Sautéed Spinach with Garlicky Yogurt

December 05, 2020 by Gizem in Meze, Salads

2020 has been a year where I had a love hate relationship with food. Some days I’d have an insatiable motivation to cook the most elaborate dishes and try complicated, five pages long, bread recipes and on some days, I didn’t even want to open the fridge. Lately I found the balance by finding comfort in simplicity. Cooking simpler food that I love, I know how to cook and that doesn’t require 15 obscure ingredients that I would normally enjoy searching in crowded shelves of specialty stores, seems to do the trick.

So here is a fancy looking yet simple salad (or side dish, meze) recipe that needs only 5 ingredients plus salt. You can serve it as a salad or a side dish, it goes really well with rice and meats, or you can spread large dollops on a slice of bread and call it lunch on a day you don’t feel like cooking.

As 2020 is coming to a close, I am starting to enjoy cooking again. It is a slow process but sticking to simpler and familiar food has been helpful. How is your relationship with cooking this year? Comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Yields: 6 servings Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 cups plain yogurt (or Greek yogurt diluted with 2-3 tbsp water)

1 garlic clove, grated

Pinch of salt

2 bunches fresh spinach (not baby spinach)

1 tbsp tomato paste

2 tbsp olive oil

Preparation

1. Throughly wash the spinach. Most spinach leaves have some residue soil on the stems, so the best way to wash them is to submerge in water for 5 minutes and let the soil, if there is any, fall to the bottom. You can also wash them in a colander in small batches, rubbing with your hands until all the residue is washed away.

2. Place the yogurt in a serving platter like a wide pasta bowl. If you are using Greek yogurt, add 2-3 tablespoons of water to make the yogurt runnier. Mix until the yogurt is smooth

3. Add the salt and grated garlic into the yogurt and stir until evenly distributed. Spread the garlicky yougurt evenly inside the platter.

4. Over medium heat, cook down the spinach until they are wilted but still in bright green colors, 2-3 minutes. Transfer to the serving platter and distribute evenly over the yogurt.

5. Add the olive oil and tomato paste into a small pot (I use a Turkish coffee pot). Over medium-high heat, while stirring, warm up the olive oil and the tomato paste. When the oil turns into red and starts to bubble a bit, take off of the heat. With the help of a spoon distribute dollops of the tomato sauce over the spinach and drizzle any leftover oil all over the dish.

6. Serve warm. This dish is still delicious chilled as well.

Enjoy!

Yogurt Soup with Chicken

November 08, 2019 by Gizem in Soup

Last week’s temperature drop in Seattle resulted in me making soup in the middle of August. Given my love of all things with satisfying broths, breaking the rules around soup is totally acceptable, right? Like that time two weeks ago another temperature drop resulted in me getting ramen for lunch followed by a bun bo hue the day after. As long as you have soup in life, everything will eventually be ok.

This yogurt soup, known as “yayla” soup in Turkish is very common in home cooking and is extremely easy to make. The classic recipe only uses rice, but I had some leftover chicken so I threw it in as well. This is the perfect soup to repurpose leftover rice and that rotisserie chicken you bought last week that you are tired of eating.

Soup holds a big part in Turkish cuisine and eating culture. In home cooking, it is a nourishing and economical meal that can feed a large family. It is also a big part of street culture, with late-night soup restaurants frequented after a long day of work or a night out drinking. To this day, nothing makes me feel more at home than a bowl of warm soup. So without further ado, here is my family’s recipe for Yayla Soup.

Yields: 6-8 servings Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)

2 cups water

1 egg

1 cup plain yogurt

1 lemon’s juice (about 1/4 cup)

2 cups cooked rice

2 cups cooked and shredded chicken (optional)

1/2 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon dried mint flakes

1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes (preferably Marash or Aleppo)

Preparation

1. Put the vegetable oil and the flour into a large pot. Cook over high heat, stirring, until the flour is a little toasted for 3-5 minutes.

2. Pour in the chicken stock and water into the pot and give it a stir. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

3. While the stock is boiling, prepare the yogurt mixture. In a large bowl, whisk the egg. Add in the lemon juice and the yogurt and whisk until everything is combined.

4. If you add cold yogurt to hot soup, the temperature difference will cause the yogurt to curdle. To avoid this, take one or two ladlefuls of simmering stock and add it into the yogurt mixture. Stir well. This will help warm up the of yogurt and avoid curdling.

5. While stirring the stock with one hand, slowly pour in the warmed-up yogurt mixture into the stock. Keep stirring. Add in the cooked rice, shredded chicken and salt. Bring the soup to a boil again and simmer for 5 more minutes.

6. Turn off the heat. Sprinkle with all the dried mint and the red pepper.

7. Serve while hot with a couple slices of bread on the side. Enjoy!

Braised Eggplant and Lamb with Yogurt

November 08, 2019 by Gizem in Dinner

It is finally eggplant season! Nothing makes me happier than seeing all types of purple magical goodness all over farmers markets. I already told you that fried eggplants are my absolute favorite but I love eggplants cooked in any way, braised, roasted or broiled. Also who doesn’t like a purple vegetable!?

I cooked this braised eggplant and lamb for the monthly cookbook club at World Spice. I love bookclubs and used to have one back in New York but, a cookbook club? Sign me up please! Every month World Spice picks a cookbook to cook from and every member of the club brings a dish from the featured book. This month’s cookbook was Joshua McFadden’s award winning book Six Seasons. When I saw this braised eggplant and lamb recipe in the book, the stars were aligned. I sent an email to Sherrie (the cookbook club’s organizer) crossing all my fingers that no one has signed up for this recipe. The dish was so yummy and it was such a hit that I asked Joshua for his permission to publish the recipe here. He was super nice and said yes.

The cookbook club was so much fun. We arranged all of our dishes on the counter and they looked like a rainbow of vegetables. I tasted over fifteen dishes from Six Seasons and each and every single one of them was delicious. The book is split into six chapters, highlighting vegetables through their peak seasons using various cooking methods. I love cookbooks but I am very picky about which ones I purchase. I don’t want to commit to buying a book (given they are not cheap) only to end up not using it. If I buy a book, I want the recipes to be a part of my repertoire. World Spice cookbook club was an awesome way to test many recipes from one book and I can confidently say that Six Seasons is going to be a go-to book in my library. If you are in Seattle, you should join us for the next gathering in September where we will be cooking Korean recipes from My Rice Bowl.

I cook lamb very rarely because it is hard to cook it right and raw lamb has a distinct smell which I am not a huge fan of. This recipe is not quick but it is so worth it. The lamb cooks to perfection and melts in your mouth without stealing the spotlight from the eggplant. Joshua recommends serving this dish with Israeli couscous or flatbreads (for which he has a recipe in the book as well). I made the flatbreads for the cookbook club. They tasted very authentic and they were easy to make. For the flatbread recipe you need to buy Joshua’s book (do it!) but without further ado, here is the recipe for braised eggplant and lamb.

Keep in mind that I made this recipe enough for a large group so that everyone can have a taste. As it is, the recipe should be enough for 8 full servings or 16 mini-servings for a gathering like a potluck.

Yields: 8 servings Time: 2.5 – 3 hours

Recipe from Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden

Ingredients

3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 pounds lamb shoulder, chopped into large chunks

3-4 eggplants, peeled in stripes and chopped into large cubes (about 2 pounds)

4 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

1 yellow onion, diced (about 3/4 cup)

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

3/4 teaspoon Aleppo or Marash pepper

1 bay leaf

2 cups water

Kosher salt

Black pepper, freshly ground

1 cup plain yogurt, to serve

Preparation

1. Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over high heat. Pat dry the lamb shoulder chunks and season them generously with salt and pepper.

2. Cook the lamb chunks, in batches, until brown on all sides, for 5-7 minutes. Set the browned lamb chunks aside. In between each batch, add a bit more olive oil if needed. At this point, we want the lamb to have a nice brown color but we don’t want it fully cooked through.

3. Reduce the heat to medium and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Peel the smashed garlic and cook for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Add in the diced onion and cook for another 4-5 minutes, until the onions are golden.

4. Add in all the spices, the bay leaf and a pinch of salt. Give it all a stir and cook for a minute, until all the spices are mixed and fragrant. Pause for a second and inhale the amazing scent of spices. At this point, my kitchen smelled amazing.

5. Return all the lamb with their juices, back into the pot. Add in 2 cups of water to barely cover the lamb. Don’t forget to reduce the amount of water if you are cooking a smaller portion of lamb. Bring the water to a simmer, cover and cook on low heat until the lamb is almost tender. This part took approximately 2 hours for me because I wanted a melt-in-your-mouth texture. Check on your lamb every 30 minutes or so to test its tenderness and to make sure there is enough liquid in your pot.

6. Peel the eggplant lengthwise, in stripes of black and white (see this pic). I like to leave on some of the peel as it adds some color to the dish. If you prefer, you can peel it all off.

7. Chop the eggplant in large chunks and add into the pot. Cover the pot and continue simmering in low heat for 30 more minutes. Every 5 minutes or so, I gave everything a stir to make sure the eggplants are evenly folded into the lamb.

8. You can add more salt and pepper to taste before serving. Serve with a large dollop of yogurt on top and with a side of Israeli couscous, flatbreads or white rice. If you like spicy flavors, this recipe can carry hot sauce really well. Joshua serves it with his spiced green sauce (recipe in the book) but I also recommend a serrano or habanero based hot sauce like Secret Aardvark. Enjoy!

* Looks like I had a mini brain freeze and forgot to photograph steps 6 and 7. I am very sorry! I will do better next time, I promise.