Menemen - Turkish scrambled eggs

I cannot think of a better way to spend a Sunday morning than eating these delicious Turkish-style scrambled eggs while sitting at a café in Istanbul's Bebek quarter and looking out at the ships sailing down the Bosphorus.


But even if you're not in Turkey, menemen is a great way to start your day - or end it!! Though it's traditional to have menemen for breakfast, I think it works wonderfully for lunch or dinner as well. It's very simple, and you can add whatever vegetables you want, though tomatoes and peppers are the traditional ones. I made mine with feta and some extra spices like oregano and sumac, but again, this dish is very flexible, so make it in the way that will best please you!

Ingredients (for one generous portion or as part of a bigger meal shared with 3 or 4 people):
2 eggs
1 red pepper
1 large tomato
1 onion
A handful of fresh parsley
75-100 g. feta or other soft white cheese
Salt
Pepper
Oregano
Chile flakes or ground cayenne pepper
Sumac
Olive oil

Wash and chop the pepper, tomato, and parsley, and dice the onion. Beat the eggs well and set aside. In a large pan, heat the olive oil and when it's odd, add the onion. Let the onion cook until soft, and then add the pepper. Let cook about 5 minutes and then add the tomato too.

Cook the vegetables several minutes more, gently crushing the tomato with a wooden spoon to make it more sauce-like. Then add the eggs, and let cook a few minutes more while stirring constantly. Turn the heat to low, and add the cheese then the parsley and all the spices. Cook a few minutes more, stirring continuously, and serve hot with bread. Though it's traditional to eat menemen with pide, a soft Turkish bread, any type will do (but pide is really good, so if you can get some, then definitely use it!)

Feta salad with mint and dill

Mint and dill are omnipresent in Greek and Turkish cuisine, but in this salad they get to play a starring role instead of their usual supportive part!


As often happens, I went a bit crazy at the markets last weekend. I actually went to two farmer's markets on Sunday, because the stands at my normal market had run out of a couple things I wanted and I thought maybe the market in the next town over would have them. Well, the second market didn't have what I had originally wanted, but it did have all sorts of other epicurean delights, among them bunches and bunches of fresh dill!

I've seen fresh dill called for in lots of Greek and Turkish recipes, but I've never been able to find it at a farmer's market before, and so I got really excited and immediately bought a bunch. Then of course, I went through a week making all sorts of wonderful and tasty dishes, not one of which required any dill.

So here I was, left with a big bunch of dill and a fair amount of mint too, and so I thought "Why not just throw them into a salad with a few other things to really highlight their flavor, instead of parceling out a few leaves at a time to go with other dishes?"

The result, as it turns out, was delicious. For very little work, you get a very flavorful salad. Once the weather really turns warm and people start having potlucks and things, this will be a great dish to bring, especially since it only improves as it sits around!

Ingredients:
100 g. pearl couscous (also called Israeli or Lebanese couscous)
75 g. feta
1-2 large ripe tomatoes
A large bunch of fresh dill
A large bunch of fresh mint
Several sprigs of parsley
Olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Pepper

Prepare the pearl couscous the same way you prepare regular couscous: in a small pot, heat some water (a few inches or so) to boiling, then turn off the heat, add in the couscous, cover and let sit about 10 minutes.

While the couscous are sitting, wash the dill, mint, and parsley, and chop them all very finely. Wash the tomato and chop it into medium-small chunks, and chop the feta into cubes (or crumble it if you prefer). Combine the tomato, feta, and herbs in a large bowl.

When the couscous have soaked up all the water, let them cool a bit, and then add them to the tomato, feta, and herb mixture. Pour a couple spoonfuls of olive oil over everything, and then add the lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Stir well to combine, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for at least an hour. Serve cold or at room temperature. See, I told you was it easy!

Bulgur with tomato and feta

A couple of weeks ago, the San Francisco Chronicle Food section ran a big article on bulgur, complete with 6 or 7 bulgur recipes. Always attracted by an interesting grain, I immediately clipped out all the recipes and vowed to buy some bulgur on my next grocery shopping trip.

Well, either I was looking in the wrong places, or the markets I went to were just out of bulgur, but it took until this past weekend for me to find some. And so today I was finally able to make the recipe which had first caught my eye and which I had been dreaming of (really!) since I saw it - a recipe for bulgur with onion, tomatoes, and feta.


It turned out to be just as delicious as I had hoped - the grainy bulgur was complemented by the tomatoes, and the spiciness of the pepper was cooled just enough by the feta. I made some slight modifications to the recipe, but the original, along with the article and all the other bulgur recipes, can be found here. For my version, see below.

Ingredients:
100 g bulgur
4-5 San Marzano tomatoes, peeled and crushed (fresh when they're in season, canned when they're not)
A dollop of tomato paste
A cupful of vegetable broth
A generous chunk of feta - I really like the stuff, so I put in quite a bit but you can vary the amount to suit your tastes
Half a yellow onion
A pinch of red pepper flakes
A spoonful of mint flakes
A spoonful of salt
Pepper
Olive oil
A sprig or two of fresh parsley

In a small saucepan, heat the broth, the tomatoes, and the tomato paste until boiling. Turn the heat down, add the salt and let simmer while you prepare the other ingredients.

Wash the bulgur if necessary (depends on where you got it - I think most commercial brands these days don't need to be washed). Dice the onion.

In a large saucepan, heat some oil. When the oil is sizzling hot, add the onion and let cook a couple minutes until the onion is soft and translucent. Add the bulgur, mint flakes, and red pepper flakes, and stir until all the bulgur grains are coated with oil.


Pour in the tomato-broth mixture and, once everything is boiling, turn heat down very low and cover.

Let the bulgur cook about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, wash and chop the parsley. Once the 10 minutes are up, check the bulgur. It should be of a similar consistency to risotto - tender but not soggy and still a bit resistant. When the bulgur has reached this consistency, turn off the heat and let it sit another couple of minutes.

Crumble most of the feta into the bulgur mixture, reserving a bit to put on top of the dish. Grind some black pepper over everything and mix well.

Serve the bulgur, topping with the remaining feta and the parsley.

Roasted Red Pepper and Feta dip

This dip was mainly inspired by Htipiti, which is a Greek spicy pepper and feta dip that I first encountered at a Greek restaurant a few months ago and loved. I looked it up online but could only find two recipes, and while they both looked good, neither of them actually had you roast the peppers and for some reason, I really like roasting peppers. So I created my own Htipiti variation, and it turned out to be quite delicious!


From what I gathered from my online research, it seems Htipiti is generally quite spicy. In fact it is usually made with only hot peppers. I had a lovely bunch of sweet red peppers at hand, so that's what I used, but I added some crushed chilli pepper to give everything a bit of spice, and you can certainly add more if you like your food hot!


You will need:
4 largish red peppers
125 g feta
One red onion
A spoonful of olive oil
A couple spoonfuls of lemon juice
A small bunch of parsley
Salt
Pepper
Crushed chilli pepper

Preheat the oven to 180º C/355º F. While the oven is heating up, wash and dry the peppers and place them on a foil-lined baking sheet.

Once the oven is hot, put the peppers in and let them roast for about 30-40 minutes (depending on their size), turning them every so often so they cook evenly.

When the skin of the peppers is all black and crinkly, take them out of the oven and wrap them up fairly tightly in the aluminum foil (if the sheet they were roasting on isn't big enough, place another one on top).

While the peppers are cooling, prepare the other ingredients. Chop up the onion and wash and then tear or chop the parsley. Put the onion and parsley in a bowl and drizzle with the olive oil and lemon juice. Add the salt, pepper, and crushed chilli pepper, and stir well. Let sit for at least 15 minutes.


Once the peppers are easily handled (probably give them about 15-20 minutes), unwrap them from the foil and peel off the skins. Use a knife to scrape out all the seeds and any long white fleshy bits. Chop up the remaining pepper flesh and then place it all in a bowl and mash up thoroughly.

Add the onion-parsley mixture to the peppers and then crumble up the feta and mix it in too. Stir everything until it's well mixed and either serve immediately or place in the refrigerator to eat later.

I baked some pita to go with mine, adding a few cucumber slices for good measure!

Penne with Spinach and Feta

It seems I post quite a few pasta recipes that involve penne. This is a bit odd, since I'm sure I eat far more spaghetti than penne. And besides spaghetti I actually have three favorite types of pasta asciutta - literally "dry pasta" (this is as opposed to pasta fresca, or "fresh pasta" which includes things like fettucine and also stuffed pasta - pasta ripiena - like ravioli and tortellini). Anyways, my three favorite types of pasta asciutta after spaghetti are penne, fusilli, and farfalle, so I'm not sure why only penne have made it up here so far, though I will try to correct this error in the future!


However, this particular recipe comes from a little cookbook I picked up in Italy called "Primi piatti di verdure" (vegetable entrées), and that recipe actually calls for sedanini, which are closer to penne than they are to fusilli or farfalle, so I consider myself justified in posting yet another penne recipe, though of course you can substitute other types of pasta if you prefer. Though I found the cookbook rather disappointing overall, there are a few stand-out recipes hidden in it, and this is definitely one of them. Though feta isn't normally a feature of Italian cooking, it works really well with this pasta dish, and I highly recommend you try it out!

You will need:
Penne - 75-100 g per person
About 250 g spinach
A small block of feta
A handful of hazelnuts
One medium-sized shallot
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg

Though you can also use ricotta instead of feta, I really like the saltier addition of feta, which contrasts nicely with the hazelnut and nutmeg. Please also use real hazelnuts if you can, and not filberts, which I've found don't have anywhere near the same flavor. It's true that hazelnuts are absurdly expensive around here, but in my opinion it's worth it for the taste!

Wash and dry the spinach, removing any hard stem parts, and tear the leaves up, setting them aside in a large bowl. Chop/grind the hazelnuts into little bits and chop up the shallot.

In a large pot, bring some water to a boil. When it's boiling, salt it and add the penne. Heat some olive oil (butter in the original recipe) in a fairly large sauté pan. When the oil is hot add the shallot. After a minute or so, add the ground-up hazelnut. After another minute or so, add the spinach, in parts if necessary so that there's only one layer covering the pan. The recipe also says to add some of the cooking water from the pasta, which I invariably forget to do. I think it just makes everything more sauce-like, but I forgot this time and it was still fine.

Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the spinach and let cook, stirring frequently. After the spinach is fairly well-cooked, chop or crumble the feta and stir it in. Turn the heat to low and let everything cook another few minutes so that the feta melts, not forgetting to stir.

Drain the penne and add them to the spinach-feta mixture, mixing everything up until the penne are well coated with sauce. Turn off the heat and spoon the penne into your serving bowl. Serve warm!

Penne "alla Greca"

This is a wonderful pasta dish to make in the summer because it involves very little actual heating. Besides that, it's super-simple and soooooo good! Though the classic tomato sauce with vegetables will always be my favorite pasta dish, this one is definitely in the running for second place.



For one person, you will need:
75 g of penne or other short pasta
25-50 g of feta
10-12 cherry tomatoes
Half a medium-sized red bell pepper
One small red onion
A handful of kalamata olives
Olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
Salt & pepper
Dill (fresh is better, but dried is easier to find and it works just fine)
Mint (same as for the dill)

In the version pictured here, I didn't have any dill or mint on hand (this is from when I was Italy and dill is almost impossible to find there), so I used some fresh parsley which also worked nicely

Set some water to boil in a large pot. While you're waiting for the water to boil, chop the cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters if they're very large, and dice the pepper and the onion. Combine the cherry tomatoes with the pepper and onion in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil. Add the lemon juice, salt, pepper, dill, and mint, stir everything up, and then let sit.

Once the water has come to a boil, salt it, and add the penne. Then, pit the olives by crushing them under the flat side of a knife and chop them in half.

You should let the penne cook just until they are al dente, i.e., 'to the tooth', i.e., cooked through but still chewy and somewhat resistant to your teeth when you bite into them. Though with enough experience cooking various types of pasta, you can usually make a pretty good guess as to when the pasta has cooked just the right amount, the most foolproof way to get good al dente pasta is simply to test every so often by fishing one out and munching on it!

Once the penne are done, drain them, and then mix them into the pepper-onion-cherry tomato mix*. Add the olives, crumble the feta over everything and enjoy!

*If it's a really hot day, this pasta also works wonderfully well served cold - just run some cold water over the penne immediately after you drain them. I usually don't do this, but that's because I love the way the feta just melts in your mouth after it's come into contact with the warm pasta...