Cooking in Istanbul

Location: Cooking Alaturka
Akbiyik Caddesi 72a, Sultanahmet, ISTANBUL

My dear husband, who knows me all too well, signed me up to a Turkish cooking class while we were in Istanbul. I had a thoroughly good time with Eveline, Chef Feyzi, Tom, Charlotte and Linda.

The 4 course menu consist of the following:

Yayla Corbasi
"Meadow Soup" or "Hot yogurt soup with dried mint"




Sorry the soup looked so appetizing that I ate it up without taking a picture! It was absolutely a different flavour for me because I am not accustomed to having yogurt in soups, yet absolutely delicious. It does stimulate different parts of my palate.

Ingredients
1/2 cup rice
8 cups stock
1/2 cup milk
1 cup thick yogurt
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 1/2 tbsp flour
2 egg yolks
1 cup water
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Wash and drain the rice, then boil until tender in the stock. Add milk.

Beat the yogurt, flour, lemon juice and egg yolks with the water in a bowl. Add salt, black pepper and cumin, mix well.

Add a little of the dried mint and red pepper flakes to the stock.

Melt the butter in a separate pot and add the rest of the dried mint and red pepper flakes. Add the butter to the stock when goldren brown coloured.

Pour a little of the hot stock into this liaison mixture and then pour back into the main pan. Stirring continuously, bring to boil over alow heat and continute cooking for another 5 minutes.


Zeytinyagli taze fasulye
Green beans in olive oil

Kabak meuveri
Zucchini patties with herbs and cheese



I am not really a beans person but the vegetables are so delicious! My daughter loves the Zucchini patties which is fairly healthy too.

Hunkar begendili kuzu
Lamb stew in tomato sauce in smoky eggplant puree



Now this is absolutely delicious! The lamb stew may look spicy but the heat does not assault you as they would in Malay cooking, but its more gentle and subtle. And I love eggplants! Just making this dish makes me appreciate the effort it takes to grills and skin the eggplants after! And I love the taste of the sweet chilli that goes with the dish.


Incir tatlisi
Walnut stuffed figs in syrup



And now I know what I can do with dried figs! Especially those which are way too dry to eat my themselves. The figs became juicy and sweet without it being too sweet.

I had a wonderful morning cooking with Eveline, Feyzi, Tom, Charlotte and Linda. As usual the conversation gets pretty interesting. Charlotte is a dancer who decided to travel while she is in between jobs. Through her I then realize that the Hamam was co-ed, not just for men.

Tom is a Doctor from Australia on holiday. We met him in the tram at a later time and he told us about his wonderful trip to the Asian side, (something we didn't plan on doing) and we went with his recommendation and had a good time.

Linda, told us a trip she took with Dr Spencer Wells on The Genographic project. That got us really interested to know about our genetic journey.

Eveline, a Dutch, who has been in Turkey for 11 years used to run a hotel until the landlord decided to sell the building off. She decided to run the restaurant and cooking class full time until she decides what else to do next. She came in the country and fell in love with the place and the culture and decided to find a way to stay, which she did.

For me, it was just amazing how in one morning, I not only learned more about Turkish cooking and cuisine but also met 5 more people who taught me about new things which I would have not known before.

Pasta class

I have decided that I am a bit obsessed with food. Luckily for me my DH is a bit like that too. When he saw Chef Marrianne M's flyer for the pasta class, he encouraged me to sign up.

So I spent one morning with The Chef and 10 other ladies making pasta.

First Chef Marianne showed us how simple it was to make gnocchi.



Gnocchi will always remind me of my Italian teacher back in London. Its fast and easy to make and reminds her of the comfort of home cooked meal.

The recipe for Gnocchi

1/2 kg potatoes
1 egg
170 g flour
2 spoons of grated parmesan
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes with skin on. Drain, peel the skin and press the potato through a sieve. Mix the potato with flour, eggs, parmesan and nutmeg.

Roll the dough into a slim cylindrical shape. Cut them up into 1 1/2 cm pieces and dust with flour to prevent them from drying out.

To cook them, put them in boiling water. The gnocchi will float to the surface when they are ready.


The gnocchi is served in a meat ragu tuscan style. Its delicious!



Then Chef showed us a fussy-free method to make pasta. And I have to say I am enthralled by her pasta attachment for her Kitchen Aid mixer. I've never seen this attachment before as previously I have only worked with the manual one. And I can tell you that this Kitchen Aid makes pasta making a breeze!



From the pasta sheets, she showed us how to make tortellini and ravioli. Usually its tortellini when the filling is meat and ravioli when the filling is cheese.

In this case she used a combination of ricotta, cream cheese, grate parmesan and the lemon peel.






The meat tortellini in asparagus bouillon was really wonderful. It was light and fresh especially with the crunch of the asparagus.




The ricotta ravioli in red pepper sauce was a little bit sweet because I accidentally tipped the bag of sugar in the saucepan. I found the sauce familiar yet unique as I have never quite tasted the red pepper sauce.


Guess which kitchen gadget I'll be looking out for next! ;)

Chocolate delight

I attended a "chocolate" class with Chef MM For me, these classes are not just about the knowledge about food that I obtained but also the friends I meet and the different cultures I get to learn.



D & B are preparing the chocolate truffles. The three of us took cooking classes at Four seasons about 2 years ago. It was great to catch up with them again.




Peach salad



Chocolate parfait with peach salad



Chocolate Mousse with chilli sauce



Chef MM showed us how to roll the chocolate truffles in our palms before dunking them in cocao powder.



I had so much fun and had a huge chocolate rush that I forgot to take more pictures of the truffles! Since it was a toss up between sampling the food and taking photographs, guess which one I chose to do?


Since then I have made some chocolate mousse and its a hit!

Cooking class with Chef Marianne Mussi

Starter

Potato creme soup
Served with spiced sausage, crispy coutons
And Sherry fillet

Main course

Oregano/lemon stuffed chicken
Potato rosti and parsley Fume

Dessert

Vanilla parfait with caramel sauce
And strawberry salad

Chef MM made everything looked so easy and everything we, yes we all had a hand in preparing the food we got to eat, made was amazingly delicious from simple ingredients that can be bought locally.

The potato creme soup was smooth and delicious. the sausage added an extra zing and the fish added another texture for the soup.









The chicken and rosti was amazingly simple to make and she even showed us how to serve the dish gourmet style.

And the parfait is to die for!!! I was so inspired and excited after the class that I made some immediately the same afternoon!

Out of respect to Chef MM I will not be posting the recipes for her dishes here but please email me privately if you are interested. In the meantime I will ask her views about this.

Can I give up dairy products?

I have to confess that I am a big consumer of dairy products. As a student I used to buy the gallon size skim milk and drank it like I would water. Back home milk wasn't as delicious but I would still pay the premium for fresh milk.

And I haven't started telling you about Gold Top milk from the guernsey ad jersey cow! Boy their milk is just oh so creamy and I'm salivating as I'm writing this. And just half an hour ago I had strawberries with double cream. I love that stuff.

And cheese. What would life be like without cheese? No Muller?

So why this crazy talk about giving up dairy products? Well two sources I've heard so far are suggesting that I should give up milk products, one from a homeopathy standpoint and the other, from Skinny bitch. (Then again they also recommend going vegan. Yucks!)

Does this mean I will never be skinny?

Nasi Dagang , Star Wars Marathon and Urban Legend

Over the weekend the local cable station had a back-t0-back Star Wars marathon. I am not a fan. But my beloved and some of his friends were. He railroaded our friend with the largest TV to host a Star Wars martahon party at his house and we all went over to watch the Star Wars movie.

When I said "we" I meant the men, who during the duration of the 7 hours we were at that house. sat with eyes glued to the TV except breaks for solat, short walks to the buffet table and toilet breaks. The other "we," namely the womenfolk sat at the dinning table, ate and exchanged stories and gossip.

I managed to find a lady who makes delicious Nasi Dagang here and was overjoyed when I found out that she was willing to cook it for me. Yahooo! I ordered two sets, one to bring to the party and another set for me to keep at home which I had for dinner the following day.

It was still delicious the following day! I resteamed the rice and it was fabulous!

One of the current hot topics is about the possible existence of a certain "album" containing pictures of women who are interested in looking for a spouse. That bit wasn't that interesting. Rumour has it that THE album was shown and seen by certain MBAs. No not those with the Masters in Business, rather the Married but Available variety of men.

Rumour has it, some women have banned their husbands from going to the house where THE ALBUM is kept.

I for one, am tempted to approach the owner of the album myself, to ask to view it. Not that I am interested in looking for a wife, no. But rather to see if the album really exist or if it is merely an urban legend.

Another rumour has been confirmed as a fact. An MBA did marry wife no 2 here. Wife no 1 is back in Malaysia apparently oblivious to the new development in her husband. Everyone else remarked how wife no 1 was fair and pretty and didn't understand why wife no 2 was taken on board.

The man in question is one of those who was very quiet and looked very pious. Often seen with a kopiah on his head. Actually I don't think I have seen him sans his kopiah. Perhaps the white skullcaps cover the horns very well?

Oh well.

I have started asking around who would be interested in inheriting the steamer I bought in Pekan Rabu or the mortar and pestle (or is it pestle and mortar) I had bought in Saco. I never did use it except when MIL came to visit.

I still don't know if we are staying or moving. I have to start packing soon. I hate packing! But the last thing I want to happen is to find out that we are really moving and I havent packed a thing! I know I have way too much stuff, some I inherited from friends who left so its time I passed it on.

We ended the nite with making arrangements to meet again.

Good friends and good food makes a good insulation when living here. I think one of the things I would really miss most if we move is their company. If we don't move we'll continue to make plans for winter hopefully.


PS Thank you everyone for your comments and opinions. At the moment the status of my move is still "pending."