Turkish Food

Tonight is Turkish Food night. My Turkish Cookbook is The Sultan's Kitchen. The recipes that I have tried from that book are absolutely magnificent. For an appetizer I am going to make hummus:

Hummus


1 cup chick peas (canned)
1 t salt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup tahini
2 T olive oil

Throw everything into a food processor and blend until smooth, adding more liquid as needed. Garnish with paprika, olived and sliced red onion.

We will also be having a Greek Salad. I know it is Turkish night but hey, I'm getting freaky with it!

Xoriatiki (Greek "Village" Salad)

4 Ripe tomatoes
1 Cucumber
1 Onion
1 Green pepper
1/3 lb Feta cheese
Olives
Capers
1/2 cup Olive oil
Oregano
Salt
Juice of 1 lemon

Cut the vegetables in slices and mix in a salad bowl. Top with the olives, capers and oregano and cover with "crumbled" feta cheese. Pour the olive oil evenly.

With the main course we will be having a rice pilaf from the book. It is called muceddere. I'll let you know how it tastes. It has lentils, chick peas, onion, olive oil, rice, orzo (a pasta), tomatoes and parsley. It sounds good and if it is good I will post the recipe with any modifications. The main course is going to be Sultan's Delight from the book. I have modified the recipe. The original recipe calls for cubes of lamb that you cook for a while. I am going to make it basically the same way but instead of cooking cubes of lamb, I am going to make the lamb into kebobs and then add it to the sauce. My recipe for lamb kebobs caused a friend of mine to go out and buy a lamb and slaughter it in his front yard, to the delight of his neighbors I assure you.

Kokito's Lamb Kebobs

Lamb pieces, about 1/4 inch thick and longer than they are wide. I like to take a piece of lamb and keep cutting it like an accordian so that it gets longer and longer.
juice of 1 lemon
2 T olive oil
1/2 onion, grated
2 t sea salt
fresh ground black pepper.

Marinate lamb in the other ingredients for a few hours or overnight. Grill over a charcoal grill.

Sultan's Delight, Koko Style

lamb kebobs from previous recipe
4 T butter
3 T olive oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, pressed
2 t tomato paste
4 tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
1/2 t thyme
1 t oregano
1 1/2 c chicken broth
salt and pepper
fresh Italian parsley

Melt butter and oil. Saute onion and garlic. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, spices and stock. Simmer sauce for 1 hour, covered.

The sauce and kebobs are served over creamed eggplant. To make the creamed eggplant, poke holes in an eggplant all over. Grill over charcoal until very soft. Meanwhile blent 1 T lemon juice, 1 cup water and 1 T salt. Peel eggplant and put in the bowl with the lemon juice, water and salt. Let stand for 10 minutes. Transfer the eggplant to a strainer and press out the juice.

In a saucepan heat 1/3 cup milk, 1 T cream until warm. Add 2 T flour to 2 T butter and cook until combined. Stir the milk mixture into the flour mixture and cook about 1 minute. Add eggplant pulp and about 1 ounce of feta cheese, stiring until eggplant is pureed.

To serve put pureed eggplant in a plate, add kebobs on top, and top with the sauce. Sprinkle with parsley.