Katmer comes from Gaziantep, the pistachio capital of Turkey, and it is traditionally eaten for breakfast — often the morning after a wedding. Paper-thin dough, clotted cream and a great deal of ground pistachio. If you cannot find ground pistachio, buy shelled nuts and pulse them in a blender. Do not take them to a […]
This comes from Bursa, and despite the name it has nothing to do with Turkish delight. Lokum here means something soft — and these are: yeasted rolls layered with walnuts, cinnamon and allspice, glazed with grape molasses. Closer to a cinnamon roll than to candy, and better than that comparison suggests. Makes about 24 Ingredients […]
The best meatball recipes in Turkey are regional, and this one comes from Harput, the old town above Elazığ. Beef and fine bulgur, poached in a light tomato broth rather than fried. It looks more complicated than it is — no harder than any other meatball once the mixture is made. Serves 4 Ingredients 1 […]
Revani is one of the simplest syrup-soaked desserts in the Turkish repertoire — a semolina cake that drinks up a lemon syrup and turns dense and moist. Everyone knows it and almost everyone makes it. The only thing that goes wrong is the temperature of the syrup, and that is worth getting right. Serves 12 […]
A simple dish that ended up on menus everywhere. Fifteen minutes of prep, fifteen minutes of cooking. A note on what it actually is: the original Alfredo, made by Alfredo di Lelio in Rome in 1908, had three ingredients — fettuccine, butter and Parmesan. No cream, no chicken, no mushrooms. What most of the world […]
Lasagne is layers — pasta, ragù, béchamel, repeated. Skip the béchamel and you have baked pasta with sauce on it, which is a different and lesser dish. The ragù takes time and cannot be hurried. Everything else is assembly. Serves 8 Ragù: 2 to 3 hours Ingredients For the ragù 1 lb ground beef 1 […]
Waffles are a café thing for most people, but they are straightforward at home — and you do not strictly need a waffle iron. Separating the eggs is what makes the difference here. Whipped whites folded into the batter give you a waffle that is crisp outside and light inside, rather than dense like a […]
Falafel is one of the great street foods of the Levant, and it has travelled further than almost any other Middle Eastern dish. Chickpeas, fresh herbs and dried spices — nothing animal in it, which is part of why it spread so fast as vegetarian and vegan cooking became mainstream. There is one rule that […]
Almost everyone has heard of sushi, and some people avoid it because of the raw fish. Those who get past that tend to keep coming back. This is nigiri — a hand-pressed oval of seasoned rice with fish laid over it. The simplest form, and the one that shows most clearly whether the rice was […]
Pretzels look like a shaped bread roll, and if you bake them like one that is exactly what you get. What makes a pretzel a pretzel is a step most home recipes leave out: a brief dip in an alkaline solution before baking. That dip is what produces the dark mahogany crust, the distinctive chew, […]