Although it’s commonly served for breakfast, Menemen – aka Turkish Eggs – is also excellent as a quick lunch or light evening meal. This one-pan recipe comes from the ‘Van Life Cookbook: Resourceful recipes for life on the road: from small spaces to the great outdoors’ by Danny Jack and Hailee Kukura. This recipe is ... Read more »
For many years, ezme has been one of my favourite side dishes when visiting the many Turkish restaurants of North London. A simple cold dish of chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and red peppers with lots of parsley and mint, ezme is the perfect foil to kebabs such as adana kofte, chicken and lamb cis, and ... Read more »
Firinda Makarna is not a dish I’d heard of until reading Hasan Semay’s Big Has Home cookbook, but his description of it as being somewhat like an Italian lasagne was helpful, in that it features minced beef, pasta and a cheesy bechamel sauce. However, in this dish, the minced beef is fried with onions, parsley ... Read more »
Diversity in the world of cookery books is a good thing, a very good thing indeed. For decades, the UK food publishing world has been dominated by white authors. Writers of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds have struggled to get a seat at the table, and when they do, they’re often pigeonholed into titles tied ... Read more »
Ghillie Başan is a food anthropologist, and food and travel writer with a large back catalogue of cookbooks (one of which – Mezze – I already own, and The Lebanese Cookbook which we reviewed on Kavey Eats earlier in the year). Başan’s books are primarily focussed around the Middle East and Turkey though Indonesia, Cambodia, ... Read more »
This aubergine-wrapped chicken hails from Turkey, featuring two ingredients beloved of Turkish cooks – yoghurt and aubergine. Chicken is marinaded in a punchy combination of yoghurt, garlic, lemon, turmeric and Aleppo pepper, wrapped in silky sleeves of aubergine and cheese, covered with tomato passata and baked. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Have you already read our ... Read more »
I know I’m not alone in missing international travel, which is naturally hugely affected by this awful Covid pandemic we are experiencing all around the world. A great way to travel in one’s imagination is to cook and eat dishes from other countries, celebrating international cuisine and travelling by way of our bellies. Here, I ... Read more »
I adore lahmacun! Circular flatbreads topped with a thin spread of spiced lamb and baked fast and hot until they are crisp, these delicious pizza-like treats originated in the Ottoman Empire, especially Armenia, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. The name comes from the Arabic lahm b’ajin (meat with dough) – lahmacun in Turkish. For me, ... Read more »
Recently moved to Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, we’re now happily exploring the town’s restaurants. Local residents are full of praise for Mezze Me, on Frogmore Street; the restaurant describes its menu as “fresh and homemade Turkish and eastern Mediterranean food”, and in the 6 months they’ve been open, they’ve already grown a loyal customer base, Pete and I included. ... Read more »
We moved to North Finchley over 20 years ago, and discovered Izgara restaurant in Central Finchley not long after it opened in 1999. Although it’s not as local as the restaurants along our own high street 1.5 miles to the north, we loved the Turkish menu, friendly service and the windows all along the front ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]