Cheese Pie with Middle Eastern Flatbread

I was thinking to share this recipe for sometimes. After another great success on last Friday night at our neighbours' house warming party(every guests loved it literally! ) I think it's the time to share this recipe. It is extremely easy version this cheese pie. In Turkish cuisine this cheese pie its called as 'peynirli borek' and we generally make with yufka(dry pastry leaves), feta cheese, parsley and some seasoning. My version is with Middle Eastern flat bread which is easier to find at any Middle eastern food grocery shop in the UK. 

Ingredients for Peynirli Borek

1 pack of middle eastern flat bread(generally 3-4 flat bread in a pack)
300 gr Feta cheese (could be substitute half quantity feta and half fresh mozzarella cheese)
big bunch of Parsley(could be substitute with coriander or dill), chopped
2 medium eggs
150ml milk
100ml olive oil
Sesame or nigella seed for topping

Heat the oven 175C

First drop little amount of olive oil into baking tray and brush it all around. Then put two flat bread slices as covering to whole tray edge. Preferably leave a little amount of flat bread hanging out from  edge of the tray(like in below picture) 

Sprinkle 300gr feta cheese like in above picture. Then sprinkle on top chopped parsley(or any other herb) then add a little bit seasoning. Keep in mind don't put extra salt as feta cheese will be salty enough. Sprinkle little bit olive oil. Cover with another layer of flat bread. Fold the edges inside the tray. 

In a bowl crack two eggs and whisk lightly add milk and olive oil and mix well. Pour the batter over the pastry and make sure every part covered with batter. Sprinkle some nigella seeds or sesame seeds on top. Then put into heated oven for 20-25 minutes. After baked you can serve immediately as hot or could be served as cold as well. It's ideal for lunch to serve with Greek salad or any seasonal salad. Specially in summer ideal to serve with watermelon. If there is any leftover keep it in airtight container and in the fridge. Whenever time to serve just heat in a saucepan over small fire  5-10 minutes or for a 2-3 minutes at very low temperature in the microwave.

As an alternative instead of cheese filling grated and cooked potato filling or cooked mince meat with some sultanas could be used.

Enjoy your peynirli borek! 

Chef Tulay

Homemade Pesto recipes

I love pesto sauce not only using for pasta but also for spreading on the toasted slice of bread. Instead of butter or mayo spread it's more healthier and delicious. Generally well suits with tomato, grilled aubergine, courgette slices or cheese or salami slices. Normally you can create your very bespoke pesto sauce with any kind of fresh herbs such as basil, coriander, parsley, rocket and nuts/seeds(pumpkin, sunflower) mixes. 

Yesterday I have prepared couple of different pesto recipes which I am going to share here:

1. Coriander and Pine nuts Pesto:

• a bunch of coriander
• 100 gr pine nuts
• 50 ml olive oil
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper

Chop off the stalk of the coriander. Wash and drain then put in the blender with olive oil. Mix well. Then add pine nuts and blend for another 3-4 minutes. If you prefer the nuts more chunky still 2-3 minutes mixing will be enough. Add the seasoning and mix for a 1-2 minute. Then your homemade Coriander and Pine nuts Pesto is ready to use. 

2. Parsley and Pumpkin Seeds Pesto

• a bunch of Parsley
• 100 gr pumpkin seeds
• 50ml olive oil
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper 

Similar process like previous recipe. Chop off the stalk of the parsley. After washing and drain it put into blender with olive oil. Mix until it became a paste. Then add the pumpkin seeds and blend together for a 3-4 minutes. Add the seasoning. You might add a bit of extra olive oil if the paste seems a bit dry. Now the sauce is ready to use it.

3. Roasted Red Peppers and Cashew nuts Pesto 

• 200-300gr Roasted Red peppers
• 100gr cashew nuts
• 50ml olive oil
• 1 teaspoon chilly flakes
• pinch of salt
• pinch of pepper

I used ready roasted red peppers but if you are not having ready to use then you have to roast the peppers in the oven for about 25-30 mins at 250C. Then take the skin and the seeds off the pepper. put in the blender add olive oil, chilly flakes then blend for 3 minutes. Then add cashew nuts with seasoning and mix another 3-4 minutes. Depends on your palate you can add more chilly or seasoning for strong flavour. 

All the sauces should keep in airtight jar and in the fridge. As long as the jar is tightly closed the sauces can be used up to a month or two. Here are mine sauces ready to use :-)

 Bon appetit!

Chef Tulay :-)

French Onion soup... yummmm... :)

I was thinking for sometime to make a onion soup. Last couple of days have been very miserable and chilly in Glasgow. Then I decided to make warming and tasty onion soup. It is very easy if you never tried before. Only down point you have to chop a lot of onions which is about a kilo or two! But except that part everything is so easy, peasy. 

 First the ingredients you need for this soup:

This recipe serves 8-9 bowls

50gr butter
100ml Olive oil
1kg onions, thinly sliced (I used mix of red and white onions)
2 tbsp sugar
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tbsp plain flour
250ml dry white wine
1.3l hot beef stock(could be substitute with chicken or veggie stock)
French baguette or any hard-crust bread 
140gr Gruyere cheese(or parmesan, cheddar cheese) finely grated

Melt the butter with olive oil in a deep saucepan. Then add onions and fry them for 10 minutes while the lid is on. Sprinkle sugar then keep cooking for another 20 minutes until they get caramelised. Give some stirring frequently and make sure the onions are not burned. 

Then add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Followed by flour stir well. Add hot stock and wine also salt and pepper for the seasoning and mix well again. Then let it simmer for 30 minutes. Your homemade onion soup is ready! 

For serving make slices from baguette or any hard-crust bread. Toast the bread slices either under grill or in toaster. Sprinkle some grated cheese on the top of toasted bread then grill until the cheese melted. Pour some soup into the individual bowls. Put the toasted and melted cheese bread slice on the top layer of the soup. Now it's time to taste. :) 

If you like you can sprinkle some fresh herbs or dried ones such as thyme, oregano or coriander while serving. Also when boiling the soup you can add couple of leaves of bay leaf. It will give beautiful flavour to your soup.

Enjoy it! :)

Turkish Coffee Cake

Generally when I have last minute visitors and have nothing available to serve at home with coffee and tea, my quickest solution is a homemade cake. The flavour of the cake can be different based on what I find in my cupboard. If I have some cacao generally marble cake it's my favourite and it's very easy to do. Just takes 10 minutes to prepare then 40-45 minutes to bake off.

If I have some dried fruits such as raisins, cranberry, apricot, candied orange skin generally mix up with a small amount of crushed nuts such as hazelnut, almond or pistachio and the result will be tasty nut and fruit cake. Or sometimes if I have some homemade marmalade such as plum, peach or orange just mix up into the batter. But other day just wanted to try something different and decided to make a coffee flavoured cake. First thought was which kind of coffee flavour I would use ? Would it be instant, espresso or Turkish coffee flavour ? Then I have decided on Turkish coffee flavour. The result was absolutely amazing. The cake was soft and the flavour was well combined. Although we tried just after freshly baked with our Italian guest and got an approval :) but following days the flavour became much better. I would suggest if you ever bake this cake just keep in the airtight container or cake/biscuit tin for a couple of days (if there is no cake monster in the house of course! :)) then try it. And anyone who wants to make this cake find the recipe below:

Turkish Coffee Cake

Heat your oven to 170C

3 medium eggs
200 gr sugar

Mix them well in a bowl. If you are using hand mixer mix the batter in low speed for 5 minutes. When the batter doubled in size add below quantity:

150ml olive oil
150ml milk
vanilla essence
450gr self-raising flour
50 gr Ground Turkish coffee

Mix them all in slow speed for another 4-5 minutes.

Pour couple of drop olive oil inside the cake mould and brush it every every corner. Pour the cake batter into the mould then put in the middle of the oven. Set the timer for 40 minutes first. Then check out when alarm went off with wooden stick or tip of knife if the batter is still sticky then put another 10-15 minutes more to bake. When it's baked well take out from oven and leave outside to cool down 10-15 minutes. During these period you can cover the cake with clean tea towel which will keep the top crust more moist. Then results will be like... 

If you can't find ground Turkish coffee the place where you live then substitute with ground espresso. 

Bon appetit! 

Chef Tulay :)

The very first supper event :)

Last evening I held a very first private supper club for a couple guests and was a great success! :) I have been told that the food was amazing and delicious. The theme was Greek food with Greek songs in the background. It's just created an atmosphere to be away from rainy, miserable Glasgow for a short while.  Everything was homemade except bread and drinks.

So my menu included:

Starters

Mezze plate - Tzatziki, Hummus and Melitzanosalata(Aubergine salad)

Olives

Greek Salad

Main course

Chicken cooked in the oven with a mix of spices and served with Bulghur pilaf

Dessert 

Sutlac (Turkish style rice pudding) served with ice-cream

The wine that accompanied the meal was 'Retsina Kourtaki' Greek wine. It is clear, pale to golden-yellow in colour. A delicate aroma of pine is left on the nose with similar after taste in the mouth. One of the most well-known Greek wines in the UK and easy to find at the big supermarkets chains and at wine shops.

Normally finalising part of a Greek meal would be a coffee but as our guests didn't want to be awake for the rest of the night, they preferred to have a cup of green tea instead. But also they gave a try to a small shot of 'Tentura' which is a liqueur traditionally produced in Patras,Greece since the 15th century. It contains alcohol, water, sugar, and fermented essences of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and citrus fruits. It can also be added in espresso coffee, which is then called Caffe Corretto. 

So I am well satisfied for the success of the first event and excited for the future ones.

Chef Tulay

Holiday Biscotti with Cranberries and Pistachios

Here we go another Bonappetit recipe. Homemade Biscotti who won't be enjoying to dunk in to their coffee.   Hmmm yummy...

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon whole aniseed
• 1 cup dried sweetened cranberries
• 3/4 cup shelled natural unsalted pistachios
•  6 ounces imported white chocolate, chopped

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 3 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift first 3 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl to blend well. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in lemon peel, vanilla, and aniseed. Beat in flour mixture just until blended. Stir in cranberries and pistachios (dough will be sticky). Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Gather dough together; divide in half. Roll each half into 15-inch-long log (about 1 1/4 inches wide). Carefully transfer logs to 1 prepared baking sheet, spacing 3 inches apart.
• Bake logs until almost firm to touch but still pale, about 28 minutes. Cool logs on baking sheet 10 minutes. Maintain oven temperature.
• Carefully transfer logs still on parchment to cutting board. Using serrated knife and gentle sawing motion, cut logs crosswise into generous 1/2-inch-thick slices. Place slices, 1 cut side down, on remaining 2 prepared sheets. Bake until firm and pale golden, about 9 minutes per side. Transfer cookies to racks and cool.
• Line another baking sheet with waxed paper. Stir white chocolate in top of double boiler over barely simmering water just until smooth. Remove from over water. Dip 1 end of each cookie into melted chocolate, tilting pan if necessary; shake off excess chocolate. Place cookies on prepared sheet. Chill until chocolate is firm, about 30 minutes. DO AHEAD Can be made 5 days ahead. Store airtight between sheets of waxed paper at room temperature.

Hi again...

Hello everyone :o)

Hope all you are doing fine.

It's been for ages but as you all know I was travelling madly for business purposes. So it's time of the year my travellings are a bit slowed down. Then I took this opportunity to write more on my 'Food Adventure' blog. I am going to share all different ideas, recipes and some culinary visit notes from the countries that I have visited lately.

Let's start with some homemade Christmas gift ideas. This is the recipe I found at bonappetit website. It's  fantastic one of the give away gift idea:

Chocolate-Almond Bark with Sea Salt

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups roasted Marcona almonds (not in oil)
• 1 pound good-quality dark chocolate (62%–70% cacao), finely chopped
• Coarse sea salt (for sprinkling)

Preparation

• Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or foil. Combine sugar with 2 Tbsp. water in a small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and cook, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush, until caramel is dark amber, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Immediately add butter; whisk until melted. Add almonds; stir until well coated. Transfer to baking sheet, spreading out to separate nuts. Let cool. Break up any large clumps of nuts. Set aside 1/4 of nuts.
• Stir chocolate in a medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted. Remove from heat, add nuts from baking sheet, and stir quickly to combine. Spread chocolate-nut mixture on same baking sheet, keeping nuts in a single layer. Top with the reserved nuts; sprinkle with salt. Chill until chocolate is set, about 3 hours.
• Break bark into pieces and store between layers of parchment or waxed paper. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 week ahead. Keep chilled.

Enjoy it!

Homemade Ice cream with Mastic and Candied fruits

Bonsoir Food adventurers!


Last saturday afternoon as usual weekend tradition  we were watching some documentaries/films at home. And suddenly both of us started to crave for ice cream! Vassilis has offered to go and get some from nearby supermarket but I was not fancy really. Cause first of all I don`t like supermarket ice creams. Also since last July which my food allergens reaction has been figured, I had only once which was 6 months after at Cineworld.


For my taste ice cream should be Italian Gelato style. So far in Glasgow there is one shop which is located in West End and called `3 Steps to Heaven`. Well you definitely feel you are in heaven after first spoon of ice cream when placed in your mouth. I would highly recommend whoever will visit Glasgow definitely should pop in to this small but tasty ice cream parlour.


Anyway getting back to our saturday afternoon again, after checking out fridge and finding necessary ingredients in there then I decided to make our home made ice cream. It is very easy to make it but needs to placed in the freezer at least 3-4 hours before serving. This time I made it with some mastic flavour and as last moment my darling requested to add some candied fruit pieces too. Honestly turned out was good combination. But instead of mastic flavour you can replace with any kind of flavour like vanilla, chocolate, caramel, rosewater etc. and small pieces of fresh or frozen fruit, chocolate drops, nuts pieces or small chunks of turkish delight!


So anybody fancy for home made ice cream now ? And let`s do it.


4 egg yolk
100 gr sugar
300 gr double cream
300 gr milk
30 gr mastic
100 gr candied fruit(orange peel)


As first step place a metal cake tin in the freezer to get ready. If you have ice cream machine place the metal bowl of the machine in the freezer.


Then pour cream and milk into saucepan with mastic pieces and placed in medium heat over the stove. Mix time to time. When it starts bubbling let it boil for a couple of minutes more. At the same time in a separate bowl whisk egg yolks with sugar till make them creamy and fluffy. Then pour the boiled cream-milk mixture slowly over the egg-sugar mixture and whisk to well. Return the mix on saucepan again over the medium heat. Mix with spoon till the mixture will start to thicken. When it`s thicken take it off from fire. In a bigger bowl place ice cubes and fill 2/3 of cold water and place the saucepan over the water. This is quick cooling process which will stop the cooking while still the saucepan is hot and the mixture will cool down quickly. It will take 10 mins approx. Take cake tin/ice cream machine bowl from freezer. Then pour the mixture in it.


If you are handling with ice cream machine please follow required handling time and programme. If you are handling like me without machine so place the tin into freezer again. And every between 30-45 minutes churn the mixture. Best way start from sides and upside down into middle. Make this process at least three times in a row. Then you will realize at the final process your ice cream is really settling.


For serving prepare hot water in a cup. Put your ice cream scoop into cup and let it stay for couple of minutes. Then scoop your home made tasty ice cream and serve it with any topping you like. Yummy isn`t it ?

Bon appetit!

Veggie Lasagne

Hello Food Adventure followers :)


Hope all of you getting over winter blues soon. Mother nature already started to showing her signs for spring time. So it`s awakening and cleaning time recently. And also just before Easter it`s a kind of detoxing period.


Almost two weeks ago Lent period started which is for the followers of lent this is the period abstain from meat and dairy products until Easter. And  I have convinced my fiance to keep up on the strict lent this year which I feed him with hearty vegan dishes, usually he is not very much keen on! As both of us coming from Mediterranean origin that is so easy to prepare tasty vegan dishes with Mediterranean way of cooking with Middle Eastern flavours. 


Well I would like to share couple of my easy cooking and delicious recipes which you can adapt to your own taste maybe with  replacing couple of ingredients. Here is one of my recipe - 


Veggie Lasagne :  


1 medium size Courgette
2 medium size Aubergines
2-3 peppers
1 medium size onion
200 gr mushrooms
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
500gr chopped tomatoes/passata
50ml olive oil
100gr feta cheese(optional)
200gr grated mozzarella cheese or sliced cheddar cheese
Lasagne sheets


First, chop the onion to chunk size. And follow to chop courgette, aubergines and peppers almost same chunk size. Cut half the mushrooms. Then put your saucepan on medium fire with olive oil in it. When the oil warmed up first put chopped onions and caramelized them for 3-4 minutes. Add all veggies and mix them with onions and sauté/cook for 10 minutes. They don`t need to cook well. When they are ready take of from heat and add seasoning(salt & pepper). 

While the veggie filling is getting a little cool off you can switch the oven on 170C and
prepare baking casserole. Cover the bottom of the baking casserole with little amount of tomato purée/passata then place one layer lasagne sheets to cover the dish completely. Then spread half amount of  cooked veggie mix to cover lasagne sheets. Crumble half of the feta cheese over the veggie mix. Then put another layer of lasagne sheets again. Repeat the same process  with spreading rest of veggie mix and crumble feta cheese all over. Then cover again with lasagne sheets. And pour over all tomato puree then cover the top with grated cheese or cheese slices. Then place in the oven to cook for an hour. We found this dish very yummy, hope you will like it too. 

Bon appétit!

Fresh on blogging and first recipe

Greetings to all food lovers, 


I am just starting to write on my blog as a first time and I don`t know where to start. Actually it was suggested  quiet long time ago with my fiancé to start on blogging but due to my busy work schedule could not manage till now. And here I am now! 


First of all, I am a food lover also Le Cordon Bleu trained and well experienced Pastry Chef. I travelled and lived/worked in different countries in the past and recently I am based in Glasgow, Scotland. I would love to share with you my and my fiancé`s recipes,  our interest on food/different cuisines, different trends related to food world, about chefs and cookbooks etc. 


I thought my fresh start on blogging should be sweet start  then I decided to write down my yesterday recipe of `Crème brulée`. I haven`t made crème brulée quiet long time but couple of night ago as my sweet tooth fiancé during commercial break when he saw it on screen suddenly he started `ahhhh` sounds. Then I decided to surprise him yesterday. 


My easy crème brulée recipe is as below:


6 medium-size egg yolk
100 gr sugar
500ml double cream
1 vanilla stick(or couple of drops vanilla flavour)
Brown sugar for topping


First switch on your oven to 150C before starting on the recipe. 


Then put the double cream(with either vanilla stick seeds or vanilla drops) in a saucepan and placed over medium heat on stove. Separate egg yolks and whites(you can keep whites in airtight container in the fridge for up to a week). Whisk egg yolks with sugar until fluffy and creamy. While cream will be start to boiling reduce the heat and keep for couple of minutes more on fire. Then slowly pour the cream over the egg mixture while whisking. You can divide the mixture individual ramekins or oven proof small cups but I preferred to put in big oval porcelain bowl cause also nice to have it like pudding style when you serve it. 


So next step to bake it in the oven with ben-marie technique. Meaning you need a deep tray to place your ramekins or big bowl inside the tray first. And then pour over hot water inside the tray till reaching the level of 2/3 of the bowl or ramekins. Be careful not to drop any water to your brulee/s. And place the tray into oven carefully and bake 45 minutes. As soon as the time goes off take the tray out carefully - Not burn yourself  - and take the big bowl or ramekins out of water. 


Let cool down at least for an hour out of fridge and placed in fridge to stay overnight. If you are serving same day at least keep it in the fridge for 3-4 hours. So just before you serve sprinkle some brown sugar on top of the crème brulée and burn it either with brulée torch or oven grill. I used my oven grill and it came out fantastic. Unfortunately placed pictures of my crème brulée down below just remaining of left over. Hope you will be enjoying my first message and also crème brulée recipe. 


Bon Appétit!