Vegan in Turkey, Part the last – outside of Istanbul

For our second week in Turkey we visited some sites outside of Istanbul, including Canakkale (Troy and Gallipoli), Kirazli (Ephesus), and Pamukkale (Heiropolis, Travertines).

As in Istanbul, we ate a lot of simit, nuts, fruit, and pringles (because you can get them at the bus stops), but we also had a few standout meals about town.

In Canakkalewe stayed at the Kervan Saray hotel, and found that the Ev Yemekleri next door was stocked with vegan foods. I didn’t manage to write down the name of the place, but if you head there, look for the hotel, and its the place to left of the door. The staff were really helpful, paid attention to the vegan passport when we couldn’t explain things properly, and we had a great vegan meal.

Leeks, beans, stews and salads

We then headed to a small village called Kirazli, which is close to the ruins of Ephesus. We found a place to stay through AirBnB- a one bedroom/studioish flat being rented out by some expats. It turns out that the woman who owns the flat is also a fabulous cook, and we enjoyed two vegan dinners and one breakfast while we were staying there.

Menu Karyn made us (click to enlarge)

One of Karyn's gorgeous breakfast dishes

The food was really good and the flat was gorgeous, so I figured I should share with any future vegan visitors. It isn’t a vegetarian household, but we had one of the best meals we got in Turkey here. I definitely recommend it to any vegan travellers who’d like a break from the busy city and the battle for food.

Totally moreish coated cashews

Next up we travelled to Pamukkale, home of Heiropolis and the Travertines (natural hot springs flowing down the mountain to form baths and blinding white calcium formations). While every hotel was claiming to offer vegetarian food, most of the restaurants inside were actually closed for the winter. So, we went in search and found two passable options for the vegans to follow.

The reason to visit Pamukkale - that's not snow, it's calcium

Mehmet’s is a large restaurant space, covered in carpets and memorabillia, serving traditional Turkish food. Mehmet himself has very good English, and we found it easy enough to explain our requirements. He assured us the soup was vegan, so we ordered that and a platter of appertisers.

Unfortunately, while he understood that we did not eat stock, I think maybe he failed to let us know that the soup was packet mix. I don’t like to guess at these things, but it had that chicken-flavoured-flavour that I remember from powdered soup (none of which is vegan). We put it aside.

The apertiser plate was fabulous though. Fried eggplant in tomato sauce (like I made in Turkey week), stuffed vine leaves, stewed leeks (leeks seem to be season), and other delicious bits and pieces made sure we didn’t starve.

We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere here, and our host was very kind. Just don’t go for the soup.

We also ate at the Kale hotelrestaurant twice, and enjoyed it each time. The hosts made sure the food was vegan for us, and we got a specially made eggplant and zucchini dish with rice and home made chips the first time, and Imam biyaldi eggplant, rice, salad and fries the second time. They even gave us some of the homemade pomegranate juice the family was sharing, which was kind, and really tasty.

Special vegan meal at the Kale hotel

Vegan in Turkey Part 1 – Veg Restaurants

There are a few vegetarian restaurants in Istanbul, if you want to get an easy meal with no stress or confusion. We skipped the ultra-chic one attached to a club, because I didn’t know where it was, but we visited three others.

Parsifal

Parsifal was our first foray into Turkish vegetarian cuisine, and I have to say I had high hopes. I was really looking forward to a fuss0free vegan meal with Turkish flavour.

There were only a few vegan options on the menu, but they looked decent. The meal started off looking promising, with some on-the-house warm and delicious bread served with olive oil, to start us off while we waited for our meal. The bread was some of the best I’ve had while we’ve been away, which is saying something!

Best Bread

Our mains came next. I ordered the vegan patties, which came out fairly plain, with just a side salad. For me, the size was ok, but it would have disappointed most people, just three patties and some lettuce. The patties tasted good, if a little bland, but were too dry, and could really have used a sauce.

Patties

Mr ordered the eggplant dish (I cant remember the name). It was a disaster. It looked bad, all yellowy-green and mucus-like, and it tasted shockingly bland.  It may sound hard to believe that bland could get so sever as to cause shock, but this was the case. The only flavour was a slight tinge of smokeyness, but without salty, tangy, spicy or anything else to lift it into something you’d actually want to eat.

Eggplant thing

Based on the prices and the disappointing mains, we didn’t order dessert, but vegan travellers should note that there was a vegan brownie and a pumpkin sweet on the menu, and the tea was lovely.

The service was great, and the place is easy to find near to Taksim Square, and has a great atmosphere. Shame about the food.

Max Green Co.

Max Green Co is a little sandwhich and juice place in the food court at the Akmerkez shopping mall. Its a bit of a hike if you’re planning on checking out the city centre, but it was on my way home to our share-place. Actually, I found it by accident when I was sick and wandering around looking for Lysine – I went up the escalator and was confronted by a sign for raw and vegan food. Awesome.

I got a roasted zucchini and cashew cheese sandwich, and a kiwi fruit and pineapple smoothie. It was heaven. It was served up beautifully, with raw nuts and some salty olives on the side, and tasted great. I’m sure the smoothy filled with vitamin C goodness helped my cold, too.

The other downside, besides the location, was the prices. At 15 lira for a sandwhich, in a city where a cooked lunch can be 5 to 8 lira, it was pretty pricey. If you’re missing your vitamins or you’re into raw food though, this might be the place for you.

As with basically everywhere in Turkey, service was super friendly, and there was a menu in English.

Loving Hut

Everyone’s favourite international vegan cult has expanded once again, and there is now a Love Hut franchise in Istanbul.

The place is really small, so don’t plan on going with a part of more than four (and even then, you need to get thetable), but its has good food and ridiculously cheap prices. It is located a little ways from Taksim, about a 40 minute walk, or a 15 minute walk after a short ride on the 559 bus. You can find them at ıhlamurdere Cad. Şair Veysi Sok.no 4/B beşiktaş/İstanbul.

The menu here is unlike most Loving Hut locations in that it has no mock meat or tofu (because they aren’t really available in Turkey). Instead there is a soup, felafel, a burger and a roasted vegie roll, as well as salads and cakes. We tried everything they had in the time we were there, and I can recommend it all. It isn’t a classy, gourmet meal, but its decent and filling. The cake is really nice, too.

Vegan sweets at Loving Hut Istanbul

In all, I was way more impressed by the meals we got at non-veg places, and I’ll post them soon.

 

 

The last Turkish supper

Sadlly the supermarket has run out of lentils AND chickpeas, and I am doomed to two weeks of kidney beans. This also means that I can’t make the last dish on my Turkey list, cabbage and lentil salad. Sigh.

I did, however, come up with the ingredients for the other final Turkish dish: raw kofte.

Cig Kofte, or raw kofte, used to be what it sounds like: raw meat balls. Apparently the health authorities in Istanbul outlawed it due to the health risks of eating raw meat, and vendors adapted, coming up with a vegan, low risk version using bulgur instead of minced cow. Works for me.

At home, and potentially in restaurants outside of Turkey, this dish is still made with meat – so beware – but there are plenty of recipes approximating the Istanbul street-vendor version.

The recipe calls for fine bulgur, which of course I don’t have, so I tried to pound some ordinary bulgur with a rolling pin. No luck there, unfortunately. I also added some pounded walnuts, added tomato sauce for colour, added some chopped capsicum… and basically changed the recipe so much that it only resembles the original.

It tasted pretty darn good, and I quite like the idea of it as a wrap-filling for work lunches (when I finally get home and get a job again). It was a nice alternative to the deep fried felafel, also.

If you want an authentic version, check out the link above, but here’s what I ended up with. You might want to cook the bulgur and potato the day before, or fudge it like I did by sticking it the freezer (actually I put it on the balcony, but its -3 here, so its almost as cold as the freezer).

Cig Kofte, salad and some beetroot relish

Vegan Raw Kofte

Makes about 15 balls

• 1 medium potato, peeled and diced
• 1 cup bulgur, and water to cook it with
• small handful of walnuts, crushed
• 3 tbs minced parsley
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 spring onions, minced
• 1/2 a red capsicum, chopped finely until it looks smooshed (important technical term, that)
• 2 tsp chilli paste – I used ajika
• 3 tbs tomato sauce (tomato paste would be better, or you can use all chilli paste – I can’t because I get gastritis)

1. Boil the potato until tender. Allow to cool completely.
2. Cook the bulgur following the packet instuctions (if you have some). I just boiled it in a little water, adding water as needed, until it was mushy-looking, and it took me about 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely.
3. Make sure all the other ingredients are very finely chopped, then mix all them together to make a grainy paste.
4. Add the cold potato and bulgur and mush with your hands until all big lumps are removed and the ingredients are well combined.
5. Taste check here. As per usual, add salt if you want, or lemon juice (I didn’t have any, but I think it would have made a nice addition).
6. Roll large spoonfuls of the mixture into balls, and smoosh a little with your hands, to leave finger marks.
7. Serve with salad and some flat bread.

 

I served mine up with some salad, some potato chips made with the skin of the potato in the kofte recipe, and some beetroot relish. I invented the relish today, because I hate beetroot and have been looking for ways to use up the 2 kilos Mr bought (practicing his Russian) that don’t suck. It turns out I like it cooked this way, so I figured I share.

Bonus, non-Turkish recipe, Beetroot and Cabbage Relish

• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 medium onions, large dice
• 2 medium beetroots, peeled and chopped into sticks (juliene, half length)
• 1 cup shredded cabbage
• 3 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs white wine vinegar
• dash salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp dried thyme

1. Fry the onion in a non-stick pan until the onion is well and truly translucent. This will take at least 10 minutes – don’t skimp.
2. Add the cabbage and beetroot and fry, over a medium heat, until the cabbage is tender.
3. Add about 1/3 cup water, the brown sugar, salt, pepper and thyme. Cook witht he lid on until the water has evaporated.
4. Check the beetroot – if it is tender continue to the next step. If not, add more water and repeat. I did this three times, using about 1 cup of water all up.
5. Once the beetroot is cooked through, remove the id and continue to fry, stirring occasionally, for another 10 minutes. Any remaining water should evaporate off, and you should have what looks like a mixture of sauted veg with some jam.
6. Serve hot or cold with anything you like. I think it would go well with a faux meat dish and some mustard.

 

Red Lentil Soup

One of the things I enjoy most about writing this blog is that I am always learning new things about what the world eats. I had no idea at all that red lentil soup, a winter staple at my place, was so popular in Turkey. I (silly, privileged Aussie) just thought it was something that vegans made up after eating a lot of dahl.

I was wrong, and it seems the soup I’ve been making every winter is actually Turkish, right down to the dash of red pepper.

I have read many recipes for this soup, all slightly different- some use carrot, some add tomatoes, some add a little cream, etc. My recipe is pretty basic, though I add a little tomato paste for colour and flavour. If you give it a try, play around with it and add whatever you like.

Vegan Red Lentil Soup

Red Lentil Soup

serves 4

• 1 medium onion, dices
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup red lentils
• 1 potato, peeled and diced (I usually don’t bother peeling, and just deal with the skin bits, because I am lazy the skin is nutritious).
• 1 litre of stock. I like to use strong (but not salty), home made stock, but use what you like.
• 1 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• salt to taste

1. In a soup pot, fry the onion until translucent.
2. Add the garlic and fry for a further 5 minutes.
3. Add the lentils, stock, potato, tomato paste and pepper and bring to the boil.
4. Return to a simmer and pop the lid on loosely. Allow to cook for 40 minutes, until the lentils are cooked.
5. Remove from heat and carefully blend (trying not to burn yourself – ouch!).
6. Taste and add salt if needed.
7. Serve with a little coriander on top.

Unfortunately I have no access to blending equipment at the moment, but I decided to make the soup anyway. I had hoped I could cook it until it all fell apart and blended of its own accord, but I was wrong. So, I tried pushing it through my colander, with minimal success.

Smooshing action shot

Eventually I resorted to serving it up with the solids artfully heaped in the bottom of the bowl, and the liquid poured on top. It worked, kinda, and it tasted good regardless.

Heaped solids - now tell me that phrase doesn't make you hungry!

 

 

Mezze Hooray!

No recipes today because I followed all the directions exactly. Feel free to click the links if you like what you see

 

The Imam Fainted

Eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic and tomato. There is a lot of hype about this dish, and the story goes that one Imam loved the dish so much that he fainted, either because he liked it so much, or because he heard they had run out of the oil to make it. I liked it, but I’m not sure I’d say it was swoon-worthy. It was good, just not amazing. Looking forward to trying a local version soon, to see if its just my cooking that’s disappointing!

The Imam Fainted - stuffed eggplant

Fried Cauliflower and Stuffed Mushrooms

This cauliflower dish is easy as: steam the cauliflower florets, coat in a basic flour+water batter, and fry. They are supposed to be served up with yoghurt sauce, but I just used salt and some chilli. The recipe had eggs, I just left them out.

 

Maybe not a particularly Turkish dish, but I love me a good stuffed mushroom, so I turned the last three in our fridge into yummy, lemony, morsels.

Stuffed Mushrooms and Fried Cauliflower

Dolma

Red capsicums stuffed with rice. This was very similar to the stuffed cabbage dish, although this time I roasted them. I flavoured the rice with dried mint and other herbs.

Dolma - stuffed peppers

For the recipes, check out these yummy links:

http://www.turkishfoodandrecipes.com/2009/02/fried-cauliflower-karnibahar-kizartmasi.html

http://www.turkishfoodandrecipes.com/2009/04/imam-fainted-turkish-ratatouille-imam.html

http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/recipes/display/recipe_id/830/

http://almostturkish.blogspot.com/2007/07/vegetarian-stuffed-peppers-zeytinyal.html

More Pilaf, Cabbage and a Salad

Pilaf with home made stock

I have now real and followed so many pilaf recipes, that I’m actually getting pretty good at making my own. Success seems to lie in the stock. In Australia, I usually just use easy-peasy Massel stock powder, but I can’t get anything approximating vegan stock here in Tbilisi, so I make my own, and it works out well.

In my stock I use a handful of chopped mushroom stalks, the outer cabbage leaves and any left over cabbage stalk, parsley stalks, carrots, a tomato, brown and red onion skins and ends, and all the little tiny garlic cloves I can find (I use the ones from the middle because I have chopping them later, and using them in stock means I don’t have to feel guilty for being lazy). I add a tiny bit of salt, and sometimes a little sugar. I generally make about 1.5 litre at a time.

Pretty Pilaf

Keira’s Pilaf Recipe

serves 3

• 2 tablespoon olive oil
  
• 1 cup white rice (long grain)
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• any vegetables you want, small dice
• 2 cups strong stock
• water as needed
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper, to taste
• sultanas or raisins, if desired.
• dash of chosen spices – I use cinnamon, clove, coriander seed and some curry, depending on what I feel like.

1. In a large, non-stick frying pan, heat the oil, and add the rice. Fry on medium heat for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onion and fry until translucent, stirring frequently.
3. Add the garlic and any vegetables or fruits you will be using, such as capsicum or zucchini, and fry for a furhter 5 minutes.
4. Add one or two squeezes of lemon juice now, to help break up the rice.
5. Add the stock. Leave until all of the liquid has been absorbed. This took me about 15 minutes.
6. Test – you may need more water, depending on what type of rice you used.
7. Remove from heat when the rice is cooked. Taste, add rest of lemon juice, salt, pepper, and spices. Fluff with a fork and serve with other dishes.

Note: If we’re having pilaf at lunch I like to add a little nooch at the end. Don’t do this at dinner tough, because the B6 in the nooch tends to stop people from sleeping.

 

Cabbage with Tomatoes

I Have no photo of the cabbage and tomatoes dish, because it wasn’t actually until after I made it that I found out it was Turkish.One of the only green vegetables we can get here is cabbage, so I had planned to fry some up with onion and garlic as per usual. I added a chopped tomato, a little stock, a little tomato paste and some cayenne pepper, on a whim.

Turns out what I made closely approximates this dish, so there you go – I’m a food psychic, or something, because I didn’t see this site until long after we ate the meal.

 

Chickpea Salad

The salad wasn’t so much Turkish as Turkish-inspired. I just threw together some onion, garlic, parsley, coriander, chickpeas and red capsicum, to add some protein and crunch to the meal.

Chickpea Salad

 

Turkish Feast in Tbilisi

The first meal of Turkish origin I tired was actually a week or so ago, when a friend came around for dinner. I decided to put on a bit of a feast (I have a lot of time at the moment), and served up a spread including chickpeas in tomato sauce, eggplant mezze, stuffed cabbage, pilaf and shepherd’s salad. I also served up what was supposed to be brownies but turned into very dry biscotti due to my difficult oven and inappropriate ingredient substitutes – but that’s not Turkish, and I don’t have a photo, so lets forget it happened.

Sadly, I got wrapped up in conversation and forgot to take pictures until everyone had started eating, so most of the photos are of semi-destroyed dishes.

Eggplant in olive oil and tomato sauce, with Cabbage roll in the background

Everything was good, but the eggplant mezze dish was the definite winner. It was well cooked and oily in a good way,  and the tomato sauce was a perfect match. A recipe for this is at the end of the post.

The cabbage rolls were a little beyond my dexterity and fell apart when lifted. They tasted pretty good though, with some heavy handedness on the dried mint and sultanas.

 

Shepherd's Salad and Pilaf

Shepherd’s Salad is a Turkish take on an internationally popular combination: cucumber, onion and tomatoes with herbs. This one has garlic, coriander and parsley, with a little lemon juice and vinegar as dressing.

I went with a mixed pilaf with sultanas, a little orange capsicum, onion, garlic, herbs, and some left over chickpeas. This is probably very un-Turkish, but it is what I had. I added a little clove, cinnamon, salt and pepper to flavour it. I’m not personally a big fan of sweet dinner food or non-citrus fruit in savoury dishes, but this was okay. I used a combination of recipes from the land of the internet, but they all involved cooking the rice in some olive oil, then added the onion, then vegetables, then stock and fruit, and cooking the liquid off.

Chickpeas with tomato

The chickpea dish was based on a recipe from the book, Contemporary Turkish Cooking, by Filiz Zorly (2007). I changed it due to ingredient availability, as I can’t get dry chickpeas, cumin or good tomatoes. It turned out really nicely, a little spicy but not too hot, and quite flavoursome. I’ll post my recipe below, but do check out the original if you have access to dry chickpeas, because I imagine that would be even better.

The recipe for the stuffed cabbage rolls also came from Contemporary Turkish Cooking, which I perused at a public library in Vienna, on a cold, too-tired-to-tourist day.

Chickpeas with Tomatoes

Serves 4

• olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 good tomatoes, diced
• 2 cups drained and rinsed, tinned chickpeas
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp corriander powder
• dash cinnamon
• dash tsp cayenne pepper (use as little or as much chilli as you want. I and my friend both have stomach problems that mean no more hot foods without risk of ulcers and stomach cancer, so not much chilli for us )
• Juice on half a lemon
• salt and pepper to taste
• I would have added a little cumin, if I had access to it.

1. In a little olive oil, sweat the onions until translucent.
2. Add the garlic and fry until fragrant (about 3 minutes).
3. Add the tomato, chickpeas, tomato paste, spices and 1/3 cup water. Bring to the boil then return to simmer until the tomatoes are falling apart. Add more water if necessary. This took me about 15 minutes, with occasional stirring.
4. Add the lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Let sit until, and reheat before serving. I let mine sit for about an hour, and it became much more flavousome with the time.

The recipe for the eggplant mezze dish was originally found somewhere on the internet, but I can’t find it now, of course. I’ll attribute when I figure it out, but this is what I did.

Eggplant in Olive oil with Tomato Sauce

Serves 2

• 1 large, long eggplant (or two smaller eggplants)
• Salt
• Olive oil (the amount is up to you, but at least 3 tablespoons)
• 1 medium brown onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tbs tomato paste
• 1-2 tsp sugar (if your tomato paste isn’t sweet)
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 – 2/3 cup water

1. Peel strips of the eggplant, lengthways, so that it looks a little like a circus tent. Slice the eggplant into rounds, salt, and let sit for 30 minutes.
2. Wash and dry the eggplant slices. Heat a little olive oil in a non-stick pan, and fry the pieces, turning once, in batches until they are all cooked through and lightly browned. I used about 1 tbs of olive oil here, but there are versions of the recipe that use up to 1/3 cup, so do what you please.
3. Arrange the cooked slices on a serving dish, and drizzle with remaining olive oil (I used about 1 tbs here).
4. In a small saucepan, cook the onion in a little more olive oil, for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for a further 5 minutes, though don’t let the garlic burn.
5. Add the diced tomatoes, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they fall apart.
6. Add the tomato paste here, and then taste test – if it tastes sour add some sugar. I add salt and pepper here.
7. Add 1/3 cup of the water and continue to cook the sauce, stirring occasionally over low heat, for another 25 minutes. It should cook down, and all the tomato pieces should be pulp by now. Add extra water if it becomes dry before this point.
8. If you are a careful sort, pull out the floating bits of tomato skin (or remove them before hand, as shown in my post on ratatouille). I decided not to bother this time.
9. Pour the sauce over the eggplant slices, and refrigerate. Serve cold or at room temperature.

 

Introducing Turkey!

This is a (potentially brief) return to the ordinary format of this blog, so you ca expect recipes from Turkey this week, rather my pictures and reviews about visiting Turkey, which I do in about three weeks time.

Where is it?

Turkey, which straddles Europe and Asia, lies between the Black Sea, the Agean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. It has borders with Bulgaria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Georgia (that’s where I am atm!).

Facts and Figures

• Population: 78,785,548
• Ethinic groups: Turkish 70-75%, Kurdish 18%, other minorities 7-12%
• Religions: Muslim 99.8% (mostly Sunni), other 0.2% (mostly Christians and Jews)
• Languages: Turkish, Kurdish, others
• Median Age: 28.5 years (That’s a lot younger than Australia, at 37, but a lot older than Afganistan, at 18)
  
• Births per woman: 2.15
• Life expectancy at Birth: 72.5
• Gini Index (Fairness of wealth distributon): 39.7, which means it is less fair than Japan and India, but fairer than the USA or Venezuela
  
• Unemployments: 12% total, 25% for youth
• GDP per capita: $12, 300
• Government: Parliamentary representative democracy.

Did you know?

The capital, Istanbul, is the only city in the world to span two continents.

Istanbul was at times the capital of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Byzantine Empire and the Latin Empire, but it isn’t the capital of Turkey.

In the Noah myth, the ark landed at Mount Ararat, which is in Turkey.

The train line Orient Express terminated in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

Menu

While I have been told that eating out in Turkey is centered around meat and bread, home cooking seems to have quite a significant number of vegetable, rice and bean dishes, which I am keen to try. Among the dishes I want to have a crack at this week are:

Mezze (usually eaten with alcohol)

• Stuffed Peppers
• Stuffed cabbage leaves
• The Imam Fainted (and eggplant dish)
• Eggplant in olive oil

Soup

• Red Lentil soup

I’m not making any others due to my lack of blending apparatus and dairy substitues.

Salads

• Shepherd’s salad
• White Bean Salad
• Lentil and cabbage salad

Rice, grains

• Various rice pilafs

Vegetable and Bean dishes

• Raw Kofte

• Chickpeas in tomato

I might try vegetable kofte, or a bean version of a meat kofte. I sadly can’t do any borek, baklava, or breads, as I can’t find yeast or pastry in Tbilisi.

Wish me luck!