Melon prosciutto salad

This is such a quick and easy salad. Place slices of melon on a plate, drape over torn prosciutto. Add wild rocket leaves and pecorino cheese sliced using a vegetable peeler. 

Mix 3 tablespoons of olive oil with 1 table spoon of balsamic vinegar and drizzle over the salad and you are done.

Arrabiatta pasta sauce

This is our favorite pasta sauce recipe this summer. All you need is 2 cloves of garlic chopped, 1 chilli chopped, leaves from half a pack of basil, 3 tomatoes peeled and cubed. Olive oil and seasoning. Parsesan cheese and a few basil leaves to serve.

Heat the olive oil - about 2 tablespoons - in a pan and once hot add garlic and chilli, fry for 1 minute. 

Add the basil leaves whole and wilt in the oil for 1 minute.

Add chopped tomatoes and seasoning and bring to boil. Then let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve over cooked pasta with grated parmesan cheese and a few leaves of basil.

Courgette fritters / Mucver

Weather has been exceptionally good this summer which means I get to have picnic lunches at work. This was my picnic lunch today.

Courgette fritters leftover from last night

Yogurt to dip the fritters

Sweetcorn

Cherry tomatoes 

Strawberries

Here is the recipe for the Courgette fritters which is called Mucver in Turkish.

5 medium size courgettes, top and tailed and grated (in food processor) 

1 medium onion diced

1 big bunch of dill chopped

3 medium eggs

3 heaped table spoons plain floor

50 gr (1/4 pack) feta cheese grated

salt and black pepper to season

Olive oil

Put the grated courgettes in a colander and leave for 15 minutes for the juices to drain. You can help it by squeezing the juices out.

Put everything except the oil in a bowl an mix well with a spoon.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, put enough oil to have 1/2 cm deep oil at the bottom of the pan.

Once the oil is hot take a table spoon full of the mixture and put in the oil and flatted in by tapping with the spoon. fry each side until golden brown on medium heat, takes about 2 minutes each side.

Take the fritters off the pan and put them on kitchen paper to drain. You can eat like this or if you prefer a bit well done you can pop them on a baking dish and bake in oven 200 C / fan 180 C/ gas mark 6 for 8-10 minutes more.

Serve them with tomato salad and yogurt to dip.

Jason Atherson's avocado, baby gem and sauteed carrot salad

Here is this week's second summer salad from Jason Atherson's coloumn on Guardian last Saturday; avocado baby gem and sauteed carrot salad. Tried and tested tonight. 

Recipe is here.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/23/summer-salad-recipes-jason-atherton

Tonight I managed to make the Jason Atherston recipe for the crab, asparagus and radish salad that I mention on my last post. 

As I was serving the salad straight away I didn't bother to put the apple and the turnips in cold water, just diced them and plated up right away. 

This is a very nice salad, however I still have a few radishes left from the bunch that I had in the fridge.

I need to come up with more ideas to use the remaining radishes. 

But before I embark on further radish salads I guess I will take a break and try the next summer salad recipe from Jason Atherstones coloumn in last weeks Guardian: Avocado, baby gem and sauted baby carrot salad.

Zingy radish salad

We bought radish from farmer's market this Saturday. I was looking for a salad recipe and came across this recipe on BBC Good food website.

We all loved it and I will definitely be making this salad again, it is bursting with colours and flavour. Such a pretty looking salad.

I still have some radishes left to use up. I would also like to try Jason Atherton's summer salad recipe as soon as I get hold of some crab meat. Oh how I miss the days when I was living next to Billingsgate fish market!

Beetroot feta salad

Our new favorite is the beetroot feta salad.

It has 1/2 iceberg lettuce shredded or other salad leaves, half a pack anout 100 gr feta cheese crumbled, 3 spring onions chopped, chopped leaves from 2 mint twigs, 2 fairly big cooked beetroots cubed.

For the dressing you will need juice from a lemon, half table spoon dijon mustard, 3 tablespoons olive oil, half teaspoon of honey. 

Mix all salad ingredients well and pour over the dressing.

This would serve 4.

Easter bread

This plait is bread the one thing that comes to my mind when I think about Easter's in Turkey. This is called "Paskalya çöreği" in Turkish which means "Easter bread". It is actually available all year around and can be found in most of the bakeries. It has been one of my favorite foods to eat when I am in Turkey.

It is a sweet bread flavoured with a spice called mahlebi, which is made from the seeds of a species of cherry. This spice is available in most of the Turkish and Middle Eastern shops in London.

Ingredients

400 grams white bread flour

1 tablespoon dried active yeast 

150 ml water (1 part boiling 2 parts cold)

1 teaspoon caster sugar

25gr butter

200 ml milk

1 egg for the dough

1 tablespoon mahlebi

3 tablespoons caster sugar

200 ml sunflower oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg yolk for glazing

Flaked almonds to sprinkle

Preperation

Start with preparing the yeast, mix 1 teaspoon of caster sugar in 150ml water (1part boiling, 2 parts cold) and leaving to come to life for 15 minutes.

Sift the flour in a bowl and add the butter & salt, then rub together with your fingertips until completely mixed and crumbly.

Make a hole in the middle and add milk, sunflower oil, egg, activated yeast mix, mahlebi, sunflower oil, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar.

Bring everything together until they form a sticky dough and leave to rest covered for 10 minutes.

Lightly oil your worktop. Gently knead the dough for 10 seconds or so, then return to the bowl and leave covered for about an hour, or until risen by half.

Line the baking tray with baking paper and take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 3 to make a big plait. Make each part into a strip almost as long as your baking tray.

Seal top of the three strips and start braiding. Braid and seal the other ends of the strips and shape the braid a little bit with your hands and place it on the baking tray.

Leave to raise an other 30 minutes. In the meantime warm the oven to gas mark 7 / 200 C fan.

Once the plait is risen, brush it with the egg yolk and sprinkle with almond flakes.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until it is golden. Fill a metal dish of boiling water and place on the lowest shelf of the oven to help give the your crust a golden colour.

Yotam Ottolenghi's lentil, bulgur and aubergine pilaf

We had Yotam Ottolenghi's lentil, aubergine and bulgur pilaf this evening. Photo doesn't look very pretty but the taste was lovely and the aroma of the spices that filled the kitchen was sweet. Will definately cook again. 

I was worried about deep frying the aubergines but drained them back into a mesuring cup and there was about 200ml of oil/juices drained back into the cup and the aubergies were actualy not heavy.

Here is the link for the recipe;

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/oct/19/meatballs-aubergines-pilaf-recipes-ottolenghi

 

Etli yaprak sarmasi

Mince meat and rice stuffed vine leaves

Ingredients

250 gr lean steak mince

1 large onion chopped

1 cup of rice washed and drained

2 table spoon tomato paste

3 table spoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon butter

1 teaspoon dried mint

1/2 jar of vine leaves in brine 

(soaked in fresh water overnight or at least 1 hour to reduce the salt)

Preparation

Mix all the ingredients except the vine leaves and mix until evenly combined.

Take the vine leaves out of the water and carefull unwrap them. You may tear a few of them when unwrapping the lot. Don't worry you will use the torn ones to line your pan.

 

Here is a little sketch I made showing the steps to stuff the leaves. First lay one leaf on a chopping board, nip the stalk off the leaf.

Place roughly a teaspoonfull of stuffing and carefully wrap the leaf around the stuffing.

Repeat until you finish all your stuffing.

 

 

Cover the base of a pan with the torn leaves and place your finished stuffed and wrapped leaves as you go along.

 

Add 1 1/2 cup of hot water to the pan. Cover and keep on high heat until the water starts to boil then lower the heat and let it simmer in low heat for 40 minutes.

 

Here is the result.

Serve it warm accompanied with yogurt.

 

Rainbow themed party food

Last week we had my daughter's 6th birthday party. It was a rainbow themed party and we had colurful food for the party. We had rainbow fruit sticks, rainbow vegetables with houmus.

Cake was a rainbow cake from BBC good food magazine. 

We made a rainbow backdrop to take photos of the kids as well. Kids had fun when we were taking the photos.

Crunchy red cabbage slaw and mustard chicken

I made this red cabbage slaw and mustard chicken couple of times now, it's lovely and light. Very quick to make on a week night.

Not sure if the nutritional info is right on recipe though, with that much chicken it definately feels more than 100 kcals.

Recipe here;

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1543/crunchy-red-cabbage-slaw