Mooli Mattar Mücver

10 February 2023

This time round on KCC we’re taking a look at mooli, or daikon as some of you might know it. This large, white member of the radish family is common in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cuisine and is also widely used in the Indian sub-continent. It’s a versatile, vitamin-packed vegetable that can be eaten raw or cooked in a variety of dishes. It has a milder flavour than its smaller red cousins but adds an interesting, mildly spicy crunch to salads and stir fries.

Mooli mattar mücver served in a bap with salad

Mücver fritters are a perennial KCC favourite so we decided to make some with grated mooli, mattar (green peas), celery and some chickpea flour to glue it all together for our latest mücver variation. This version is great served in a burger bun or baguette with some fresh coleslaw, shredded salad greens and a dash of soy sauce.

Meet the mooli aka daikon or winter radish

The mooli can be quite wet when grated so give it a good squeeze to remove the excess liquid. The chickpea flour will help bind the fritters together and soak up any remaining moisture so that they hold their shape better when frying.

Ingredients (makes four 125 g fritters)

200 g grated mooli
200 g green peas (fresh, tinned or frozen)
1 celery stick
50 g chickpea or pea flour
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon turmeric
Two teaspoons paprika
Oil for frying

Method

Peel and grate the mooli into thin strips. Squeeze the moisture from the grated mooli. Chop the celery stalk and leaves finely and put into a bowl with the grated mooli. Add the peas and the spices and mix well. Now add the chickpea flour and blend everything together. The mix should be sticky but not wet – if it’s too moist, then add a bit more flour until you get a sticky consistency.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Form the mix into four golf ball-sized pieces. Place in the pan and flatten with a fish slice. Turn the fritters over after frying for two to three minutes. Cook for another two to three minutes until both sides are a golden brown colour. Serve in a burger bun or in a baguette. Top with grated carrot and red cabbage and shredded lettuce or rocket, add a splash of soy sauce and enjoy!

KCC’s Revolutionary Rhubarb Recipes

25 April 2022

While walking through the market in Samarkand recently we came across tables laden with something we hadn’t seen for quite a while – rhubarb, those colourful stalks that instantly evoke childhood memories of rhubarb crumbles served with custard. In Samarkand, the favoured way to eat the stalks is raw.

It’s a tiring business selling rhubarb in Samarkand

Rhubarb is a classic harbinger of spring, with its short growing season over by summer. Often thought of as a fruit because of its use in puddings, complete with lashings of sugar to counteract its tartness, these stalks are in fact a vegetable.

Rhubarb has a long history in Chinese traditional medicine. It started to be imported into the west, where it was prized for its medicinal properties, along the Silk Roads in the 14th century. Transport costs, along with its popularity and relative scarcity, saw it command a higher price than cinnamon, saffron, and opium at one point.

Its high price spurred efforts to localise its cultivation and by the 18th century it was being successfully grown in Europe. The edible stalk’s greater availability, combined with the arrival of affordable sugar, led to it becoming a culinary staple in the world of desserts.

Rhubarb also has its uses in savoury dishes with its sharp flavour adding an interesting note to a lentil dhal. We served our dhal with a fruity plov and some flat bread. Any leftovers can be mixed with chickpea flour to make a fritter as part of an unusual brunch.

Ingredients (makes four servings)

200 g rhubarb
One large onion
150 g red lentils
75 g spinach
25 ml olive oil
500 ml vegetable stock
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon cinnamon
One teaspoon red chilli flakes
50 g chickpea flour

Method

Heat the oil and cumin seeds in a heavy-based pan. When the seeds start to sizzle, add the chopped onion. Cook for five minutes over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the cinnamon and red chilli flakes and the rhubarb stalk, cut into 1 cm slices – do not use the leaves as these can be bad for your health.
Cook for three minutes over a low heat, stirring occasionally, and then add the washed lentils and the vegetable stock. cook over a low heat for 20 minutes or until all the liquid has been absorbed. Stir in the washed spinach and serve hot with rice or flat bread (or both!)
To make rhubarb fritters, mix leftover 200 g dhal with 50 g chickpea flour. Form into eight walnut-sized balls and fry in oil on both sides until starting to brown, flattening with a fish slice as they cook.

Hash Greens: More Mücver Variations

17 September 2020

This time round on KCC we’re returning to mücve r, Turkey’s versatile courgette fritter, with our take on that brunch staple Hash Browns. This mücver variation adds potato and garlic scapes to the mix to give us a fritter we’ve dubbed Hash Greens.

These fritters are super-easy to prepare and cook and are great as part of a breakfast or brunch. They can also be served in a roll to make it closer to a veggie burger.

Garlic scapes – a long internode that forms the basal part or the whole of a peduncle

We came across garlic scapes, the edible stem that grows from the bulb, on a recent visit to the local greengrocer while looking for green beans. This flavoursome peduncle gives a milder garlicky kick to soups, pestos and stir fries. It’s not an overpowering flavour as it adds a subtler, roasted garlic undernote to these dishes.

Ingredients (Makes 6-8 fritters)

One medium courgette (zucchini) (approx 200 g)
One medium potato (approx 200 g)
One small onion (approx 100 g)
50 g garlic scapes
100 g chickpea flour
25 g mixed fresh herbs
One teaspoon cumin seeds
One teaspoon chilli flakes
One teaspoon turmeric
One teaspoon black pepper
50 ml olive oil

Method

Grate the potato and courgette and mix together in a large bowl. Finely chop the garlic scapes and add to the bowl. Stir in the chickpea flour and add the herbs (use and fresh herbs you have e.g. parsley, coriander, mint) and spices and mix well so you have a smooth that’s neither too dry and crumbly nor too wet and sloppy.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Form the mix into golf-ball sized patties and then put in the pan and flatten with a fish slice or spatula. Fry until golden-brown on both sides. Serve as part of a breakfast or brunch or in a bun as a burger with toppings of your choice.

The Turk-Mex Chronicles: Corny Courgette Fritters (aka Return of the Mücver Variations)

3 October 2019

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re adding to the recipe bank of our Turk-Mex influenced cuisine. We’ve taken a Turkish favourite, mücver, a fritter made from grated courgettes, and added a Mexican staple, corn, to create our latest mücver variation.

20190927_224339

It’s believed that corn was first domesticated in southernMexico around 9-10,000 years ago. From there it slowly spread across the Americas before finding its way into Europe in the 16th century; brought back by the explorers who had landed in what became dubbed ‘The New World’.

These tasty fritters can be served like a burger in a bun, wrapped in a tortilla, stuffed into a pita bread or just plain with a jacket potato and some salad for a healthy snack that can be eaten at any time of the day.

Ingredients (makes around 8 large fritters)

Two courgettes
One corn cob
Three tablespoons wholemeal flour
75 ml olive oil
Two teaspoons cumin
Two teaspoons red chilli flakes
Two teaspoons dried thyme
One teaspoon turmeric

Method

Bring a pan of water to boiling and then switch off the heat. Soak the corn cob in the boiled water for five minutes and then put in a pan of cold water. Remove the kernels by slicing downwards with a knife on the sides of the cob.
Grate the courgettes into a large bowl and mix with the flour, herbs and spices, reserving 25 ml of the olive oil for cooking. Add the corn kernels and mix well. Leave the mix to stand for a few hours in the fridge.
Heat the remaining olive oil in a frying pan. Take a golf ball sized scoop of the mix and put it into the pan and flatten it with a spatula. Cook over a medium heat for five minutes and then flip over and cook for another five minutes. Alternatively, you can bake the fritters in the oven for 30 minutes at 180c or grill on a barbecue.

No Beef with the Beetburger

19 October 2017

The beet is back on Knidos Cookery Club and this time round we’ll be using our burgundy-coloured friend to tap into another zeitgeist treat in the form of the tasty beetburger.

20171013_210527

The stalls in Datça market last Saturday were overflowing with of bunches of beetroots so we picked up a bunch, chopped off the leaves and stems for sautéing, and wrapped the beets in foil and roasted them in the oven for an hour or so.

Beetroot burgers have been a bit of a barbecue craze in the UK over the summer, with supermarkets reporting soaring sales as people turn towards healthier options to meat.

20171013_175647 — Turkey’s *papatya*, or daisy, loaf of bread

We’ve done some experimentation and come up with a patty that will hold together under the grill, on the barbie, in the oven or can be shallow-fried. Stuff it in a bun – we’ve used the papatya loaf as pictured above, and serve with chips and salad for a delicious yet healthy meal (the chips were roasted in the oven, not fried).

Ingredients (makes 6-8 burgers)

100 g red lentils

50 g fine bulgur wheat

150 g roasted beetroot, grated

One medium onion

One garlic clove

50 ml olive oil

Two teaspoons dried thyme

One teaspoon each of sumac, cumin and chilli flakes

Dash of soy sauce

Method

Heat 25 ml of the olive oil in a heavy-based pan, add the herbs and spices and the chopped onion and garlic and fry for five minutes until the onion starts to soften. Add the lentils and water, bring to the boil and then simmer until the liquid is absorbed.

Add the bulgur wheat to the mix and allow to cool for 30 minutes – this should thicken the mixture. Then add the grated beetroot and stir to combine all the ingredients. Form into burger shapes (take a dollop of walnut-sized mix and flatten with a spatula and shallow fry in the rest of the olive oil on both sides until going crispy on the outside.

Alternatively, these burgers can be baked in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 200 c or grilled or cooked on the barbecue until crispy on both sides. Serve in a burger bun with salad and chips.

Spice it up with Sumac!

21 September 2017

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’ll be looking at a spice called sumac that is ubiquitous in Turkish cooking. Sumac comes from the flowering plants of the genus Rhus and its powdered purple-reddish berries give a tart but tangy boost to everything from soups and dips to grilled vegetables and kebabs. It also gives a rich dark burgundy hue to the dishes it flavours.

We’ve decided to use it in acili ezme, a fiery tomato, onion and pepper dip that is delicious eaten on it’s own with bread, used as a sauce to accompany dishes such as pide, Turkey’s take on pizza, as part of a meze plate with our carrot and walnut tarator and our creamy almond and courgette dip or with mücver, Turkey’s courgette fritter.

The secret to a successful acili ezme is to chop the ingredients as finely as you can with the sharpest knife you have and to chill it for a few hours before serving so the flavours have a chance to blend.

We’ve added red chilli flakes and sumac to give it a kick and used mint and parsley to balance out the flavours. If you like your dips hot, then use green chillies in place of green peppers in this recipe.

Ingredients (serves 3-4)

One medium-sized onion

Three medium-sized plum tomatoes

One medium-sized green pepper

One garlic clove

One bunch of parsley

One teaspoon dried mint

Three teaspoons red chilli flakes

Two teaspoons sumac

One teaspoon flavoured vinegar (such as apple or fig)

Three teaspoons pomegranate sauce

Method

Peel the tomatoes and de-seed (to peel: plunge the tomatoes into boiling water for 30 seconds then place in cold water – the skin should now come off easily). Chop the tomatoes, green pepper, onion, garlic and parsley as finely as you can.

Put all the ingredients into a bowl, add the herbs and spices, vinegar and pomegranate sauce and mix well. Leave to chill in the fridge for at least two hours before serving with flat bread.

The Mücver Variations

29 June 2017

This time round on Knidos Cookery Club we’re revisiting an old favourite – mücver, Turkey’s tasty courgette fritter.

20170531_132309 — Could this be called a pea fritter?

The mücver usually served up in Turkish eateries are made from grated courgettes, so we’ve decided to spice up this old favourite by adding some other ingredients. Why not try them with fresh peas or grated carrot? Mushrooms work well, as do green beans.

20170609_133418 — Putting some carrots in the mix

You can even add all these ingredients to the basic mix, chuck in a few chopped almonds or walnuts and, hey presto, you have a chunky veggie nut burger!

Serve the fritters in a pita, on a baguette, in a burger bun, rolled up in flat lavaş bread or just plain with a salad and condiments of your choice.

Ingredients (for around 8 fritters)

Two medium-sized courgettes

One small onion

One egg (or 15 ml of olive oil for vegan version)

Choose one or more from: 100 g chopped mushroom / grated carrot / peas (fresh if you have them, otherwise frozen or tinned) / sliced green beans (use 50 g of each if using more ingredients)

50 g of plain flour

Bunch of parsley, mint and/or dill (if you like that sort of thing)

Dried herbs to taste

A generous sprinkle of sesame seeds

An optional dusting of chili flakes and grated cinnamon

Salt and pepper

A dash of olive oil for frying

Plain yogurt for serving

Method

Grate or chop up the courgettes and the extra of your choice (mushroom, carrot peas, green beans or even all three) finely and mix with the chopped onion. Add fresh parsley, mint and/or dill, dried herbs, chili flakes, cinnamon, sesame seeds salt and pepper and blend well.

Make a well in the centre of the mix and break the egg into it. Sprinkle in the crumbled white cheese. Mix well. (Vegan readers should skip the egg and add 25 ml of olive oil instead)

Gradually add the plain flour and blend until the mixture has quite a thick consistency – you don’t want it to be too wet and sloppy.

Drizzle some olive oil in a frying pan and put over a medium heat.

Place golf ball-sized scoops of the courgette mixture into the pan and flatten with a spatula or fork.

After a few minutes turn the fritter. Keep cooking until both sided are a golden-brown colour.

Serve hot with a dollop of yogurt on top.

Mungo Pumpkin Patties

6 October 2016

Knidos Cookery Club’s autumnal vibe continues apace with the re-appearance of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes in the market. This is one vegetable that acts as a surefire marker of the onset of longer and chillier nights, with thoughts turning towards the comforting pumpkin-rich soups and stews of winter.

In Turkey, pumpkin is often served as a desert – kabak tatlısı , that coats the orange-coloured slices in sugar syrup. Here at Knidos Cookery Club we prefer the savoury approach to pumpkin and have come up with some mung bean, bulgur wheat and mashed pumpkin patties.

pumpkin-patties

The mung beans add a nutty, earthy flavour that compliments the natural sweetness of pumpkin, while the bulgur wheat helps to hold it all together so the patty can be fried or oven-baked. Roast the seeds and use them to decorate the patties and give tham a bit of crunch.

Ingredients (makes 6-8 patties)

300 g pumpkin

75 g mung beans

50 g fine bulgur wheat

one medium-sized onion

one garlic clove

one teaspoon cumin seeds

one teaspoon dried thyme

black pepper

one teaspoon turmeric powder

25 ml olive oil

250 ml water

Method

Wash and soak the mung beans in cold water for two hours. Then cook in 250 ml water for 45 minutes or until the beans are just starting to go mushy – add more water if necessary.

Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds, retain them to use later. Peel the pumpkin and dice into 1 cm cubes. Finely chop the onion and garlic. Place the pumpkin cubes, onion and garlic in a baking dish and pour 25 ml of olive oil over them. Add the cumin seeds, dried thyme and black pepper and mix well to coat the cubes.

Bake in a pre-heated oven (220 c /gas mark 7) for 45 minutes or until the pumpkin mashes easily with a fork. While the pumpkin mix is cooking, put the seeds on some tin foil and roast in the oven until starting to char a little bit.

Mash the pumpkin mix with a fork or a potato masher and then add the cooked mung beans and blend well. Stir in the turmeric powder and then add the bulgur wheat. Mix well and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

Tak a golf-ball sized portion of the mix and flatten to a round shape. Decorate with pumpkin seeds and shallow fry in oil or oven-bake for 30 minutes at 220 c (gas mark 7).

Serve with roast potatoes or chips and a mixed salad or in a burger bun with toppings of your choice.

A Creamy Almond and Courgette Dipfest

8 September 2016

The courgette is one of the most versatile vegetables in the Knidos Cookery Club kitchen. Earlier it featured in a stuffed platter and as a fritter. We also like it in an omelette, in a börek or just sliced and grilled on the barbecue.

This week we’ve incorporated this key ingredient into a creamy almond and courgette dip that can be used as part of a starter, or meze, combo with other dips such as our Carrot and Walnut Tarator.

Yogurt and chopped almonds were added to the grated courgette to make it creamy and some wholemeal flour was used to hold it all together.

Ingredients (Serves 3-4)

250 g grated courgette

100 ml plain, natural yogurt

50 g wholemeal flour

50 g chopped almonds

One garlic clove

25 ml olive oil

Method

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat then add the grated courgette and garlic and stir fry for five minutes. Add the flour and stir fry for two more minutes. Take the frying pan off the heat, mix in the yogurt and almonds, reserving a few nuts to sprinkle over the top.

You Like Tomato, I Like Ntomato

23 June 2016

Knidos Cookery Club’s fact-finding mission to Greece continues with a look at the contribution of the tomato to local culinary culture.

It may be hard to believe, but it is only in the last two hundred years that the tomato has established itself as a key ingredient in Greek kitchens.

Kos June 2016 025 — A plate of tomato fritters from Kos, Greece

It’s found in the classic horiatiki salad that pairs it with cucumber, onion, green pepper, olives and feta cheese. It plays a key role in gemista, platters of vegetables stuffed with rice.

On the island of Kos the sweet local varieties of tomatoes are preserved in syrup or made into jam that makes an orange marmalade rival for a slice of toast.

Kos June 2016 041 — Tomatoes preserved in syrup with almonds from Kos, Greece

In Greece the tomato is called ντοματο, pronounced with a ‘d’ sound at the beginning. Modern Greek has no single letter for the ‘d’ sound and uses the letters for ‘n’ and ‘t’ to make this sound.

This week Knidos Cookery Club is serving up tomato fritters, a close cousin of Turkey’s mücver. We’ve used plum tomatoes as they tend to be a bit less juicy than other varieties. The mix needs to find a balance between not being too dry or too wet for the fritters to hold together in the pan.

Ingredients (makes 10-12 fritters)

500 g plum tomatoes

One medium-sized red onion

Fresh herbs – small bunches of parsley, basil and mint or a teaspoon of dried parsley, basil and mint

100 g plain flour

Seasoning mix – pinches of salt and pepper, one teaspoon of cinnamon and one of cumin

Olive oil for frying

Method

Grate the tomatoes and mix with the herbs and flour until you have a mix that is neither too dry nor too wet.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and when hot add fritters made into walnut-sized shapes and flatten with a fish slice or spatula.

Cook on both sides until golden brown in colour and serve with a sauce of natural yogurt, grated cucumber and garlic.