Knidos Cookery Club recently entertained Professor Fox, that doyen of the Christchurch Antiquarians, who came over to Turkey to check out the ruins of Knidos and some archaeological sites in the Datça area such as Burgaz (Old Knidos).
Here’s a slideshow of our visit to Knidos:
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After the trip we needed something quick and filling so this time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’ll be cooking pasta in a tasty sauce using only one pan.
KCC’s one pot wonder in progress
This one pot wonder saves time, energy and washing up, both important considerations in the world of KCC after a busy day on the archaeological trail.
KCC’s one pot wonder – the finished product
Ingredients (serves 2-3)
Three medium-sized tomatoes (approx 150 g)
50 g olives (any you have handy will do, we used some green ones)
150 g cooked chick peas
200 g pasta (penne, fusilli or spaghetti works well)
500 ml hot water
15 g capers
One garlic clove
25 ml olive oil
One teaspoon dried thyme
One teaspoon sumac
One teaspoon chilli flakes
Method
Chop the tomatoes into quarters and add to a large, heavy-based pan with the olives, chick peas, minced garlic, olive oil, thyme, sumac and chilli flakes. Pour the water over the top, add the pasta, stir and bring to a boil.
Cook the pasta as per the instructions on the pack over a medium to high heat – you need to keep it bubbling away and stir occasionally. Keep cooking until the most of the liquid is boiled off, leaving the cooked pasta in the sauce.
The type of pasta we used took around 15 minutes to cook – try it as you go to get the type of taste you prefer. Don’t forget to stir in the washed capers to the pasta and sauce when it is cooked.
Serve straight from the pan and garnish, if you want, with shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano (Parmesan) cheese.
This week saw the 100th anniversary of Russia’s October Revolution, which led to the creation of the Soviet Union. To mark this momentous occasion in world history, Knidos Cookery Club has turned to a soup made from the close relative of a vegetable that was at the heart of Soviet cuisine – the humble cabbage.
KCC’s cabbage soup with brown bread
The cabbage, and soups such as shchi that were made from it, was a mainstay of the Soviet diet. I remember hearing jokes about it when I was a lad such as this gem:
Q. What’s three miles long and eats cabbage?
A. A Soviet meat queue.
We’ve used Chinese cabbage as a twist on the traditional recipe that uses the more familiar member of the Brassica family and spiced up the mix with a few Shiitake mushrooms and some chilli powder.
It makes a great accompaniment, along with a few shots of vodka, to October: Ten Days that Shook the World, the classic 1928 Soviet silent classic directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov (which is available on BBC iPlayer until the end of this November).
The film was based on John Reed’s book of the same name, which told the story of the revolution from the abdication of the last Czar to the Bolshevik seizure of power. Another good read on the same topic follows Lenin on the Train, an account by Catherine Merridale of Lenin’s trip back to Petrograd on the eve of the revolution.
Ingredients (serves 4)
300 g shredded Chinese cabbage
2 medium onions
1 green pepper
4 dried mushrooms (rehydrated)
2 garlic cloves
2 medium tomatoes
25 ml cooking oil (sunflower or another neutral, refined oil)
1 litre vegetable stock
1 bayleaf
Pinch of black pepper
One teaspoon red chilli flakes
Dash of soy sauce
Rye bread (or a similar hearty brown bread)
Method
You’ll need a good hearty stock for this soup, so prepare some in advance or use stock cubes. Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and then add the chopped onions and garlic. Cook for 10 minutes or so over a medium heat – while it’s cooking chop up the mushrooms and green pepper and then add to the mix,
Stir and cook for five more minutes then add the chopped tomatoes, black pepper, chilli flakes and bayleaf and cook until the tomatoes start to collapse. Then add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil.
Next add the shredded cabbage and cook for ten minutes or so until the cabbage is tender. Add soy sauce, remove the bay leaf and serve with brown or black bread and a shot of vodka!
There are a lot of similarities between Turkish and Greek cuisine with both claiming baklava as their own and many other shared dishes, but there are also some striking differences. One variation we’ve noticed on our travels around Turkey and Greece has been with the dish known as fava in both countries.
Fava à la Grecque
Last week we featured Turkey’s take on fava, made with broad beans, so this week we’re going to balance things up and have a look at Greece’s take on this dish, which is made with yellow split peas.
Ingredients for fava à la Grecque
These dried peas proved quite hard to track down in Turkey – most supermarkets don’t stock them, but we eventually found them on sale in Datça market, mixed in with a few lentils and whole grains for good measure!
Greece’s version of this dish is runnier than Turkey’s, more like a hummus consistency, so it’s more suitable to use as a dip or spread. We’ve added some sumac to bring together these two esteemed cuisines in a spirit of gastronomic entente cordiale!
Ingredients (makes 6-8 healthy servings)
250 g yellow split peas, soaked in cold water for 1-2 hours
One medium red onion
One garlic clove
One teaspoon dried thyme
25 ml olive oil
500 ml water
Juice of one lemon
Pinches of salt and black pepper
Use a pinch of sumac, slices of red onion and a squeeze of lemon juice to garnish the fava
Method
Fry the finely chopped onion and garlic in the olive oil over a medium to high heat until the onions start to caramelise. Add the split peas and thyme, season with salt and pepper and stir well. Pour in the water, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so until all the liquid is absorbed.
Allow the cooked mixture to cool for ten minutes and then use a hand blender to make it into a smooth paste. As you’re blending the mix, add the lemon juice to give it a creamier consistency.
Use a pinch of sumac, slices of red onion and a squeeze of lemon juice to garnish the fava and thenserve warm with crusty bread and a green salad.
In keeping with the ‘Waste not, want not‘ mantra, this week we’ll be using some radish greens in a mini quiche.
Often discarded, these peppery leaves taste great when fried up with some spring onion, garlic and a dash of soy sauce.
Ingredients ( makes four mini-quiches)
150 g radish leaves
1 radish (for decoration)
2 spring onions
1 garlic clove
Dash of soy sauce
60 g crumbly white cheese
2 eggs
25 ml olive oil
150 g filo pastry or shortcrust pastry
Method
Saute the chopped onions and garlic in a little olive oil in a heavy-based pan for 2-3 minutes, add a dash of soy sauce and then add the radish leaves and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the leaves start to wilt.
Allow the mix to cool for ten minutes then mix in the eggs and cheese. Prepare cases in small baking dishes with the filo pastry, brushing each filo leaf with olive oil.
Pour the mix into each pastry case to half way and then bake for 20 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 180 c.
Garnish with radish slices and serve with a green salad laced with more sliced radish!
Knidos Cookery Club would like to say a big thank you to all its readers who voted for the site in the 2017 Saveur Food Blog awards!
This time round we’re looking once again to Turkey’s north-eastern neighbour Georgia for some culinary inspiration. Adjapsandali, a popular dish in this mountainous former Soviet country, is Georgia’s spicier take on ratatouille.
Adjapsandali with green beans and potato
This summer stew relies on a holy trinity of aubergine, tomato and peppers with whatever else is in season thrown into the mix. We’ve added some green beans and some potato to give the dish a heartier edge, but these can be omitted and other seasonal veggies like courgettes and carrots can be used – there’s no hard and fast rules, it’s up to you!
The adjapsandali ingredients in the raw
It can be served up with all the veggies collapsing into a sublime sauce-rich stew or the veggies can be left on the firmer side, as in our example. Served with rice, it makes a meal on its own, but it is also great with salads and other Georgian staples such as pkhali.
Ingredients (makes 4 generous servings)
300 g potatoes
300 g aubergines
250 g tomatoes
2 red peppers
200 g green beans
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
50 ml olive oil
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
2 teaspoons fresh basil
3 bayleaves
Method
Roughly chop up all the vegetables and throw them into a large, heavy-based pan. Pour the olive oil over the vegetables, add the herbs and spices and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes or so stirring occasionally. Turn the heat down to low and cook for another 20-30 minutes until all the vegetables are cooked and beginning to break up.
Sprinkle with fresh basil and serve with crusty bread or rice and a selection of salads such as tomato, cucumber and onion with a walnut dressing and starters such as pkhali.
Last week in Datça market piles of psychedelic pink-podded barbunya beans arrayed against their green-podded cousins caught our eye. In Turkey these distinctive beans, also known as borlotti or cranberry beans, are made into a starter called barbunya pilaki, which is always high on our list when ordering a spread of mezeler.
Psychedelic pink barbunya beans piled high in Datça market
There’s something very therapeutic about podding these beans, like a beanish mindfulness moment! Our kilo of beans in their pods yielded around 600 g of pink-marbled white beans.
Bean therapy!
When cooked and allowed to cool, the pink colour leaches out and the beans take on a delicate brown hue. They’re delicious stewed with olive oil, onion, carrot, potato and lemon juice, served with a sprinkling of fresh parsley and a chunk of lemon. Some recipes omit the potato, but we think this gives the dish more oomph and means you don’t need to cook up any additional carbs.
Heat the olive oil into a heavy-based pan, chop the onion and garlic finely and fry over a medium heat for five minutes or so. Add the chopped tomatoes, lower the heat and cook for another five minutes.
Dice the carrot and potato into small cubes and then add these along with the beans, the juice of half a lemon, the honey, chili flakes and hot water to the pan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the beans are cooked but not going mushy.
Serve hot or allow to cool and garnish with fresh parsley and lemon slices.
This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’ve been busy stuffing courgette flowers, a popular starter all around the Aegean Sea. In Turkey, these delicate taste-bud ticklers, known as kabak çiçeği dolması, are stuffed with a rice mixture and baked, unlike their Italian cousins which are filled with ricotta cheese and deep fried.
Succulent stuffed courgette flower power
The courgette, zucchini to our north American readers, is a really versatile vegetable – in the past we’ve used it in a tasty fritter mücver, stuffed courgettes and in a creamy almond dip, and it’s great that we’ve found a use for its flowers as well.
If you’re growing your own courgettes, then you should have a ready supply of flowers, otherwise you may need to scour your local farmers’ market for these vivid orange blossoms.
Ingredients
20-25 courgette flowers
One cup (approx. 100g) of short or long grain rice (We recommend brown rice for its earthier flavour)
250 ml vegetable stock
One medium-sized onion
One medium-sized tomato
One garlic clove
Pinches of dried thyme, oregano, black pepper, chili pepper flakes, cinnamon and salt
5 g fresh parsley
5 g fresh mint
25 g raisins
25 g pine nuts
25 ml olive oil for frying
Juice of one lemon
One sliced lemon
100 ml natural yogurt
Method
Pour the olive oil into a heavy-based pan and add the chopped onion and garlic. Cook over a medium heat until the onion becomes translucent. Add the chopped tomato, dried and fresh herbs, seasoning, dried fruit and pine nuts and cook for five minutes over a high heat.
Turn the heat down and add the washed and soaked rice to the onion mix and stir to cover the grains with oil. Add the stock and cook over a low heat until the liquid is absorbed.
Make sure that the courgette flowers are free from any green, leafy bits or stem and remove the stamen from the inside of the flower. Allow the rice mixture to cool and then fill each flower with a teaspoon of rice mix – don’t overfill them as the rice will continue to expand as it cooks.
Fold the end of the blossom together to seal the rice mix in and place the filled flowers into a heavy based frying pan or casserole dish. Pour water over the flowers to just cover them, add a generous glug of olive oil and the lemon juice, put a lid on the pan and cook over a low heat until all the water is absorbed.
Leaving the pan covered, let the cooked courgette flowers rest for 30 minutes or so with the heat turned off and then serve with lemon slices and a dollop of natural yogurt.
To celebrate this spring equinox festival, we’ll be serving up kok samsa, deep-fried pies filled with a selection of spring greens.
Seven tastes of spring: parsley, spinach, coriander, celeriac leaves, spring onion, garlic and mint
Originating in Persia some 3,000 years ago, Nowruz, or New Day, is a celebration of the end of winter and the start of a new year on the date when day and night are equal in the Northern Hemisphere. This date usually falls on or around 21 March.
The holiday is still widely celebrated in Iran and Iraq, across Central Asia, Russia, Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, in eastern Turkey and in parts of Syria, India, Pakistan and China. Food plays an important role in these celebrations – in Iran the table is set with seven items, as explained in this article from Iran Wire:
A few weeks before Nowruz, Iranians begin setting up their haft sin, or “seven Ss,” a ceremonial display of symbolic items whose names begin with the Persian letter “sin” or “s.” They include “sabzeh,” or green sprouts grown from lentils, which symbolize rebirth; “samanu,” a sweet pudding that represents affluence, “senjed,” or dried wild olives, which symbolize love; “seer,” or garlic, which symbolizes medicine; “seeb,” an apple, which represents health; “somaq” or sumac fruit, which symbolizes the color of sunrise, and “serkeh,” or vinegar, which symbolises maturity.
Kok samsa, a close relative of India’s samosa, are prepared in Uzbekistan, where the holiday is called Navruz. These tasty pies are filled with fresh spring greens.
We’ve developed our own take on the kok samsa using the Iranian magic number of seven ingredients: parsley, spinach, coriander, celeriac leaves, spring onion, garlic and mint. As fully signed-up members of Dillwatch, we omitted that scurrilous weed, dill, from this recipe.
KCC’s Kok samsa with seven spring herbs inside
Ingredients (makes 8-10 pies)
For the Pastry
300 g plain flour
75 ml olive oil
Pinch of salt
Up to 75 ml cold water
Two – three teaspoons of sesame seeds
2. For the Filling
150 g spring onions
2 garlic cloves
50 g fresh coriander
50 g fresh parsley
150 g spinach
25 g the leafy bits from the top of a celeriac
15 g fresh mint
Two teaspoons of cumin seeds
25 ml olive oil
3. For Deep Frying
1 litre sunflower oil (for deep frying)
Method
1.For the Pastry
Pour the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the salt. Pour in the olive oil and stir with a fork. The mixture should form into small clumps of flour and oil. Pour some of the cold water and continue mixing. Continue adding water until the mixture forms into a large ball shape. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
2. For the Filling
Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based pan and add the chopped spring onions and minced garlic. Fry for five minutes over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the coriander and parsley and cumin and fry for two to three minutes. Add the torn up spinach leaves, chopped celeriac leaves and mint and continue cooking until the spinach has wilted, about 10 more minutes or so, stirring every now and then.
3. For Deep Frying
Heat the sunflower oil in a heavy-based pan. For deep frying you need to get the oil to around 180 c – to check the temperature use this tip from Delishably:
When the oil has preheated, dip the handle of a wooden spoon or a chopstick into the oil. If the oil starts steadily bubbling, then the oil is hot enough for frying. If the oil bubbles very very vigorously, then the oil is too hot and needs to cool off a touch. If no or very few bubbles pop up, then it’s not hot enough.
While the oil is heating, prepare the pies. Form the pastry into 8-10 walnut-sized balls. Put the pastry ball onto a lightly floured surface and roll out into a 1 mm thick circle. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and turn the circle over.
Place three teaspoons of filling on half of the pastry round and then close the other half over the top of the filling. Use a fork to mould the edges of the pie together. Prick the pie’s top to allow air to escape.
Place two or three pies at a time in the hot oil and fry for around 8 minutes or until the pie is golden brown in colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen roll. Serve the kok samsa either hot or cold.
This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re off to Turkey’s far north-east corner and across the border into Georgia. This mountainous country shares some dishes in common with the people of Turkey’s Black Sea coast such as the bread and cheese concoction known as khachapuriin Georgia, pide in Turkey.
Georgian dishes rely on both fresh and dried local ingredients. The diet is generally meat-heavy – this point was crudely pushed home last year when outraged sausage-wielding activists attacked Kiwi Café, a vegan café in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, throwing chunks of meat and fish at diners, but there are lots of options for non-carnivores as its cuisine also features a wide range of veggie dishes.
Georgia’s location on a number of east-west trade routes heading through the Caucasus Mountains has seen different influences make their mark on its eating culture over the years, with spices playing a key role.
KCC’s new brunch treat –lobiani sausagiani
Dried beans, or lobio, walnuts, pomegranates and spices like coriander and blue fenugreek give a distinctive taste to the local fare. Cheese also features strongly on the Georgian table, from the versatile sulguni, an elastic, brined cheese akin to mozzarella, that can be deep fried to the fresh white imeruli cheese.
Georgia’s dried red beans are made into a dish calledlobio, that, depending on the region of the country it’s prepared in, can be like a soup, a stew or re-fried beans. It is usually cooked in a clay pot and sometimes comes with a thin layer of bread as a cover on top. Mashed red beans are also cooked inside bread in a dish called lobiani.
We’ve decided to do our own take on a lobio dish, and to get our own back on those meat-wielding activists, by making a Georgian-influenced veggie sausage, to be served as part of a brunch or main meal.
Ingredients (makes 8-10 sausages)
200 g dried red beans, soaked overnight
100 g red lentils (one cup)
150 g fine bulgur wheat (1.5 cups)
50 g chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon dried coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon red chili flakes
25 ml olive oil for frying the sausages
1 tablespoon plain flour
Method
Soak the beans overnight and then cook for an hour or so over a low heat until the beans are cooked and beginning to break up. Drain and reserve the cooking water , then mash the beans roughly.
Wash the lentils until the water goes clear and then place in a pan with the water from the cooked beans – add more water so the lentils are covered by 2 cm of liquid. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes or so. The lentils should be going mushy and there should be about 1 cm of water covering the lentils – add more water if necessary.
Add the washed bulgur wheat to the cooked lentils and blend well. Allow to stand for 30 minutes or so and then add the toasted, chopped walnuts and the mashed beans. Then grind the spices together and add to the mix. Leave overnight in the fridge to allow the flavours to blend.
Sprinkle some flour on a chopping board and roll lemon-sized portions of the mix into sausage shapes, coating evenly with flour. Fry the sausages in the oil until browned on the outside and then serve with baked beans and a fried egg for a top brunch.
It was on this day back in 1944 that the Chechen and Ingush people of the North Caucusus had one of the darkest moments in their troubled history. Accused by the Soviets of siding with the Nazi forces, the entire population was herded onto cattle trucks and deported by force to Central Asia.
The mission was codenamed ‘Operation Lentil’ – after chechevitsa, the Russian word for lentil, which shares its first two syllables with Chechen. By way of commemoration of this tragedy that befell the Chechen and Ingush communities, who refer to the deportations as Aardakh, the exodus, this time around we’ll be sharing a recipe for the Turkish dish mercimek köftesi – a versatile red lentil patty.
Mercimek köftesi – red lentil patties, served with green salad and cole slaw
These spicy, lentil patties are easy to prepare and are delicious when rolled up in flatbread, like lavash, with fresh cole slaw and a green salad. We used ajika sauce from Georgia on the other side of the Caucasus mountains, a fiery blend of red chili peppers and tomatoes, to flavour the patties – but if you can’t find this locally, then a mix of tomato paste with chili flakes will do nicely.
Ingredients (Makes around 20-24 lentil patties)
100 g red lentils (one cup)
150 g fine bulgur wheat (1.5 cups)
500 ml water
6-8 teaspoons of ajika sauce (see above)
5 spring (green) onions – chopped
A handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
One teaspoon of cumin seeds
One teaspoon red chili flakes
Black pepper
25 ml olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Method
Wash the lentils until the water goes clear and then place in a pan with the water. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for 20 minutes or so. The lentils should be going mushy and there should be about 1 cm of water covering the lentils – add more water if necessary.
Add the washed bulgur wheat to the cooked lentils and the ajika sauce and blend well. Allow to stand for 30 minutes or so and then add the olive oil, lemon juice, spring onions, parsley, cumin, red chili flakes and black pepper and mix well.
Allow to stand for a few hours to let the flavours combine and then mould a walnut-sized piece of the mix in the palm of your hand and use your fingers to form a sausage-shape (see picture above).
Serve rolled in flatbread or stuffed into a pita with a cole slaw made from shredded cabbage, grated carrot, pomegranate seeds, spring onion and capers and a salad of lettuce, sun dried tomatoes, pear and spring onion.
Knidos Cookery Club 