfat, reduced, or whole)

-Thaw frozen phyllo as indicated on the package.
-Mix well all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl. Set aside for 10-15 minutes.
-It will be a juicy mixture. Squeeze the mixture and pour that excessive juice into a smaller bowl. Add 3 tbsp olive oil and 1/2 cup yogurt into the juice and mix well. You will use this to brush phyllos.
-Place a phyllo, wide side facing you, on the counter. Brush it with the mixture and put another phyllo on top and brush it, too. Since phyllos are too thin, it's better to use two at a time).
-Place filling ~one seventh of zucchini filling on the long side of phyllo and roll up to make a long cigar.
-Grease ~ 11 X 13 or ~11 X 11 oven tray.
-Hold one end of the long cigar and coil roll around to form a spiral shape as in the picture above.
-Repeat brushing, filling, rolling, and coiling until there's no more filling.
-Pour whatever juice left in the brushing and filling bowls on the börek.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 380-390 F until golden brown. Approximately 50 minutes.
-Cut into triangle pie slices. Serve with tea or soda for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

It is not a common practice throughout Turkey, but where I come from, Thrace, we love to eat our savory börek by dipping it into jam, especially into cherry jam.

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Turkish Eggy Toast (Yumurtalı Ekmek)

Mornings of my first couple of years in the States were marked by fruitless search for non-meaty, moderately eggy, feta cheesy, and above all definitely savory breakfasts. In time I let it go and settled down with sunny side ups, hash browns, and occasionally crispy bacon strips. One Sunday morning, back in Bloomington, IN, when we were at our favorite local breakfast place Wee Willie's (the dirty or the old one on South Walnut St) which had real Bloomingtonian customers, heaviest gravies in town, old wooden booths soaked with grease, awesome fresh squeezed orange juice, and chatty middle age waitresses with great sense of humor, I had a sudden craving for Turkish toast. I was going on and on about how delicious it was. Jen, Nolan, and Aaron, probably hoping to change my regular subject of homesickness times, "Turkish food is awesome," asked me what Turkish toast was. I explained with great enthusiasm how it was made and they said "it's like French toast, the idea is the same!" The French toast specialist Jen reassured me that those two sounded quite similar. They encouraged me to order French toast with no powder sugar and cinnamon. In another attempt to have an almost Turkish savory breakfast, I did not only what Jen and Nolan suggested, but also asked the waitress to add a slice of cheese on top; shouldn't have gone so far. The expression on our waitress' face was way more pleasing than the "Turkishized" French toast I had that morning.

























"Aklın yolu birdir" or "great minds think alike": Whether Turkish or French, the idea is really the same; to save stale i.e. "lost" bread (pain perdue). In Turkey , this toast is served for breakfast or as a snack for afternoon tea always with white cheese (feta) on the side.


























half of a regular round loaf bread, sliced (approximately 10 slices)
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk (whole, 2%, or skim)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup frying oil (canola, vegetable, etc.)

optional
1/2 tsp crushed oregano leaves
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1/2 tsp herbes de provence
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

-Beat eggs well in a bowl.
-Add milk and spices, salt and pepper. Mix well.
-Soak each slice in the mix for 5-7 seconds. Make sure each side is well coated.
-Heat oil in a frying pan.
-Fry soaked slices until golden brown on each side.
-Place fried slices on a paper towel to soak excessive oil.
-Serve warm or hot.

To make your eggy toast even more flavorful, use rosemary, olive, etc. kind of bread.

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Pear Marmalade (Armut Marmelatı)

The other day my mom sounded highly enthusiastic on the phone about a new quince marmalade recipe. she insisted I tried it. I didn't want to say that I cannot find quince, one of my favorite winter fruits, here and crush her passion. I said sure, of course I'll try. After I hung up, I decided to apply the recipe to pears that were sitting on the counter for a long time. The result was a light fragrant marmalade perfect with cream cheesed bagels.

I had 5 pears and used all. You can use as many as you want. 5 pears made 24oz/1.5lb/~700gr marmalade.

5 grated pears made ~5 cups. For 5 cups of grated pears I used 2 1/2 cups of sugar. So, the ratio of sugar to pear is 1 to 2.


























5 d'anjou pears, grated (use the bigger hole), seeds taken out, not
peeled
2 1/2 - 3 cups of sugar
juice of 1 orange
juice of half lemon
3-4 cloves

-Put grated pear, juice of orange, and cloves in a pot on medium heat. Pear will first release juice. Cook off juice. (~1 hour)
-Stir in sugar and lemon juice and cook until it thickens.
-Pour in dry jars and let cool. Wait until it cools down to put the lid.

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Peppers with Cheese (Lorlu Biber)

Another great Thracian specialty! Just like menemen, peppers with cheese can also be served as a side dish, main dish, or a breakfast treat. Many people enjoy lorlu biber for breakfast, but in my family we usually have it for dinner with fresh bread. it's really easy to make, and almost impossible to make it bad.

For this recipe you can use as many peppers and as much cheese as you want. Traditionally lorlu biber is made with banana peppers. However, we got so many different kinds of peppers from this week's farmers market that I was tempted to try at least one; Hungarian wax pepper.















1 lb banana peppers, chopped in rounds (seeds taken out)
1/2 cup ricotta or farmers cheese (this can easily go up to 1 full cup)
1 cup frying oil (canola, corn, etc)
salt if needed


-Heat oil in a deep pot.
-When it's really hot, add chopped peppers and fry until they get slightly brown (If you don't want to deep fry peppers, you can stir them with 2-3 tbsp olive oil until slightly brown and then add cheese)
-Take the peppers out with a slotted spoon and place them on a paper towel to soak excessive oil. (If you will fry two different kinds of peppers and one of them is spicy; first fry the non-spicy one. Otherwise, all the peppers will be spicy)
-Put 1 tbsp of the frying oil into a non-stick frying pan. Add peppers and cheese.
-Stir until cheese starts melting.
-Serve with bread.

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Cornelian Cherry Marmalade (Kızılcık Marmelatı)

There are two Farmers markets in my hometown; one is on Tuesdays, the big one is on Fridays. We got these cornelian cherries from the Tuesday market so that my mom could make my favorite marmalade. My mom's cornalian cherry marmalade is the best I know, so here's the recipe--and this one is really Turkish.


























1 ½ kilo cornelian cherry (after you pit them, you’ll have approximately one kilo)

2 kilo sugar (approximately 8 cups) 1 1

2 cups water

1/4 tsp citric acid

-Wash cornelian cherries and boil them in a big pot with 2 cups of water for 15-20 minutes or until they are soft.

-Once they cool down, smash them in a colander in small patches. You’ll have cornelian cherry puree in the end.

-Mix 8 cups of white sugar and the puree in a big pot, and cook on medium heat. Once it starts boiling, check the time; cornelian cherry marmalade will be ready in 6 to 7 minutes. Do not let it boil more than 7 minutes.

-When it starts boiling, there will be pink foam on top. Remove the foam with a spoon.

-A minute before you turn it off, put ¼ citric acid (it preserves that magnificent color and prevents crystallizing)

Since cornelian cherry is one of those fruits that has a jelly-like structure, you need to put marmalade into jars when it’s still hot

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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 how great it is. Peotry, military, architecture put aside, Ottomans were infamous for creating comfort for themselves in every possible environment and delicious food, which brings us back to my favorite comfort food: çılbır.

The recipe below is for 1, but you can easily make it for more people by adding more eggs, yogurt, and butter.

2 eggs
2 tbsp vinegar
5 cups of water (or more)
1/2 cup yogurt
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tbsp butter
mint flakes
salt
pepper
1 clove of garlic, minced (optional)

-Bring to boil water, vinegar, and salt in a medium size pot. When it starts boiling, turn it down to medium heat.
-Break eggs one at a time in a small bowl, and glide them, one by one, in to the very hot but not boiling water. (If the water is boiling vigorously when you pour the eggs, you cannot have a homogeneous cooking or keep the egg together) Do not cook more than 2 eggs at a time. If an egg starts going messy in water, try to pull it together with a spoon.
-Cook them for 3-4 minutes for medium soft yolk. For a hard yolk, you need to cook them at least for 5 minutes .
-Take them with slotted spoon on a plate.
-Pour yogurt on them. (If you want to have your çılbır "a la turque", mix yogurt with 1 clove of minced garlic; you won't beleive how poachhed eggs go well with garlicy yogurt)
-On a skillet heat butter. When it sizzles add paprika. Stir for half a minute or less (just don't let it burn) and pour it on top of eggs and yogurt.
-Sprinkle mint flakes on top.

As I said before it is extremely easy to make çılbır; there are only a couple of points to be careful about: don't put the eggs in boiling water; bring it to a boil and then let it calm down and do not break the eggs directly into the pot; instead break them in little bowl and let them glide.

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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, then you have puff pastry. They're easy to handle; just follow the instructions on the package to thaw and bake them. You can fold them into squares, rectangles, or triangles. The choice is yours.

I made these puff pastry bundles for tea time and used two different stuffing: black olive and feta cheese.


























2 square sheets of puff pastry
1 egg yolk
black seeds

black olive stuffing
1/3 cup pitted black olives
1 roasted red pepper
1 small tomato, diced
1 green onion, chopped finely
2 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped finely
1 tsp pepper flakes (optional)

-Coarsely blend the olives and roasted red pepper in a food processor.
-Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.

feta cheese stuffing
1/2 cup feta cheese
1 tbsp fat leaf parsley, chopped finely
1 tbsp dill, chopped finely
1 tsp pepper flakes

-Smash feta with the back of a fork.
-Mix with parsley, dill, and pepper flakes.














For triangles, I divided each puff pastry sheet into 9 equal squares. I filled first 9 squares with olive stuffing and folded them into bundles. Brushed them with beaten egg yolk and put black seeds on top to tell them apart from the feta ones. I filled the other 9 squares with feta stuffing, again folded them into bundles, and brushed the tops with egg yolk.
Bake them at 400F until golden brown.

This recipe with flat leaf parsley and dill is perfect for tea time as well as breakfast, and also for Weekend Herb Blogging which was founded and is hosted by Kalyn of famous Kalyn's Kitchen.

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Black Olive Cake (Zeytinli Kek)

It's a gloomy, cloudy, rainy, and miserable Sunday. The best to do seemed like baking a cake, making Turkish tea, and watching a movie. I found this recipe from a very popular Turkish foodblog: Portakal Ağacı. Except for a couple of additions, I followed the recipe.

2 cups of chopped and pitted black olives (I was going low with my delicious Turkish olives, so I used canned olives)
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup plain yogurt
2 cups of flour
3 eggs
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint or 1 1/2 tbsp dried mint flakes
1 bunch green onions, chopped finely
1 tbsp red pepper flakes (if you want your cake to be a spicy one)
1 tbsp black seeds
1 1/2 tsp salt (depends on what kind of olives you use)
1 tsp baking powder



























-Beat the eggs and add yogurt and oil. Mix well.
-Add olives, green onion, mint, red pepper flakes, salt, and black seeds to the mixture and mix.
-Add baking powder and flour. You'll have a runny mixture.
-Pour in a greased oven dish. I used a 12 x 8 inches oval oven dish.
-Bake in for 40-50 minutes in a preheated oven at 375F.
-Let it sit for at least 15 minutes before you cut and serve.


This recipe which brings out the perfect harmony between mint and green onions has turned out so delicious that it'll go straight to Weekend Herb Blogging of Kalyn which is hosted by Anna of Anna's Cool Finds.

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Turkish Scrambled Eggs with Vegetables (Menemen)

Menemen can be defined in a couple of different ways such as Turkish breakfast specialty or lazy dinner option or great summer dish. However you define it, it's delicious. Best part of all is whether you are a great cook or a poor one, you cannot go wrong with menemen; the ingredients secure the taste. Must-have traditional ingredients for menemen are eggs, tomato, onion, peppers (preferably banana peppers), and parsley. I modify the traditional recipe by replacing onions with green onions and adding feta cheese.

Here's how I make menemen for four:

6 eggs, well-beaten
4 juicy tomatoes, diced (you can also use canned diced tomatoes; prefer petite diced ones or put regular one in blender for a couple of seconds)
3 green onions with tops, finely chopped
4 fresh peppers, finely chopped (I used red and orange Italian sweet peppers and 2 green chilies)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
2 tsp spicy pepper flakes
1 tsp black pepper
salt
1-2 tbsp oil or butter

Nothing is written in stone, so you can use more or less of anything above. You can use finely chopped onion instead of green onions, and you can also add pitted and chopped black olives.

-In a frying pan heat oil and add onion. Cook on medium until they're soft and then add fresh peppers.
-Once they're cooked, pour in tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Wait until tomatoes cook down a little. -Stir in beaten eggs and feta. Stir constantly.
-Right before eggs are cooked, add chopped parsley.
-Serve with bread.

This recipe with flat leaf parsley is for Weekend Herb Blogging which is founded by Kalyn and hosted by the Chocolate Lady from In Mol Araan.

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Turkish Omelette (Kaygana)

The first time I tried kaygana was 15 years ago when I was traveling in the Black Sea region with my family. There was a small authentic restaurant that served only Black Sea region food on the way to Sumela Monastery, in Trabzon province, and they served us kaygana along with other numerous delicious local food. Since I've always had a love-hate relationship with eggs, I was reluctant to taste it at first. But then it became my favorite egg dish. After our trip I couldn't find kaygana anywhere else, and that's why I believed it was a Black Sea dish; however, from Marianna Yerasimos' 500 Hundred Years of Ottoman Cuisine I learned that kaygana is an old Ottoman dish.

It seems that there are numerous ways of making kaygana. Yerasimos says that you can make "bread kaygana," "anchovy kaygana," or "eggplant kaygana" (mmmm). So it's a really flexible recipe with which you can go creative. You can make a sweet kaygana (by adding sugar, honey, or jam) as well as a savory one; it's all up to you. You can add peppers, green onions, feta cheese, sun dried tomatoes, mushroom, bacon, pepperoni, honey, etc. in the eggy mixture or you can make a plain kaygana and roll all those things with it just like you'd do with a crepe. I tried adding feta and parsley and it turned out great!

One last point: The recipe in Yerasimos' book is not the same as the one I tried in Trabzon, in that little restaurant. The reason is that they use corn flour in Black Sea region, whereas the recipe I used required white flour. But next time I'll try corn flour.

serves 1
2 eggs
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp water or milk
salt

1 tbsp butter or olive oil

2 tbsp finely chopped flat leaf parsley
1/3 cup crumbled feta (you can use more or less than this)
black pepper
red pepper flakes

-Put flour in a bowl and break eggs into the bowl. Mix well. Add water or milk, whichever you want, and mix again. [So far is the basic recipe. You may go ahead and cook it on frying pan with butter or oil, and then roll it with feta and parsley.]
-Add parsley, feta, black pepper, and pepper flakes to this mix and mix them all. (Since feta was already very salty, I didn't add salt).
-Heat oil in a frying pan. Add either one scoop at a time for small rounds or the whole mix for a big one. When one side is cooked, flip it over.

This recipe with my favorite herb flat leaf parsley, which is great for a lazy weekend breakfast, is for Weekend Herb Blogging which was founded by Kalyn and is hosted by Ed of Tomato this weekend.

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Turkish Feta-Potato Rolls (Fırında Sigara Böreği)

Sigara Böreği literally means "cigarette pastry" in Turkish and they are usually deep fried. However, I didn't want to have a heavy snack, so instead I baked them with instructions from my mom.

Yufka, Turkish filo dough, is not as thin as the Greek one that you can find frozen at the stores here in States; it is usually round 15-20 inches in diameter. It is not easy to find Turkish filo dough here, but the Greek one is too thin and delicate for me to handle. So I decided to go online; the Turkish filo dough I used for these cigarette pastries is available at Tulumba.

1 pack of Turkish triangle filo dough (there were 28 pieces)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp yogurt
2 eggs (put aside one egg yolk to brush the tops)

for stuffing
2 medium size potatoes, peeled and boiled
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/3 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 tsp black pepper (optional)

black seeds
sesame seeds

-Mash the potato, feta, parsley, and spices with the back of a fork (you can use only potato or feta for stuffing. you don't need to salt the stuffing if you'll use feta, but if not, make sure you salt it)
-Mix olive oil, yogurt, and 2 eggs(-1 egg yolk; we're saving one egg yolk for brushing). Put one layer of filo dough and brush with the mixture. Put the second one on top and brush it again (not to have dry pastries, we need two layers of filo dough wetted with oily yogurt sauce). Place one spoonful of stuffing on the wide side of filo dough. Fold the sides and roll. (Wet the tiny end with the yoogurty sauce if it doesn't stick) Place them on a greased oven tray.
-After you roll all of them, beat the egg yolk that you set aside. Brush it on top of rolls and sprinkle sesame or black seeds, or both.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for 20-30 minutes until they're golden brown.


























If you want to try them deep fried, you don't need the olive oil+yogurt+egg sauce. Take only one layer of filo dough, put the stuffing, roll, and deep fry it in a ligther oil like vegetable, corn, or canola oil until golden brown. ( Wet the tiny end of filo dough with water to stick) Place on a paper towel to soak excessive oil.

These pastries are good for breakfast or/and with tea. They're good for storing for emergencies, too. Just put them in the freezer seperately until frozen, then gather them in a bag/box until they're needed.

I don't know if you like savory and sweet things together, but you should try dipping your cigarette pastry in any kind of jam (my favorite is cherry), which is, I guess, a very Thracian thing to do in Turkey.

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Dill-Feta Poğaça (Dereotlu Peynirli Poğaça)

Poğaça, a kind of savory pastry / bread, is a traditional baked good in Turkey and Eastern European+Balkanic countries which at some point in history were under the Ottoman rule long enough to adopt its cuisine. Poğaças are best with (black) tea. In Turkey, people would have them for breakfast from a neighborhood patisserie on their way to work or school, or for afternoon tea time.

Usually poğaças are made in half-moon shape. Several pieces of round dough, 3-5 inch in diameter, would be filled with stuffing (variations on stuffing are numerous: feta cheese, potato, ground meat, spinach, cheddar, onion, etc) and folded in to two for the half-moon shape. This recipe, however, doesn't require the traditional half-moon shape.

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup oil (vegetable, corn, or conola)
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs (egg yolk of one should be set aside to brush the tops of poğaças)
2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 - 3 cup flour
1 cup crumbled feta
1 bunch dill, chopped finely
1/4 cup (Turkish) black olives, pitted and sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper flakes (optional)
black and sesame seeds


















-Except for one egg-yolk and black + sesame seeds, mix all the ingredients.
-Using your hands make small balls of dough and place them on a greased baking sheet.
-Brush them with egg-yolk and sprinkle black or sesame seeds on top.
-Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F for 40-50 minutes or until the pogacas are slightly brown.






















Try definitely with tea.

This week's Weekend Herb Blogging is hosted by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen who is the founder of the event. After three recipes with parsley, I decided to give a chance to another precious herb: dill.

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Bread Topped with Tomato-Parsley et al (Fırında Domates ve Maydanozlu Ekmek)

When I was a kid, the biggest torture for me was to have stale bread for breakfast, and this recipe was my mom's genius invention to market stale bread to us. It worked well; it is still my favorite breakfast. Everything you expect from a Turkish breakfast is here on a slice of bread: tomatoes, feta cheese, olives, parsley, banana peppers, and eggs. Those little slices loaded with deliciousness go well with (Turkish) tea at both breakfast and afternoon-tea time.

Must-haves of this recipe are stale "real" bread (never ever use any kind of toast bread or freshly baked "real" bread, since they both get really soaky with tomato juice), fresh tomatoes, banana peppers, feta cheese, parsley, and an egg. The rest is up to you; you can add, remove, or modify the ingredients.

1 French baguette, sliced (I use French bread, because it tastes more Turkish to me than any other bread; however, you can also use sourdough, whole wheat, whole grain, etc.)
2 fresh tomatoes, petite diced
1 banana peppers, chopped
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup black olives, pitted and chopped
1 egg
1/3 bunch parsley, finely chopped
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp crushed pepper
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tbsp olive oil
salt (how much salt you will use depends on what kind of feta cheese you have; if it's a really salty one you may not even need salt)

With these ingredients, I could top 18 slices of French baguette.












-Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Place the tomato mixture on bread slices with a spoon. If the bread is "really" stale, use the juice from the bottom of the bowl to wet the top of the bread slice. Place the bread slices on a broiler tray
-There will be some juice left in the bowl. Put some on top of each slice
-Broil 6-7 inches below heat until slightly brown. Approximately 8-10 minutes

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