Sultan's Kitchen. Ozcan Ozan
Sarmısaklı Yoğurt Sos Yogurt-Garlic Sauce MAKES 1 2/3 CUPS
This popular sauce is traditionally served with grilled and stuffed vegetable dishes, pilafs, and böreks (savory pastries). It is also served with plain cooked greens, such as spinach or Swiss chard.
1 2/3 cups plain yogurt
4 garlic cloves, minced
Salt
In a small bowl, whisk the yogurt, garlic, and salt until the mixture is very smooth. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the sauce for at least 15 minutes to allow the flavor of the garlic to blend with the yogurt.
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Beyaz fistikli Tarator Pine Nut Sauce MAKES 1 2/3 CUPS
Serve this sauce with grilled meat and fish or as a dip for raw vegetables. It is also delicious made with chopped walnuts instead of the pine nuts.
1 slice day-old white bread, crusts removed
1 cup pine nuts 1
Teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Soak the slice of bread in water briefly and squeeze out excess water.
Place the pine nuts, garlic, lemon juice, and bread in a food processor and process while slowly putting in the olive oil. Add 2 tablespoons cold water and process until the mixture is smooth. Season with salt. Transfer the sauce to a bowl and refrigerate it for 1 hour before serving, to allow the flavors to blend.
~ Pine Nut Sauce (page 13), Onion Relish (page 15), and Aegean Sauce (page 13)
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Aci Kirmizi Biber Salçasi
Red Hot Pepper Paste
MAKES 1 CUP
Use as a flavoring for soups, and serve with meats and fish.
1 pound red chili peppers, cored and seeded
1 pound red bell peppers, cored and seeded
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Place the chili peppers and bell peppers in 1 1/2 quarts boiling water and cook for 15 minutes, or until they're softened. Drain them and let them cool. Peel the skins from the peppers. Place them in a blender or a food processor fitted with a metal blade and puree until smooth.
Transfer the puree to a saucepan over very low heat, add the sugar and season with salt. Simmer, uncovered, for about 25 minutes. Let the mixture cool to room temperature (about 1 hour). Pour it into a glass jar, add the vinegar, and stir. Pour the olive oil in gently so it stays in a layer on top of the pepper paste. Cover the jar and store it in the refrigerator. The paste will stay good refrigerated for up to three months. Stir the paste before serving.
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Terbiye Egg and Lemon Sauce MAKES 1 1/2 CUPS
This sauce is served over stuffed grape leaves, stuffed Swiss chard, and meat-stuffed vegetables (sarmas and dolmas).
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (page 58) or water
4 egg yolks
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Salt
Slowly bring the chicken stock to a boil in a small saucepan. Meanwhile, in a small nonreactive bowl, combine the egg yolks, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Slowly whisk in this mixture to the boiling stock. Simmer for about 2 minutes until thickened. Serve warm over sarmas or dolmas.
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Soğan Piyazı Onion Relish MAKES 1 3/4 CUPS
Serve this relish as an accompaniment to grilled meat or fish. Squeezing the sliced onions helps extract the juice so it blends with the other flavors.
2 medium red onions, thinly sliced
Salt
2 teaspoons sumac
2 teaspoons Turkish pepper or ground red pepper
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
Place the onion slices in a bowl, season with salt and squeeze them a few times with your fingers to extract some of the juice. Add the sumac, Turkish red pepper, and parsley. Mix them together well.
MEZE APPETIZERS
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TURKISH CUISINE IS PERHAPS BEST known for its seemingly endless variety of hot and cold dishes that make up a meze. A meze (literally, "table") can be-and often is-served as an entire meal. It changes with the seasons and locale—according to what foods are available-but is constant in its abundance of choices. Fish restaurants along the coast serve specialty meze consisting of an array of seafood dishes prepared with squid, shrimp, octopus, mussels, or that most enticing of dishes-—resh sardines wrapped in grape leaves, which are eaten in late summer.
Seasonal vegetables are cooked in olive oil and flavored with herbs, a method called zeytinyağlı Dolmalar (dolmas) are vegetables like peppers, artichokes, and eggplants, that are stuffed with rice, pine nuts, currants, and even meat. leafy vegetables like grape leaves that are rolled around the stuffing are called sarmalar (sarmas). (Many people mistakenly call stuffed grape leaves dolmas). Vegetable dishes in a meze are invariably served with Sarmısaklı Yogurt Sos, a tangy yogurt-garlic sauce (page 13).
Eggplant, perhaps the most used vegetable in Turkish cuisine, is prepared in a number of ways for meze. Small eggplants stuffed with onion, garlic, tomato, and parsley make up the classic Imam Bayıldı. In Pathcan Salatası, char-grilled eggplant is cut into pieces and mixed with tomatoes and grilled peppers. Pathcan Ezmesi is a pureed eggplant dish-ezmesi means "pureed." Tomatoes, spinach, chickpeas, dried fava beans, and fava beans are also prepared this way.
A meze always includes sliced soft white cheese (beyaz peynir, which is like feta cheese), peeled and sliced ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, pistachios, fresh almonds, melons (when in season), and olives that are drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice and sprinkled with herbs. Fresh-baked bread is placed on the table, too. These dishes are traditionally enjoyed with the popular Turkish drink raki—or "lion's milk" as it is often called-an anise-flavored liqueur that turns white when it is mixed with water.
What makes a meze such a good way to feed guests is that most of the food can be prepared a day in advance. Though a simple meze consists of as few as three dishes, for special occasions a selection of four or five vegetable dishes cooked in oil and stuffed vegetable dishes is arranged on the table alongside böreks, freshly baked bread, and tasty salads. Sometimes char-grilled fish or meat is also served.