Turkish Sesame Bagel (Simit)

November 08, 2019 by Gizem in Breakfast

If you ask me which food I miss the most from Turkey, simit would most likely be my answer. Even after years of living in NYC and being spoiled by the best bagels, nothing replaces simit’s place in my heart (or should I say stomach). If I close my eyes and think of simit, I can literally remember the smell of the smoky molasses and toasted sesame seeds.

The best way I can explain how common simit is to liken it to the carts selling pretzels in New York City. Simit carts are spread amongst the busiest streets of Turkish cities, offering a cheap, on-the-go breakfast option. Way back when Turkish Lira was not suffering from crazy economic turmoils, I could get an amazingly fresh simit for 50 cents. Add some cream cheese on the side for 1TL more. But unlike the stale and overly salted pretzels on the street, simit is always fresh, tasty and has the most amazing crunchy texture.

Another way to buy simit is to call a simit guy passing through your street chanting “siiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiit” by opening the window and shouting them how many you want. These guys can balance hundreds of simit on their head and walk the streets like it is no big deal. This was pretty common on the weekends when my parents were wondering whether to wait for the simit guy or make a visit to the neighborhood bakery.

After years of missing simit, I finally taught myself how to make it. It is quite easy as long as you have the right ingredients. Do not skimp on the sesame seeds and do not skip the molasses. Also I highly recommend using a bread or pizza stone to make sure your simit is evenly baked. When making bread I use weight measurements rather than volume measurements. It is just so much more accurate that way. If you don’t have one yet, a kitchen scale is a cheap and handy purchase that I highly recommend.

Yields: 6 simits Time: 2 hours

Ingredients

For the dough:

500 grams unbleached white flour (approx. 4 cups)

300 grams lukewarm water

5 grams salt (approx. 1 teaspoon)

5 grams instant yeast (approx. 1 teaspoon)

For the topping:

1/4 cup molasses (preferably grape molasses)

2 tablespoons water

1 cup sesame seeds

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 480 degrees F with the bread stone placed in the middle rack and a baking tray or oven safe dish in the bottom rack. We will use the baking tray in the bottom rack to hold water and generate steam during the bake.

2. Add the yeast to lukewarm water. Stir until the yeast particles dissolve. Let it sit for a couple of minutes for the yeast to activate.

3. Sift the flour on your kitchen counter and make a well in the middle of it. Slowly add small amounts of the water yeast mixture and stir it into the flour using a fork, in circular stirring motions (see pictures below). You can also mix everything in a bowl or a mixer if you prefer.

4. Incorporate the remainder of the flour by pushing the flour around the edges into the gooey center. At this point, start using your hands to mix the dough until all the wet and the dry ingredients are mixed. The dough is going to be sticky at first but as you continue kneading, it will come together.

5. Knead your dough by stretching and pushing the dough away from yourself with the bottom of your palm, then folding it over the middle. Give the dough a little turn and repeat. Continue kneading for about 6-8 minutes, until the dough is smooth. If you mixed your ingredients in a bowl, lightly flour your surface before kneading.

6. Shape the dough into a ball, place in a large bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 30 minutes. The dough will rise and almost double in size.

7. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and stretch it with your hands to give it a log-like shape. Cut the dough into two equal pieces. Then, cut each of the 2 pieces into 3 equal pieces. You should have 6 pieces at this point. Now, cut each of the 6 pieces into two equal halves. At the end, you should have 12 equally sized pieces of dough (see pictures).

8. For a single simit we are going to use two pieces of dough. Use your hands to roll each piece of dough into a long, thin rope. Wrap the two ropes of dough around each other to get a twist pattern. Join the ends of the twisted rope and press firmly to seal. Repeat this for each pair of dough until you have 6 simits.

9. Pour the molasses onto a plate, add in the water and stir until incorporated.

10. Pour the sesame seeds onto a second plate and spread them evenly across the plate.

11. Dip each simit into the molasses first and then to the sesame seeds. Make sure all sides of the simit is fully covered with both.

12. My bread stone is not large enough for 6 simits so I bake them in two batches. If you are going to bake in multiple batches, hold off from dipping all simits into molasses and sesame seeds. Instead dip them right before placing them in the oven. You can cover the dough and let them sit on a lightly floured surface until the other batch is done baking.

13. Remove the hot bread stone from the oven and place the simits on it. Place the bread stone back into the middle rack of the oven.

14. Pour some water into the baking tray in the bottom rack. This is going to ensure we have a crispy simit which is crucial. Bake for 18-20 minutes.

15. Enjoy with some black tea, olives and feta cheese. Store them in room temperature. Reheat them with a toaster or toaster oven before eating because they are so much better when warm.

Summer Fruit Jam, Five Ways

November 08, 2019 by Gizem in Breakfast, Snacks

I grew up in a big city but I spent almost every summer down in the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, staying with my grandparents. My grandparents built a gorgeous white house with a gigantic garden for their retirement. The garden, and calling it a “garden” is definitely an understatement, grew pretty much every fruit and vegetable you can imagine. Strawberries, peaches, kiwis, blackberries, figs, plums, tomatoes, avocados, quinces, beans, peppers, and many more.

I learned pretty much everything I know about plants, soil and food at that garden. When I was 4 years old, I knew every single tree, plant and weed so well that I used to give detailed garden tours to all of our visitors. I learned that earth is bountiful, plants are resilient, animals are resourceful, growing food is lots of sweat and hardwork and that fresh hand-picked produce is unlike any other. Some mornings we had to wake up at 6 am to harvest the strawberries to avoid the scorching heat of the day. Some days we had to get down on our knees and pick weeds for hours and sometimes we just could not compete with the birds that ate all the fruits and learned to let go.

The garden has given my family so much produce over the years and sometimes, it was a little too much to eat. Imagine a house with six (maybe even more) peach trees. If every family member ate 2 peaches a day, we still could not go through weeks worth of harvest before the fruits started going bad. Those were the times when the kitchen turned into a jam factory, filling jars with sweet summer sunshine. Watching the vivid colors of fruit lava bubbling away followed by tasting a fresh batch of jam, spread on a warm slice of bread with butter. So satisfying.

In Turkish culture, preserving food is a very common practice. We pickle, can and ferment produce, make jams and vegetable pastes, and dry fruits, vegetables and herbs. We use preserved food throughout the year, making up for the cold seasons that are not as productive as summer. Some of these activities, like making large amounts of tomato paste is a group undertaking where every family member has a task. Jam making on the other hand, is pretty easy unlike what you might think.

For this post, I used five different fruits that are still in season (at least in the PNW): peach, apricot, strawberry, blackberry and sour cherry. The best time to make jam is when the fruits are in their peak season. I like to buy fruits from my local farmers market. Farmers know which fruits are at peak season. If they have three types of peaches for instance, I ask them which kind would work best for making jam. Many people think that leftover, almost too ripe, about to go bad fruits should be used to make jam. Your jam tastes as good as the fruits you use. So I always try to use the best fruits for jam, cutting off and discarding any bad bits if there are any.

Tips:

Traditional jam recipes call for 1 part sugar to 1 part fruit. For example, if you have 2 lbs of peaches, you need 2 lbs of sugar. I like my jams to taste like fruit so I use less sugar than recommended. If you use fruits at their peak, fruits will be sweeter so you can get away with less sugar. If your fruits are very sour, such as sour cherries, you can use 1-to-1 ratio of sugar to fruit.

I don’t like to write recipes that require a lot of special tools. But, in the case of making jam, a kitchen scale and a jar lifter come extremely handy. You need a kitchen scale because it is crucial to weigh the fruits and the sugar to ensure you have a great tasting jam. Without measuring, you can easily end up with an overly sweet, syrupy tasting jam. Kitchen scales are pretty cheap, ranging between $10-20. Here is the one I own. You can also use a kitchen scale to measure out ingredients for making bread and portioning food. Overall, they come handy and you will definitely use it for other recipes. Jar lifters are also useful if you want to be safe while handling hot jars and boiling water. Here is the one I have and they are as cheap as $6.

Always weigh the fruits after they are washed, cleaned and chopped. You might buy 3 lbs of peaches but, once the pits are removed and the peaches are peeled, they might weigh around 2 lbs. Now, if you use 3 lbs sugar thinking that you have 3 lbs of fruit, you are going to have an extremely sweet jam. So to adjust your sugar amount, know the actual amount of fruit you are using.

I don’t recommend making jam with more than 4 lbs of fruit at a time. Not only you need a very big pot, the jam also takes much longer to cook. Increasing cook time might result in burning the sugars and ruining the taste of your jam.

I don’t add pectin to my jams. My family never uses it and we always made amazing jams. Some fruits have pectin naturally and for the ones that don’t, I cook them a little longer. Also, lemon juice naturally has pectin anyways.

Yields: 3 pounds of prepped fruit results in approximately six 8 oz jars of jam. Here are the jars I use. It can be plus/minus one jar, depending on the fruit, so it is always good to have a couple of extra jars just in case.

Time: 12 hours (overnight) + 1.5 hours

Ingredients

1 part fruit

0.75 part sugar

1 lemon’s juice

Preparation

I highly recommend you read the tips section before starting to make the jam.

For strawberry jam:

1. Wash the strawberries. Cut off the leaves. Chop strawberries into halves (or quarters if the strawberries are large). I like chunks of fruits in my jam so I don’t mash the strawberries.

For apricot jam:

1. Wash the apricots. Cut them into halves and discard the pit. Cut the halves into wedges.

For sour cherry jam:

1. Wash the sour cherries. Remove the pits by splitting the cherries using your fingers or if you have one, use a cherry pitter.

For peach jam:

1. Wash and peel the peaches. Cut them into halves and discard the pit. Roughly chop the peaches into large chunks.

For blackberry jam:

1. Wash the blackberries and make sure there are no stems left attached to the berries. You don’t have to chop or mash the blackberries. I like to leave them whole as they explode and lose their shape when cooked.

2. Put the prepped fruit in a large dutch oven. Cover it with 0.75 part sugar. Basically, if you have 1 pound of prepped fruit, use 0.75 pound of sugar. If you have 1 kilo fruit, use 750 grams of sugar. You get the idea. Close the lid and let it rest overnight, until the fruits release all of their juices.

3. Next morning, start making the jam. Turn the heat to medium high and slowly stir until the sugar has fully melted. Bring the jam to a boil and reduce heat to medium-low. Be careful with boiling jam and keep an eye on it. If you leave it unattended, it can boil over. Trust me, it is no fun cleaning hot, molten sugar off of your stove.

4. Stir every 5-10 minutes to check on your jam. At this stage, the jam should be simmering and bubbling quite a bit.

5. While boiling, the jam is going to produce lots of thick foam. Remove the foam with the help of a spoon and discard. I check on the foam every 10 minutes or so and remove it. Continue simmering for about 1 hour.

6. While the jam is simmering, sterilize your jars. First, wash them with hot water and dish soap. Then, put the empty jars and their lids into a deep pot. Cover with water, until the jars are fully submerged under water. Bring the water to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, but leave the jars in hot water to keep them hot. This way, the hot jam won’t crack the glass jars.

7. To check whether your jam is ready, take a spoon of jam and set it aside to cool for about 2-3 minutes. You can also pour it on a cold surface like a plate. If when cooled, the consistency of the jam is thick when you run your finger through it, your jam is almost ready. If not, keep simmering for another 5 minutes and check again.

8. Once the jam is ready, add in the lemon juice, stir and boil for another 5-10 minutes. Lemon juice will help thicken the jam and avoid sugars from crystallizing over time.

9. Remove the empty jars and their lids from hot water, using a jar lifter. With a ladle (a funnel helps here), fill the jars, leaving 3/4 inch headroom. Wipe off the edge of the rim of the jar. Cover with the lid and tighten just a little such that you can easily open the jar with your fingertips. If you tighten it a lot, the air won’t be able to escape the jar in the next step.

9. Return the filled jars back into the pot with water. Bring the water to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the jars from the pot with a jar lifter. Let them cool on the counter. Within minutes, you should hear a “pop” sound from the lids. This indicates that they are perfectly sealed.

10. Sealed jars can last in your pantry for up to a year and a half. Sometimes I want to have a jar of jam for consuming right away. I don’t bother processing that one jar but I still sterilize it.

Put a dollop of jam on plain yogurt, spread them on biscuits and breads, sauce up your ice cream, add them on your cheese board and serve them with french toast or pancakes. Options are endless. Enjoy!

p.s. Please note that this post uses affiliate links. I only recommend products I love and use.

Poached Eggs in Yogurt

November 04, 2019 by Gizem in Breakfast

I look forward to weekends because of weekend breakfast. Not the wait in line for an hour at the hottest brunch place in town with unlimited bloody marys and ten different eggs benedicts kind of weekend breakfast. Rather, have a big breakfast spread at home with multiple cups of coffee while still wearing my pajamas kind of breakfast. Even though I can’t replicate the amazing Turkish breakfast spreads from home, on the weekends, we like to indulge in eggy breakfasts with cheese, bread and olives frequenting the table. Poached eggs with yogurt, also called çılbır, is perfect for the weekends when you have some more time to put a dish together. Then enjoy it leisurely while dipping your bread in the saucy goodness of butter, runny yolks and yogurt.

Between Cesar’s dislike of pancakes and my aversion to sweet breakfast in general (with one exception of eggy breads with fruit compote – recipe coming soon!), we are a couple that belongs to #teamsavorybreakfast for sure. From my dream breakfast of runny eggs in any form with sucuk, simit, olives and feta to Cesar’s love of fried eggs, rice and longaniza, we cook eggs almost every weekend.

It is funny that now I am all about runny egg yolks but I have been through a loooong phase where I hated runny yolks intensely. I can’t remember when this phase began but it was triggered by eating a very undercooked egg which had a slimy texture and made me barf. For years after this, I completely avoided runny eggs and only had hard boiled eggs not knowing what I was missing out. My mom used to make different doneness eggs for every single preference in the household and mine was always ready the last. I don’t know when I transitioned back to eating runny yolks (probably when I moved to New York) but I am so glad I did. Otherwise, I would never be able to appreciate a good poached egg.

Poached eggs in yogurt, or çılbır is a dish that I have seen only in Turkish cuisine. The first written record of the word “çılbır” date all the way back to 1533. The source is Regola del Parlare Turco (Rules of Speaking Turkish) by Filippo Argenti who was a secretary to the Florentine Ambassador in Istanbul. The text is a comprehensive study of Turkish lexical corpus and serves basically as a Turkish-Italian dictionary. Çılbır was probably being eaten by Ottoman sultans even before it was recorded in text by Argenti. It is pretty fascinating to be able to trace the history of a centuries old dish and still get to enjoy it for breakfast today. So join me on a trip to 15th century and a seat at the sultan’s table by making poached eggs in yogurt for your next weekend breakfast.

Tips:

* I don’t like to have poached eggs with fridge cold yogurt. To bring yogurt to room temperature quickly, I add in 1-2 tablespoons of hot water and stir until the yogurt is creamy.

Yields: 2 servings Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

4 eggs

1 tablespoon white vinegar

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons marash or aleppo pepper (or red pepper flakes)

1 cup plain yogurt

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Salt

Black pepper

Preparation

1. Fill a medium saucepan or pot with water. Over high heat, bring the water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat and let the water continue to simmer.

2. Put half a cup of yogurt in each serving bowl. Add a tablespoon of hot water to the yogurt and stir until the yogurt is creamy. Add in minced garlic and stir again.

3. Add the vinegar to simmering water and give it a stir.

4. Crack one egg into a small bowl. Using a spoon, give the simmering water a good stir. Tip the egg gently into the swirling water. I poach eggs one by one or two at a time. If you will be poaching more than two at a time, don’t use the swirling method, just tip the egg into the water.

5. Cook for 2 or 2.5 minutes. Remove the poached egg with a slotted spoon and drain the water.

6. Place two eggs on top of the garlicky yogurt for each serving.

7. In a small saucepan, heat butter and marash pepper until the butter melts and takes on a red color, for 2-3 minutes.

8. Drizzle the hot chili oil all over the eggs and yogurt. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with slices of bread for dipping.