Gazpacho (and comments!)

I've just realised that I have comments! I am such a novice/luddite that I didn't know people were responding until just now. Apologies to those of you who have said something and it has gone unrequited, I am very appreciative.

I have again taken a break from the Turkish cooking. Not because I am tired of it but because my stomach hasn't been able to handle anything resembling food for the last few days. Let's just say I had an attack of 'Sultan's Revenge'. And the Sultan won.

But I did manage to make my favourite summer dish: gazpacho. Turkish produce makes it especially flavoursome; tomatoes here are almost invariably ripe and sweet, cucumbers are crispy, peppers are acidic, but not too much so. Having that kind of easy access to great produce is spoiling me; I know that when I return to London I am going to miss the incredible variety and perfect taste of fruits and vegetables here. So I am enjoying it whilst I can.

Seabass Tarator

I finally made the seabass dish I had been planning for ages; I had the stale bread for breadcrumbs, Andrew was returning from hiking Mt Ararat so I had an audience, and I was thoroughly sick of lamb. So the time was ripe.

What I didn't have was fish. There is a fishmonger just down the road, but I'd never actually seen fish in their refrigerated cases. Instead, the glass fronts are inhabited by bits of styrofoam with big, hand-printed letters spelling out the types of fish they sell and how much they cost per kilo. So at the very least I knew the fishmonger had a bit of nonbiodegradable signage that said levrek (seabass) 28 lira/kg.

I approached the men in the shop and showed them my shopping list which said 'levrek' and then three different words for 'fillet' in Turkish, since I wasn't sure which was the right one. A considerable amount of pointing, misunderstanding, grumbling and bad Turkish (on my part) ensued. Eventually, I worked out that they would bring the fish to my flat if I gave them the address. So, sure enough, an hour later, four beautiful seabass fillets arrived at the door. Sadly, they cost 38 lira (about £15).

Tarator sauce is my new favourite thing; it's garlicky, a bit crunchy and very yummy. And it's incredibly easy to make (thanks to amazing things called food processors). You take stale bread, ground almonds or hazelnuts (almonds in my case), several cloves of garlic, and a bit of water and process it. It gets very thick, at which point you slowly add olive oil, with the motor running, and more water if necessary to make a hummus-like sauce. I poached the fish in salted water with a little bit of lemon juice and few sprigs of parsley, drained it and added a generous portion of tarator and a bit of paprika for garnish. Since there are plenty of carbs in the sauce itself, I bypassed rice and just served it with salad. And the best part is the two unused fillets (now frozen) and the remaining sauce keep well, so we can have it again in a couple weeks. Sadly, it looks rather anaemic on the plate, but it was truly delicious!

French National Day (Bastille Day) was on Wednesday. We were only going to go for an hour, and ended up staying several because there was PORK. And champagne. Pork products are hard to come by in Turkey, so when the little trays appeared stacked with pork terrine, pork pate, and french cured meats, we didn't say no. And, well, who says no to champagne?! And French cheese.

15-Whatever

I have opted to no longer number my posts by the days I've been in Ankara--it just highlights how lax I've been at posting recently and how quickly the summer is going! My negligence is mostly because I haven't been cooking much; I think possibly I've cooked myself out, at least when it comes to Turkish things. But I plan to get back on the wagon tomorrow and make some seabass (levrek) with tarator sauce (made from bread and ground hazelnuts or almonds).

I have, however, just returned from Cappadocia/Kapadokya, which is 5 hours (by bus) southeast of Ankara. It's an incredible place, where ancient people built underground cities and houses (called fairy chimneys) inside columns of rock (you can see the windows in the photo below).

There were also some very impressive byzantine frescos for the art historian in me, though I couldn't take any photos of them.

The landscape generally was impressive; lots of valleys, precarious cliff dwellings and byzantine churches to explore.

I was lucky enough to go on a weekend with a free, open-air classical music concert was put on; apparently an American woman who is married to a Turkish man and lives in the area organises a scholarship programme every summer for Turkish and international children to come to Cappadocia and learn and play music. The owner of the hotel where I stayed and his family went to the concert, which was held in the Sakli Vadi (Hidden Valley), and they kindly took me with them. It was a beautiful space for a concert and it was great to see all the children (ranging from age 6 upwards) playing so well with their adult counterparts. It was clearly a community thing; there were very few tourists there, which made me feel as if I'd gotten off the beaten path a bit.

I promise to be back soon with words about food I've actually made instead of holiday pictures!

Days 14-21

We had a busy weekend with Andrew's cousin in town, so I did very little cooking but much eating (a Turkish fish restaurant that was decked out like someone's beach house, chinese food, a wine tasting, Brasilian churasco). I did finally get out the (hypothetical) apron on Tuesday to make a welcome-back-to-Ankara meal for Andrew's friend at the Embassy. I made some meatballs which are translated from Turkish as 'ladies' thighs', pilaf and poached apricots for dessert.

I went to the nearest supermarket to buy the meat, but they don't stock pre-minced lamb and beef, so you have to ask them to mince it for you. This made things interesting for me, since I don't know how to say '750g of lamb please' much less 'could you mince it for me?' But I did manage to get the message across to the man at the meat counter with much gesturing of hands, nodding and smiling. I probably looked completely brainless to any bystanders, and the meat counter man definitely tried to hide a smirk or two.

The 'ladies' thighs' are made by finely chopping an onion, parsley, dill, and feta cheese and mixing these by hand with the minced lamb and one egg. They make a paste-like substance, which you form into thigh-ish shapes (fatter at one end than the other, apparently). You then pour another beaten egg over them, roll them in flour and shallow fry them. They're best warm with yoghurt.

I also made a really wonderful pilaf recipe, which I will definitely be using again: brown up some pine nuts and scallions, add a bit of cinnamon and allspice and add this and some dill and currants to rice that is half-way through cooking. Cook it the rest of the way and then let it sit, covered, away from heat for 15 minutes before serving. It comes out warm and fluffy, and the allspice and cinnamon are a nice balance to the scallions and currants.

Last night we went to a party held by a senior person at the British Embassy; he and his wife have a roof terrace, so they hired two caterers to set up an outdoor spit, on which they roasted several whole chickens, grilled kebabs and made baked potatoes in the wood fire at its base. They also served Pims, so I was a happy girl. I spoke to the Kosovar Ambassador for a while; he was a very interesting man (educated in the States and in Turkey) and he said that if I ever wanted to visit a place that is more pro-America than America, Kosovo is the place to go. I have duly noted this and will be going nowhere NEAR it. Kidding. Mostly.