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An Almost Wine-less Trip to Turkey

I drink wine often at home but gave it up while traveling in Turkey because alcoholic drinks are forbidden to Muslims, and I wanted to respect that.  

At a cocktail reception I attended, the cocktails were fruit juice, even though the hotel where this event took place had a beautiful bar.

I became so used to doing without that when I saw people laughing and drinking beer at outdoor cafes in Istanbul, it looked odd and unappealing.

I did have wine one evening, at Bayazhan Restaurant in Gaziantep, a beautiful place with vaulted ceilings like a historical monument (above).  Wine was poured there at a dinner during Gaziantep's inaugural Bulgur Festival.

This is a closer look at the label. The words kirmizi sek şarap under 2013 mean dry red wine. Read more about Kayra wines by clicking here. 

Dinner started with a yogurt soup that contained cubes of lamb, chick peas and, in honor of the Bulgur Festival, grains of bulgur wheat.

Meatball-like Arab kofte in spicy thick yogurt (above) were made of bulgur rather than meat, again in honor of the festival.

Dolma--stuffed dried eggplant and peppers--contained meat and rice (above). We also ate çiğ köfte, Turkey's version of steak tartare, made with raw lamb instead of beef. The lamb is "cooked" with spices rubbed into it by hand. 

Kebabs are much loved in Turkey. The plate above included delicious chicken and lamb kebabs. Ground lamb kebabs had taken on the flavor of the eggplant with which they were grilled.

Another course was roast lamb to eat with rice pilaf studded with pistachios and currants (above).

The dinner included cheese-stuffed borek. This one looked like a pastry (above) but was made entirely of cheese, sprinkled with nigella and sesame seeds. 

In the eastern part of Turkey, each town has its own special cheese. Four of these were on a plate along with dried figs, apricots, raisins, olives, walnuts, cucumbers and tomatoes. On the left is a salad of walnuts with tiny olives. 

Another salad combined purslane with onions, sweet red peppers, tomato and flecks of red chile. The purslane salads in Gaziantep were delightful, and I noticed how common that green was in markets there (above). The Turkish word for purslane (verdolaga) is semizotu. 

For dessert, there was carrot baklava (above), which includes no carrots but is named for its long slim shape. The Turkish way to eat this is by hand, turned upside down so that the syrupy layer is on top. 

The restaurant also brought out a beautiful fruit plate (above).

The way out led through this spacious terrace, a romantic place to have Turkish coffee or tea after dinner.  

Note: This dinner took place during Gaziantep's bulgur festival in 2016. I postponed publishing it because of terrorism incidents at that time and the more recent denial of visas to American citizens. Would I return to Turkey now? Absolutely. The food and people are wonderful. I would love to spend time again in markets, bakeries, restaurants and book stores, aspects of Turkish culture overshadowed by more sensational news.  

Coffee? Yes, As Long As It's Menengic

"This coffee is fantastic," I told the shopkeeper who bought it for me. "What is it?" 

"Menengic," he said. I did not know what that meant, because this was my first trip to Turkey, and everything was new and unfamiliar.

But I did know that this coffee was extraordinary--rich, nutty, with no bite or bitterness, just deep, mellow flavor.

A street vendor had poured it from a tall brass pot with hot coals at the bottom. Dressed in a red pillbox hat and striped tunic, he was as fantastic as the coffee.

Only it wasn't coffee, in the sense of Starbucks or Peet's. It was a brew unique to Gaziantep, where I was staying. Gaziantep is the pistachio capital of Turkey, and this was pistachio coffee.

It's not made from the kind of nuts you eat but from small dark wild pistachios. You can see them in the bowl of snacks above.

I didn't find the vendor again, but I did come across Tahmis Kahvesi (above), a vintage coffee house famous for this beverage. Upstairs, you can sit in a carpet-lined booth with carpeted arm rests, like a revered visitor worthy of the finest hospitality.

The coffee (above) is so enchanting that you will probably order a second round, maybe even more. And you will not suffer coffee nerves afterward because it contains no caffeine.

Blended with milk, pistachio coffee is thick, like hot chocolate, and coats the sides of the cup. Unlike Turkish coffee, no thick residue settles in the bottom, so you can drink the entire cup.   

This is how it arrives. 

Downstairs Tahmis Khavesi has a shop stocked with pistachio coffee concentrate and the snack mix of roasted garbanzos, peanuts and wild pistachios that is served at the table--nice souvenirs to take home.

Across the street, a garden extension allows for smoking--nargile means hookah. In addition to menengic, the menu there offers regular Turkish coffee and dibek, which is mortar-ground coffee. Other drinks are lemonade, the yogurt drink ayran, tea (cay) and herbal tea (zahter).  

Gozleme is a sort of Turkish quesadilla, filled with meat or cheese.  And "tost" is grilled stuffed bread, a hearty snack and not the toasted slices you eat for breakfast. Damla sakizi means mastic, but I don't know what you get if you order that. I'll have to go back to find out.

I did have menengic coffee later in Istanbul, but it wasn't as heady and rich as that in Gaziantep, a pleasant city known for great food as well as its unique coffee. 

A Turkish Brunch Plus a Recipe

Imagine going all the way to Turkey to learn about its fabulous cuisine and falling in love with--French fries.

This happened at Orkide Ibrahimli, a restaurant in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey. The fries appeared there at a brunch for journalists attending Gaziantep's first bulgur festival. 

The plate was simple, fries topped with vibrantly red tomato sauce and garnished with mild peppers. It intrigued me to the extent that I recreated it at home, making up my own tomato sauce. See the recipe below.

Was this all I liked at the brunch? Goodness no. The assortment of dishes was fantastic (above), covering the table.

Here is my plate, filled with good things only to be emptied and filled again. 

These beautiful puffy rolls are called kubban. I tore mine apart and smeared the pieces with kaymak (thick, rich cream) and honey.

A highlight was Gaziantep's famous cream-filled breakfast pastry katmer (above), topped liberally with local pistachios, considered the finest in Turkey, and probably the world.  

After that came another pistachio-laden treat, batma kaymak (above). This arrived as a circle of dough spread with cream.

A waiter came by to sprinkle on pistachios and honey (above). Sugar added even more sweetness. (A plate of the fries with tomato sauce is in the photo too.)

You can tell that I love sweets, but there was plenty of savory food too, including skillets of soft-fried eggs (above), skewers of grilled vegetables and sucuk (sausage), eggplant, stuffed breads and more.

There were olives and other condiments to eat along with the dishes (above), also fresh cucumbers, tomatoes and green peppers set out with a bowl of red pepper flakes.

Cheeses, fruit preserves and kaymak were on the table too. And syrupy dried apricots with almonds. 

(For a full description of the brunch and mouth-watering photos, check Faye and Yakir Levy's article at this link.)  

Afterwards came Turkish coffee and a survey of the heavenly pastries in Orkide's bakery. The photo shows only a little of the enormous variety. Next time, I'll leave with a sackful. 

FRENCH FRIES WITH SPICY TOMATO SAUCE
Based on the dish served at Orkide Ibrahimli in Gaziantep

3/4 pound tomatoes, peeled
1/4 cup chopped shallots or onion
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon bottled red pepper paste
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Dash Aleppo pepper or other hot pepper
French fries, frozen or homemade
Sliced fried or sauteed green chiles

To make the tomato sauce, puree the tomatoes, shallots and garlic in a food processor or blender.

Heat the oil in a small saucepan. Stir in the tomato paste and red pepper paste, then the pureed tomato mixture and water. Add paprika and salt and pepper to taste. Add enough Aleppo pepper or other hot pepper to make as spicy as you like.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer 5 minutes. 

Serve over hot French fries. Garnish with chile slices. 

Makes about 1 cup tomato sauce, equivalent to an 8-ounce can.

Note: Aleppo pepper and jars of tomato and red pepper pastes from Turkey are in markets that stock Middle Eastern ingredients. 

Thanks to Mustafa Özgüler, chef/owner of the restaurant, for this sumptuous morning meal.

Photos by Barbara Hansen

For Tacos in Turkey? It's Bogazkoy

If you're in Gaziantep and crave a taco, there's just one place to get it--Bogazkoy.

This city, regarded as Turkey's culinary capital, is so addicted to its own cuisine that people aren't interested in foreign interlopers such as taco stands, Thai restaurants, sushi places and Korean BBQ.

It took a bright young chef to make a difference. Kerem Ozatay, 31 (above), realized his creativity didn't fit local tastes. Therefore, he opened Bogazkoy away from the heart of town in a new area, near the University of Gaziantep, which provides an open-minded customer-base. 

Students come for burgers, pasta, pizza--and tacos. The 11 tacos are made with ground beef or chicken and accompanied by Mexican style rice. Ozatay buys corn tortillas and makes flour tortillas at the restaurant.

Istanbul tacos (at the top) are filled with tomatoes, cream cheese, corn, onions,  jalapeños, roasted peppers, and meat.

Above are California tacos, stuffed with Cheddar and mozzarella, mushrooms, pickled jalapeños, roasted peppers, onions and guacamole, plus meat.

A Manhattan taco has blue cheese. There's curry in the New Delhi taco and spicy tomato sauce in an Antep taco, because people in Gaziantep like fiery flavors. Others are named for Capetown, Sydney, Milan, Naples, Shanghai and Mexico.

Ozatay put the tacos on the menu in May.  A taco meal appeals to students because "it's very cheap," he said. Chicken tacos, three to an order, are under $7, beef tacos a dollar more.

Ozatay is by no means only a fast food chef. His serious dishes include Asian style salmon (above) that would fit right in at a Korean or Japanese restaurant in California.

The salmon, from Norway, is seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, ginger, honey, sugar, roasted red peppers and oyster sauce. The noodles on the plate are Asian-flavored too.  Ozatay orders specialty ingredients from Istanbul. The tossed greens on the salmon plate came from Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast.

Ozatay describes his food as mostly international, with some Turkish. An example of the latter is open-ended stuffed grape leaves, filled with fine bulgur, lamb and Halloumi cheese. They sit on a base of roasted eggplant with yogurt, butter and garlic.

Back to international--Ozatay turns out a killer gazpacho shooter. But he's most proud of his souffles, the only chef in Gaziantep making them, he said.  Rather than classic French, the one above was influenced by the Turkish desserts baklava, katmer and kunefe but is lighter than any of them.

Its components include delicate Antep cheese, white chocolate and pistachios. That's goat milk ice cream on the side. Called Bogazkoy Fistiklisi, it's his signature dessert. 

Born in Ankara, Ozatay grew up in Gaziantep and returned there after working in Istanbul. He opened Bogazkoy three years ago.

If you go there for tacos with beer or margaritas, forget it.  Bogazkoy is too close to a mosque, the beautiful  Anadolu Tevhid (one of its turrets is at the right), to sell alcohol. But if you insist, there's bira on the menu. That's Turkish for beer, but it's non-alcoholic.   

Photos by Barbara Hansen

A Great Place to Eat in Gaziantep

Wouldn't you want to eat at a place where you're greeted with a smile like this?

And where the food is as pleasing as the smile?

The place is Bayindir Kebap Salonu, a restaurant specializing in kebabs. It's located in a busy shopping area in the old part of Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey.

The kebabs are cooked over the coals (above), then served with fresh flat breads that are lightly greased by rubbing them with the kebabs.   

Here is adana, minced lamb.

Spicy chicken kebabs (above) are wonderful. 

The kebabs are sprinkled with chopped parsley and slivers of red bell pepper and onions. 

Big super-fresh mint sprigs go on each plate. 

A spicy vinegary salad of tomato, cucumber and lettuce (above) is nice with the kebabs.

The food is made to order. Vegetables are chopped with this huge knife.

Pitchers of water are on each table.

Better with this food is the yogurt drink ayran (above), foamed up in a dispenser outside. The way to drink it is with a spoon from a bowl, like soup. I couldn't resist buying one of these sets before leaving Gaziantep.

For a traveler, finding a decent restaurant can be a challenge, especially when there is no one to ask because you can't speak the language. But this restaurant was bright and open with great vibes, worth investigating. And the food turned out to be as good as intuition said it would be.   

Photos by Barbara Hansen

Turkey's Refreshing Red Plum Drink

My refrigerator has been crammed with jars of erik suyu, a red plum drink from Turkey, but it took only one heat wave to eradicate them all.

I drink this luscious concoction straight or dilute it with water. Best of all is a fizzy drink topped with pink foam, produced by adding gingerale. In any form, this drink is great in the middle of a steamy night or throughout the day.

The only way you can get erik suyu here is to make it yourself, which is easy. Steps and the recipe follow. I first tasted it at Zencefil, a vegetarian restaurant in Istanbul (above).

Zencefil not only makes the juice drink but a plum sorbet, plum ice cream, a plum tart and plum cheesecake, at least those were on the menu (above) when I was there in June.

Luckily, I was with food writer and historian Nazli Piskin. Nazli's an excellent cook (follow her on Instagram under Nazli Piskin and Edible Istanbul) and she told me how to make the drink. To explain the name, erik is Turkish for plum and suyu is juice.

The first step (above) is to place washed plums in a bowl and add sugar.

After the plums stand for an hour or two, turn them into a large pot, add water and a stick of cinnamon and boil the plums until very tender.

The plums will float as they boil, and the skins will turn the water a beautiful red. After they cool, work them through a sieve with fine holes, a few at a time. Discard the seeds and skins. Strain the juice into a bowl. 

Now stir the plums into the reserved juice, taste and add more sugar if wanted. Then bottle, refrigerate and watch it disappear. I drank my last batch so quickly there was no chance to share, but it would be lovely in a pitcher for a summer party.

ERIK SUYU
Red Plum Drink
From Nazli Piskin, Istanbul

15 red plums, about 3 pounds
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 cups water
1 stick cinnamon

Wash the plums well. Place them in a large bowl. Coat them with the sugar and let stand at least 1 hour or longer.

Turn the plums into a Dutch oven (Nazli uses a pressure cooker). Add the water, rinsing out the bowl with some of it. Add the cinnamon stick.

Bring the plums to a boil and boil until very  soft, 30 to 40 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the plums stand until cooled, at least 1 hour.

Place a sieve with small holes over a large bowl. Place 1/3 of the plums in the sieve. Working with a heavy-bottomed glass or small jar, force as much pulp as possible through the sieve. Discard the skins, seeds and cinnamon stick.

Repeat with the remaining plums, in two batches.

Strain the liquid in the Dutch oven into another bowl. If any bits of plum are in the liquid, put them through the sieve.

Combine the sieved plums and the liquid and stir.  Taste and add more sugar if wanted, but the mixture should be sweet enough.

Pour into clean storage jars, cover and refrigerate. Serve as is, over ice, diluted with water, or in a pitcher with ice for a party.

Makes about 9 cups or 10 servings.  

Getting a Second Taste of Katmer

Once in a while, life gives you a second chance, a delicious second chance.

Three years ago at the Anatolian Festival in Costa Mesa, I tasted a pastry called katmer. It's a specialty of a place called Gaziantep in Turkey. I had never heard of katmer or of Gaziantep, so this was a brand new experience.  

My friend Faye Levy, an expert in Middle Eastern cuisine who was speaking at the festival, insisted I try it. This was because a katmer expert, Mehmet Özsimitci, had come all the way from Gaziantep to prepare it.  

I watched as Özsimitci (above) rolled dough very thin, topped it with kaymak (thick clotted cream), sugar and pistachios, folded the dough into a square and brushed it lightly with clarified butter before baking it. 

We each had a tiny sample, reveling in the creamy goodness and the pleasant, sweet nuttiness of the pistachios--Gaziantep is the pistachio capital of Turkey.

We came back later for another taste, but the katmer was gone and there would be no more that day.  So sad, because this was my only chance to taste it.  

Wrong. This spring I wound up in Gaziantep at the very shop that had provided katmer for the Anatolian Festival. Its name is Katmerci Zekeriya Usta (above).

And there was its owner, Mehmet Özsimitci (above), the man who had come to the festival.

Inside the shop, a young baker rolled, flipped and stretched the dough until it was paper thin (above).

Then he put on kaymak, pistachios and sugar and folded the dough over them. Now the katmer was ready for baking. 

you can find videos of the shop on YouTube. And here is a link to a video of Özsimitci making katmer at the Anatolian Festival. 

We sat at a table outside--Faye was there too--drinking tea and eating our fill of katmer. The large square was 17 lira, which is about $5.80, and enough for four.

Other shops in Gaziantep sell katmer, but I insisted on going to this one. That's so I could finally have a second taste of the very katmer that I had missed in Costa Mesa. 

Photos by Barbara Hansen

Where to Go for Great Baklava

There's a disappearing act every day at Imam Cagdas.

What disappears are flat cardboard packing boxes and pan after pan of baklava.

This restaurant in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey is so famous for baklava that people fly in from Istanbul and Ankara to load up and take it home. They also come to eat, because Imam Cagdas is the most famous restaurant in Gaziantep.

Dating from 1887, it has been in the hands of the same family for five generations. The first in the line was Imam Cagdas, who gave the restaurant its name. 

On a typical day, there's plenty of action as baklava is brought to the front, packed and carried out. If you want to eat baklava at the restaurant, you had better go early. Late in the evening it's all gone.  

Gaziantep baklava, considered Turkey's finest, is loaded with the freshest and best pistachios from the local crop. This plate from Imam Cagdas shows how generously pistachios are used. Sarma baklava on the right is rolled like stuffed grape leaves (sarma). A thin layer of pastry lets the green nuts show through.

One night the only choice was fistik ezmesi, which was all pistachios and no pastry (fistik means pistachio). 

If you're going to eat there, start with the two most popular dishes. One is the pizza-like meat pastry called lahmacun. Gaziantep style is to spread it with roasted eggplant (above), fold and eat. Another way is to top it with parsley, lemon juice and green chile.

"Normal" lahmacun--that's what it's called on the menu--is topped with lamb, tomatoes, parsley and green and red peppers (above). The meat is cut by hand. 

"Soganli" lahmacun--sogan means onion--combines the meat with onions, tomatoes, walnuts and pomegranate molasses.

The other big seller is ali nazik--grilled lamb cubes and a minced lamb kebab on a bed of roasted eggplant mixed with garlic and yogurt (above). The creamy, smoky sauce is wonderful with the meats. 

Kebabs are grilled over oak. You eat them with a tangy, spicy onion salad, which is one of several salads on the menu. They're dressed with pomegranate molasses and olive oil. 

The server above is bringing plates of grilled vegetables that include kebabs of minced lamb with pistachios.

It was a surprise to find a grilled loquat on each plate and to learn that loquats are used in Turkish cuisine. Although there are loquat trees where I live, the fruit is generally ignored. 

Components of the grill plate are eaten wrapped in bread (above).

At dinner, the food came nonstop--cheese borek, puffy breads, the yogurt drink ayran and more, until the table was so full I had to put my grilled vegetable plate on a side ledge. This happened because I was eating with a Turkish food expert, Filiz Hosukoglu, who brought members of the Cagdas family to the table.

Here she is with Talat Cagdas, who said that if the restaurant used "technology," the food would lose its taste. The kitchen staff is twice as large as it would be if mechanical shortcuts were allowed, he said. 

The people of Gaziantep are so proud of this restaurant that if you ask anyone on the street where to eat, the answer is always Imam Cagdas. The food is traditional, from a cuisine so outstanding that Gaziantep has been honored by UNESCO for its gastronomy.  

Photos by Barbara Hansen

Bulgur Gets Its Own Food Festival

This is sushi, right? Yes, but with a difference. It's made with bulgur wheat instead of rice.

You've eaten rice in a pineapple in Thai restaurants. Here the pineapple is stuffed with bulgur.

I ate as much of this as I could. It's a sort of cheesecake made with bulgur. Delicious.

Bulgur risotto, bulgur ravioli (above), bulgur-stuffed artichokes--almost anything you could think of turned up at the recent Bulgur Festival in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey. 

Even desserts such as the syrup-soaked shredded pastry kadayif (above) were tweaked to include bulgur.

Why a bulgur festival in this city? Because Gaziantep produces 70% of Turkey's annual output of more than 1 million tons of bulgur, serving as a processing center for wheat grown in the region.

If you're new to bulgur, it's wheat that has been cleaned, boiled and dried, then ground into a variety of sizes. 

The weekend festival promoted bulgur in the best possible way--by letting people eat as much as they could. The opening display of 101 bulgur dishes (above) was quickly demolished when ceremonies and speeches were over.  

Booths dispensed Turkish dishes such as pilaf and the bulgur salad kesir. One offered freshly boiled wheat called hedik, sweetened and combined with crushed pistachios. 

Cig kofte (above) is Turkey's version of steak tartare, made with raw lamb kneaded with bulgur and red peppers fermented until black. Eating it wrapped in a lettuce leaf is Prof. Dr. Mustafa Bayram of the Food Engineering Department of the University of Gaziantep. He's a leading authority on bulgur. 

Bulgur manufacturers were on hand to talk about their products and offer generous tastes. I saw long yellow grains of bulgur that could be cooked like rice. And bulgur combined with roasted vermicelli so that cooks preparing bulgur this way don't have to roast the vermicelli separately. 

Panels focused on how good bulgur is for you and how easy it is to cook--the grains have been boiled already, so they cook quickly. And how seamlessly bulgur blends into almost any cuisine. 

To prove this, chefs from international restaurants in Istanbul showed off their innovations. Olivier Piste, executive chef of the Shangri-La Hotel (above), made a bulgur salad with fried squid.

Giovanni Terricciato of the Movenpick Hotel (above) made risotto with eggplant, tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, sprinkling it with pistachios--Gaziantep is also the pistachio capital of Turkey.

You'll never find chicken biryani with bulgur in India. Nevertheless, Chef Imran Rana of Musafir Indian Restaurant (above) gave it a try, and festival goers clustered around as he showed how to cook it in authentic dum style, layered in a pot sealed with dough (above). 

Korean bibim bap with bulgur (above) was a great success.

I liked the way TV chef Yunus Emre Akkor, an authority on Ottoman cuisine (above), cooked bulgur with clarified butter and turmeric, then suggested using it as the base for sautéed lamb. Ottoman gourmands prized yellow foods, he said. If they didn't have saffron, they used turmeric. 

A fierce downpour with thunder and lightning sent people scurrying to tents and umbrellas. Others jammed into an open-air pavilion where food was handed to you as soon as you sat down.

Some escaped the rain in the restaurant Senfoni. My lunch plate there (above) included the bulgur salad kesir, a yogurt, eggplant and meat salad, another salad with tomatoes and walnuts and flat bread.

But mostly, the weather was good, and people enjoyed picnicking on the grounds. The camel behind this group is covered with bulgur. 

Outside in city markets bulgur is always on display because it is heavily used in Turkish cuisine. 

At a gala dinner (above), every course included bulgur. Sourdough bread was made with bulgur flour. Starters included diced beets in yogurt with bulgur. A creamy mixture blended two types of yogurt with bulgur, caramelized onions and spicy oil. Kesir was dressed up with squid ink, shrimp and pistachios.

A ring of golden turmeric yogurt surrounded beef cheek stew with bulgur "meatballs," spicy tomato sauce and thyme salad (above). 

Lamb shank (above) came with firik and bulgur risotto and bulgur crisps. Firik (freekeh) is freshly harvested wheat that is parched, not boiled like bulgur.

Dessert (above) was a bulgur tour de force. Even the cake was made with bulgur. Bulgur ice cream on a bed of caramelized puffed bulgur was fabulous.

What impressed me was that all the dishes at the festival "worked." Nothing seemed odd or forced. Bulgur was created thousands of years ago, the first processed food made from wheat. Thank heavens that happened. The first dish I cooked when I got home was bulgur pilaf. Even if you cook only that, you will have a great dish in your repertoire. 

Photos by Barbara Hansen