gastronomy page


nadir tarifler...

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There is everything here for gourmets... people who enjoy life and food lovers will find some interesting things here... kitchen is one of the most favorite places in my house... what can be more exciting than refined tastes in life and hobby cooking?.. cooking is a life style or job for some people, but its another nice hobby for me... let us not forget that good food is not too much food... eat less or in small portions but eat quality food in order to have gourmet food, enjoy life and be healthy...


 

  unique recipes ...    try them... 

fast pickle salad

ingredients:carrot, radish, celery, apple, extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, sugar, salt.

chop carrots, radish and celery as julien. stir the olive oil, vinegar, sugar and salt in a seperate bowl. add this sauce to the chopped veggies and stir thoroughly, cover the bowl with some strech film and let it stay in the refrigerator for some hours. later chop the apples in julien style and add to the salad. serve besides all kinds of primary dishes...

mixed bean fava

ingredients: all kinds of dried regular and broad beans, onions, extra virgin olive oil, lemon.

soak all dry beans overnight. chop the onions and sotee them with some olive oil. then boil the beans and soteed onions until they are softened. puree the boiled mixture with the help of a fork or blender. add lemon and salt according to your taste. this puree will be a delicious complementary for many dishes...

 

leek meatballs

ingredients: leek, egg, spices, olive oil, minced meat, tomatoe, flour.

finely chop the leek and boil them a little until softened. sotee the minced meat a little with chopped tomatoes and spices (any spices that you like). after some cooling place all in a bowl and mix with one egg and a little flour. when the mixture is consistent, shape some flat balls out of it and fry them in olive oil until brown and crisp. you can then place your leek meatballs in a shallow pot and cook a little more with tomatoe sauce...

 

mussel pilaki

ingredients: mussels, olive oil, potaoe, carrot, onion, green pepper, dill, parsley.

clean the mussels, open them and carefully took out the interior meats. chop the vegetables in small dice form. place all in a pot, add some olive oil and stir fry a little. then add some water and salt. cook until vegetables are soft. cool it and serve it with some chopped dill and parsley on top. this is a unique aegean dish...

 

 

avokado puree

ingredients: avokado, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, lemon, dill.

pick a ripe avocado and peel it. mash the avocado in a bowl using a fork. add crushed garlic, lemon juice, chopped dill, salt and olive oil. make a puree until consistent...

 

 

 

 

parsley pesto

ingredients: bunch of parsley, garlic, walnut, pine nuts, extra virgin olive oil, salt.

all ingredients are put together and pureed just like Basil pesto. can be made using a food processor but better crush in a mortar by hand...

 

 
Vegetable Mash

 

 

I would like to give you a potato mash recipe with my own interpretation here. Actually, it's not exactly a potato puree. Potatoe mash in Western kitchens is a type of appetizer or accompany dish. An approach brought to the recipe of boiled potatoes and some other root vegetables, which is not a puree, just crushed and torn.

Ingredients: potatoes, root celery, carrots, fresh onions and all kinds of green herbs. Extra virgin olive oil, preferably seasoning spices.

We peel vegetables and cut in small pieces and boil them. Then add all spices and olive oil in a bowl when it is still hot. The aim here is not to make mash but to lightly crush it with the help of a fork to assimilate spices and olive oil while it is still hot. Choose spices according to your mouth taste at this point. Salt, pepper, red pepper, sumac and cumin are excellent. To emphasize the yellow color I would recommend tumeric (hint saffron) also. Cooling for a while and then adding finely chopped greens. Fresh onions, fresh garlic, dill, parsley, fresh thyme, leaf basil and fresh mint. I used all these just because these herbs are all grown by myself in my own terrace garden. You can present the mash mix as a salad or next to the meat dishes. These carrots and root celery used with potatoes in this recipe offer an extraordinary taste. Broccoli can also be used if it is available ...

 

 

Mash

 

Simple Chocolate Tarte
Mini Tart

 

Who does not like chocolate? ... here I will show you how to make the world's easiest chocolate tart. Try it, try it, you'll love it. Present to your loved ones, make yourself happy. No cooking, very easy, there is some labor. Get the bitter chocolate chocolate cocoa biscuit, brownie and ready supangle from your market. I am sure you have at home some butter, bitter chocolate and instant coffee. Pull out chocolate biscuits, brownie bar and a little butter and process these in food processor. I chose to add some bitter chocolate and orange liqueur at this stage. Squeeze this mixture into a silicon tart mould. At the bottom of the mold and at the edges of 1/2 centimeters thick. Leave the silicone tart in the fridge for 1 hour. So we form a hard container into which we can stuff chocolate into our tarte. You will get a hardened shell when you remove it from the refrigerator. Now let's prepare the inside. We will fill the chocolate into this tarte cake. We can fill the supangle directly from the market, but I wanted something a little nicer. Add some bitter chocolate pieces, a little instant coffee, orange liqueur and vanilla into the supangle and heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds. I blended this mixture well and added some gelatin into the melt. When the mixture became coherent, I poured it into the tarte base in the silicon mold and placed it in the fridge for cooling. After a few hours, it was ready to eat chocolate tarts that looked beautiful and surprisingly delicious. Bon apetite...

 

Mini Tart

Harissa

Sauces are the main taste additions of any recipe... here I am sharing with you my interpretations of some sauces. anyone can find sauce recipes online but I tried to share my own experience and interpretations on this page. Harissa is a Moroccan sauce, mainly a hot chili sauce. it has an extaordinary taste and can even be consumed on a slice of bread alone. if you are like me, who loves exotic culinary tastes but not prefer fire hot chili, this recipe is for you...

Harissa is mainly a hot chili sauce, so we can use all kinds of pepper which is red in color.

-5 pieces red hot chili pepper (I removed the seeds for a milder taste).

-2 pieces red fat peppers (meaty ones)

-2 pieces smoked red pepper pickles (can be grilled and rest in vinegar for a while)

-3 cloves of garlic

-2 tablespoons of red pepper paste, 2 tablespoons of tomato paste

-1 ea tablespoons of coriander seeds, cummin seeds, greek thyme seeds, blackpepper seeds

-1 cup of extra virgin olive oil

all spice seeds are fried a little in a pan to let them extract their aromas. then we process all ingredients with a food processor to make a puree. at this point the sauce is ready to use, however we removed the seeds of hot chilis and reduced the hot taste. you can taste the sauce and add some hot chili powder or Tabasco according to your needs. this mixture can be kept in a closed glass container for very long time in the refrigerator. Harissa will add exotic flavors to your recipes...

harissa

 


GOURMET MENU FROM AN AMATEUR CHEF


I'm not a chef. I am just an amateur cook who likes to cook. I always like to cook something in my kitchen. I try different things, I like to make meals from all world cuisines, apply combinations that fit within them, I love fusion cuisine with the best cooking methods and techniques. Here I would like to offer you a menu of a fusion cuisine example I prepared. I hope you will try and enjoy as much as I do. A menu that I enjoy with presentation and tasting if necessary. There must be integrity in a menu. With everything. In this menu I also prepared an entrance plate, a main course and a desert on it. It's all a meticulous kitchen work product. Well-planned, balanced and varied tastes with everything. The world's cuisine fusion that I have been practicing throughout the years has the logic.
I like seafood. It is abundant and fresh in our country. However, I wanted to present the seafood in the simplest condition as it is in Japanese cuisine. Suchi, that is, raw fish is something I would never prefer. Although it is very fashionable, I do not enjoy eating and I do not find it healthy. Here I do not want to enter into the debate, anyone can make a research on internet about the harms of raw seafood. However, in terms of presentation Suchi is a highly aesthetic dish. I also wanted to prepare a suitable suchi plate for the taste of the Turkish dish (more of my own tastes). But since we are preparing a menu on seafood, let's prepare a suitable entry plate. It is accompanied by a salad with a Far East inspiration and also carries the breeze from our culture, but the presentation is so crowned with a western desert.
Menu:
- Homemade anchovies on broad beans and bean fava, special gremolata sauce, bread slice.
- Lettuce instead of Nori, wrapped in smoked salmon and turkey with avocado sauce suchi rice rolls.
- Boza parfait.


First of all, I always mention some sauces that I have prepared in the fridge and the white anchovies I used in this menu. Here I will describe the making of the Boquerones, the white meat anchovies used in the Spanish cuisine. We place the anchovy fish in a coarse-grained kitchen salt, which is completely cleaned and washed away from the fishbone. There will be a layer of salt between each layer anchovies. We keep our container in the fridge for 12 hours. Then we are transferring our anchovies to another container and we add apple vinegar on each layer. If you use grape vinegar at this stage, you will get anchovy brown color, we do not want it. During the transfer to the new container, we get rid of some of the salt. We keep our container in the fridge for 12 more hours. Then we will transfer to a new container again. This time we add olive oil on the salted marinated fishes on each layer. During these stages we do not wash our anchovies, but we get rid of a lot of marinate. This last one will be the container where we will keep our white anchovies in the fridge. It will be ready to be consumed from the next day. This is the fastest way to prepare a soft white anchovy. If we extend the salting processes, this time we will get a hard anchovy salting. The Boquerones I have prepared here are always soft and very delicious. Now I'm talking about some kind of gremolata sauce that I have in the fridge. Normally this green sauce is basically made with parsley, garlic and olive oil, and is slightly chopped and left with small grains (not pesto). This sauce is used for all kinds of meals and salads but I prepare a variant of this sauce to be used with seafood and keep it in the jar. You can call it a kind of green Salsa Verde. From the famous sauces of French and Italian cuisines, but my version is according to our taste buds. While preparing this sauce I add lots of parsley, dill, rockets and cress. We always eat rocket besides fish and it goes well. Pour plenty of parsley, some dill, rockets and 2 cloves of garlic, a little bit of mustard, a lemon juice and use a blender with olive oil to loosen the sauce. Do not process long, but in pulsing greenish minerals in moss, but without mash. It can be kept in the refrigerator for long periods in a jar.
Another sauce I use on this menu is salad, avocado. It is a delicious and healthy food that I love so much. Let's get a dark purple with a mature avocado stripped and cut with a fork, some smashed garlic, salt, a lemon juice and some olive oil. Add plenty of finely chopped dill and mix. Although not a guacomole, this avocado is ready. I prefer that.
Now, I will give you a very delicious and healthy salad recipe that I often make. This salad can be called having some far-east taste, sweet sour quick pickle and vegetable salad plate. We take some carrots, celery and radish chopped julien style. You can try different types of radish here but the amounts of vegetables should be close and the carrots should be a little more. We mix and dissolve some vinegar, lemon juice, salt and sugar in a bowl. It must be enough to soak our vegetables. We add this mixture to our julien-chopped vegetables and blend it well. We cover our bowl with stretch film and wait for a few hours in the fridge. This process causes our vegetables to soften and get pickled. Then we add one apple, preferably Amasya apples, julien chopped and added to our salad. This is an add-on that I found by trying, balancing the sourness of the vegetables and becoming very delicious. We mix it with virgin olive oil and serve it. A kind of far-eastern fusion salad.
Let's come to the mixed fava recipe. Many seafood recipes are served with fava. Example: a sea bass filet accompanied by a bean fava. I chose a different fava for my own menu. Beans and broad beans together. For this fava, dry beans and broad beans are dipped in equal amounts. One onion is sautéed in olive oil. Broad beans, beans and sautéed onions are boiled in some salt added water. The goal here is to get a mash that is not very solid. Then, a little bit of dill and lemon juice is drawn into the blender. Our puree must be like a stiff pesto.


Now we can prepare our entry board. We cut sandwich bread into two. We place a thick layer of mixed fava on them. We are laying our white anchovies on top of this. We also have our special seafood gremolata sauce which we prepared on it. Our entry table is ready.
Now let's prepare our main dish served in Suchi style. First of all, cook such a rice. This point is the best choice if such rice is available in our rice (baldo or osmancık) as well. There is enough starchy rice to work with. After we have washed our rice thoroughly, we just boil it in salty water. When the baking process is finished and it becomes rice pilav, we pour a little rice vinegar (or apple vinegar). We should get some sticky and consistent rice. Now we take a large leafy lettuce and place leaves soaked in boiling water and soften, without cooking. We cut off hard parts and prepare a few large leaves. In this phase stretch film stretched on a suchi matt is very useful. We spread our leaves on the mat. We place turkey smoked slices, which we take in large pieces, and our smoked salmon slices as a layer. We put avocado puree as an adhesive layer between the smoked slices. On top of them we are laying such a thick layer of rice. At this stage we will roll with the help of the mat below. But in the middle of such rolls we must also have our white anchovies we have already prepared. We line up in a row in the middle. We make a tight roll with matt and stretch film we put on it. This process is a little hands-on and requires skill, but with some practice we can achieve a very tight and smooth roll. When we get a tight roll that does not open, we take off the stretch film and the matte and cut it into rolls with two fingers and turn it side-by-side to place on the presentation plate. Although this plate looks like suchi rolls, my plate appeals more to my taste. Very tasty and healthy with half cooked seafood...


Appetizer MainDish

A menu is missing at the end without a desert. I created a fusion desert in this menu again. Boza parfait. Even though it is a winter drink, the boza which is located in our culture can be a desert to be spooned with fusion cuisine approach. It is important how the actual drink is consumed at this point. In general, pour it in a glass, sprinkled with cinnamon and is consumed with yellow roasted chickpeas. With the same logic, we make a parfait that can be eaten with a spoon. In this recipe we use one part Boza and half part yoghurt. To make it into a parfait, we wet a plate gelatine in water. We mix it with the lightly heated bozza and melt it. We mix a little yoghurt and a little powder sugar according to your taste in a bowl and get a consistent cream. We combine the dense liquid in both the pots and mix it with a little cinnamon and a little yellow chickpea we powdered in food processor. Chickpeas should not be completely powdered. There must be tiny grains in your mouth. We make the mixture consistent and transfer it to small serving containers. These dishes are left in the refrigerator for a few hours and our service is ready. According to the desire, remove the parfaits from their containers or in reverse form, and serve on the plate. Bon Appetit...

 

 

Gourmet Menu From an Amateur Chef

I am here to offer you another experimental menu, try it and you will not regret it ... I did not see any inconveniences in adding my interpretation to this classic Italian recipe when I saw the names of famous Costello Brothers (Italian chef brothers) serving a brave Cream Risotto recipe in their famous restaurants. The famous chef Heston Blumenthal with 3 Michelin stars also offers his own excellent risotto dish by integrating all the additives to the oil and sauce he used, to get the look of creamy rice. In my menu, I made two kinds of risotto suitable for my local taste and used it as an accompany to a meat dish. First the experimental rice risotto:

I used a remaining jasmine rice pilav, but you can make a little rice pilav from the beginning. On a glass bowl, mushroom stock cube, vegetable bulion and onion bulion, tomato and pepper paste are dissolved with hot water. Add on the pilav and cook again. I cooked in a microwave. It is then tied with a little butter and parmesan cheese and crushed with a fork until creamy risotto consistency. One thing to remember here is that if you use a bulion, do not add salt and spices, there are enough in those bulions. You do not have to mash it all. The consistency is adjusted according to preference. If you do not want to use a bulion, you should use plenty of onions and mushrooms with a little bit of vegetables, saute well until softly well cooked and mash with blender or fork. In this recipe I also added my risotto some grilled and smoked eggplant then I sauteed the eggplant and later added to my risotto. It was magnificent ...

Kuskus risotto:

I used ready made chicken kebab and garniture that were sold in the markets here, but if you like, you can pre cook them from scratch. We cook a quite watery kuskus pilav with chicken, vegetables and some hot water. We cook more than necessary and then we tie it with some butter and parmesan cheese and make a bulgur risotto. Unlike cooking rice pilav, in making all kinds of risotto, water is added few tablespoons at a time, and this process is continued as necessary. So unlike pilav, we do not leave the pot when we cook risotto.

In my menu these two kinds of risotto are served beside meatballs, but they can be accompanied by any kind of meat. The lamb tenderloin will also be yummy. We serve risotto with finely chopped basilica and mint to finish the plate.

Cream Risotto

 

Kuskus Fish Tartar
In this recipe I will give you an extraordinary kuskus salad I made. Except a little out of classic recipe and a creative recipe, try this, you and your friends will be impressed. One scale of bulgur (a small amount of you) is left in a covered pot with hot water for half an hour. Meanwhile I use plenty of herbs (I use parsley, dill, rosemary, red onion, basilica, summer celery, mint and marjory), a tiny onion and some semi-raw fish (I use Boucherons I made myself, but you can use anchovies or canned tuna) is pulled from the food processor with some olive oil. This mash is added to softened kuskus and it is seasoned. Mix some grated parmesan cheese ( any other cheese at hand) and add some Chia in order to be a consistent mixture. All the ingredients are thoroughly mixed and rested in a capped container for a while. In the meantime, Chia binds the materials and forms a consistent kuskus salad. Bon Appetit... BulgurTartar

 

Melon Pelte
It is a refreshing and different summer dessert for you ... Melon Jelly ... It is very easy to make but it is so tasty and light. We peel a small fragrant melon and tear it apart. We cook in its own water with a spoonful of 1-2 spoons of sugar, a cinnamon stick, a few cardamom seeds, a packet of vanilla and a branch menthol mint. When the mixture gets thicker and the water decreases, we add 1-2 spoons of starch, which we have dissolved in a little cold water, and continue to stir until thickened. When our pelt is ready (when it comes to enough consistency) we remove cinnamon, cardamom and cooked nectar from the fire. At this stage, we add 5 to 10 leaves of fresh menthol mint thinly chopped and add mingles and pour them to small containers. It can be served after it has cooled for a few hours. A nice and light summer dessert is good with ice cream. Bon Appetit... Pelte

 

Molecular Gastronomy

ChokoPearl

EggDessert

YogurtOlive

Like every kitchen and dining enthusiast I am also interested in a new concept known as Molecular Gastronomy. As a scientist-minded kitchen enthusiast I develop my own research and new prescriptions. I'm not going to talk here on Molecular Gastronomy, every kitchen enthusiast can do his own research on Google. Here I wanted to present some of the work I have done for you. I present a few examples of dishes that I have created with a technique that is now known as "spherification" and introduced to the world cuisine by the famous Spanish cook Ferran Adrian.

First one is a dessert I named Chocolate Pearl. Chocolate pudding presented in the form of a pearl ball in its simplest form. The outer thin film holds the chocolate pudding in bulk. It provides an elegant presentation. The process is basically done by depositing a calcium-containing material into a bath containing 0.5% sodium alginate (a natural product with an algae extract) and forming a thin film outside.

Another example is Egg Dessert. A very stylish presentation. Classical lemon pudding whitened with a little yogurt at the bottom of the egg white look. On the other hand, the part that looks like an egg yolk is the chocolate pudding obtained by the spherification process. The inner soft chokolate flows out when cut.

My last experiment is this time with a salty dressing. It offers a very elegant sauce on the plates like smoked salmon plate or caesar salad. Yogurt and olive paste are mixed with a little olive oil and then impregnated in a membrane with the process of spherification. When this food comes in front of the person presenting the sauce, it is cut with a fork and spreads over the lower parts of the dish. The salads were perfect when adding sauce in the last minute.

The spherification is formed by the interaction of sodium alginate solution with calcium. Calcium is found naturally in yogurt and other dairy products, but should be added later for other types of foods. To this end, calcium lactate, a natural sugar, should be added to the diet at a rate of 1%.

 

 

 

 

GREEN RAVIOLI
This recipe is and adaptation of Italian ravioli. We prepare a dough with flour, salt, eggs, water and boiled spinach. Just like a pasta dough. We wrap the dough with stretch film and settle in the fridge for a while. Gluten works its way and the dough becomes elastic. We prepare a stuffing. It is as you like but I recommend some spicy bacon and cheese, lots of herbs, chopped tomatoes, green onion and garlic. We make 10cm wide flat dough and put some stuffing in it, tightly closing the edges. We boil the raviolis in salty water for 5 mins. Prepare a sauce with tomatoe and pepper paste in a round pyrex bowl and transfer the boiled raviolis. Grind some meltable cheese on them (I prefer parmesan or old cheddar) and put them in oven for 10mins. Bon Apetit...
GREEN RISOTTO
This risotto recipe is delicious and looks nice on a plate. I used spring onions to make it green and also these sautee more quickly. We sautee the onions in a small amount of olive oil and then add the rice. As per the standard risotto procedure, we keep ready some hot water ( or vegetable broth) on the stove and add gradually. At first 1-2 scoops of water is added and stirred continuously. As the rice absorbs the water, add one scoop of hot water and keep on stirring. This takes about 15 mins. In my own recipe I used stalks of spring onions, some green peas and spinach as greens. While cooking the risotto I boiled my greens for 3 mins in the microvawe. You can cook them in a pan but they will lose their color. When the rice is cooked well, we add the greens and some more hot water and stir. At this stage we add some butter and melting cheese in order to create creamy risotto consistency. I used our local fatty basket cheese and izmir tulum cheese to be a bit original. Then take the risotto from heat and let it rest for 5 mins. It should be creamy and a bit watery, like lava consistency. While serving on the plate, we add a little more grated cheese on top. Bon Apetit...

 

Rice Pilav With Carrots
I made a delicious and different rice pilav and wanted to share here. We are using a glass of jasmin rice and 2 carrots. Carrots are shredded and soteed with a little olive oil. A glass of jasmin rice is added with 1,5 glass of water to boil and cook rice. In the process we add a little butter, some salt and a teaspoon of Turmeric and a tablespoon of apple vinegar to the boiling water. Reduction cooking of this pilav takes around 15 minutes depending on your cooking. I prefer to cook my pilav in microwave, 5 mins at %100 and then 15 mins at %50 power. Always good results with these amounts. After the rice is cooked, small amount of finely chopped walnuts are added and mixed thoroughly. Bon apetit...

 

Tuna With Tarragon Sauce and Potatoes
A simple but delicious summer recipe. A tribute to British Fish&Chips with some gourmet touch. Boil some tiny fresh potatoes and cut in half, then stir fry them in a pan with some olive oil and cummin until brown. The gourmet touch, Tarragon sauce. Use any kinds of fresh herbs in small quantities (one teaspoon each). I used parsley, chives, fennel, basil. Chop and put in a mortar. Not to mention to add generous amount of tarragon leaves.Add one small clove of garlic, juice of half a lemon and some olive oil, some pinch of sea salt and make a puree with pestle and mortar. Then mix with tiny amount of mustard and adjust the consistency with mayonnaise. While plating, place a small canned Tuna fish, alongside with your fried potatoes, pour the Tarragon sauce on top and serve with chopped parsley and freshly grinded black pepper. Bon Appetite...

 

 

some tips ...

 

- prefer to use kuskus instead of rice when cooking stuffed vegetables. always more tasty and healthy...

- place 2 leaves of Salvia on each side while grilling chicken or red meat. adds a nice flavor...

- place few Tarragon leaves in your vinegar bottle and let it rest for few weeks. this vinegar will have a wonderful aroma in your salads...

- never use butter when cooking Italian pasta. use extra virgin olive oil instead. Mediterranean style, tasty and healthy...

prepare your sauce at the same time in a seperate pan besides your boiling pasta pot. transfer the pasta to the saucepan 1 minute before it is cooking time, don't drain all boiling liquid but save one cup for your saucepan and finish up cooking the pasta in the saucepan together with the sauce. this way the pasta will soak the sauce better...

 


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