Borek with Spinach and Feta Cheese

It has been a long summer break but the holiday is almost over.  I thought I will write about some recipes I have tried during the past few months.  It has been a nice summer holiday, of some we have spent in Turkey and last few weeks in Switzerland.  Although I can't say we have been very lucky with the weather here. 
This is a recipe that I've been asked by some of my friends so I am posting how I make this.  It's a very practical way of preparing borek.  I used thin phyllo pastry, but you can use any other phyllo pastry you like.  You will just have to balance your milk-egg mixture accordingly.  If you have a thick pastry, you may need to add some more milk or another egg.

Borek with Spinach and Feta Cheese

10 phyllo pastry sheets

2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

a pinch of salt

1 cup of milk

1 egg

For spinach - feta filling:

500 g of fresh spinach, chopped and cooked,  squeeze out the excess water if necessary

1 cup of crumbled feta cheese

1 egg

a little bit black pepper

1-2 tablespoons of sesam seeds (optional)

To start with, mix your ingredients for the filling, spinach, feta, 1 egg and a little bit of black pepper in a bowl and set it aside.  

Next whisk 1 egg, 1 cup of milk, olive oil and salt in a large bowl.  

Grease your oven tray or casserole dish before you start preparing the borek.  Place 2 sheets of the phyllo on the greased tray.  Spread 2-3 tablespoons of the milk-egg mixture over the sheets you have just placed on the tray.  Put 2 more sheets and repeat the same procedure. Next, put only one pastry, then spread your spinach filling over this 5th pastry. Try to spread it all over the pastry.  When done, take 2 more sheets and place them over the spinach filling then spread 2-3 tablespoons of the milk-egg mixture on it.  Repeat this with 2 more phyllo pastries.  Place the last pastry on top nicely and take a sharp knife to slice the borek as seen in the photo above.  Spread the left over milk-egg mixture on top and sprinkle some sesam seeds over if you like. 

If you have time put the tray in the fridge for about 2-3 hours so the pastry absorbs the liquids to make the borek taste nicer. 
Cook in a preheated oven (180° C / 356° F)for about 30-40 minutes until it is golden brown. Enjoy it with a glass of Ayran!

Roasted Turkey

This had to go in before it's too late.  I've been asked the recipe for so many times and because I have only written it on a piece of newspaper clipping, I really need to write it down. I have to...although I didn't like the picture but... oh well.  This recipe is a mixture of a recipe I got from my dear friend F and a recipe I saw in a cooking magazine that I don't know anymore which magazine it was.  I have made this for every Christmas last three years and it's the best roasted turkey recipe I tried.  Most of all, the turkey tastes really good, very tender and juicy.   It can be served with some rice or roasted potatoes and you can use the vegetables as a side dish.

Roasted Turkey

(Serves 6-8)

1 big turkey (about 4 kg)

3-4 leeks - chopped 

4 medium sized carrots - peeled and chopped

1 apple - peeled and chopped

300 ml apple cider or white wine

1 cube of vegetable or chicken stock

salt& pepper

olive oil

Filling:

2-3 slices of day old bread -  crumbled

300 g minced beef

1 apple - peeled and chopped into little pieces

2-3 leaves of sage - roughly chopped

1 medium onion - chopped

1/2 teaspoon of grounded cumin

salt & pepper

A roasting tin 

Aluminum foil

Start, with rubbing the turkey inside and outside with some salt, pepper and olive oil.  You can use some other spices too if you prefer.  Set it aside and and start to prepare your filling. 

Mix the ingredients for the filling altogether and stuff the turkey with this delicious mixture. The juices will mix with the turkey and you can take out the filling later on and serve as a side dish as well.

Next, take out the roasting tin and place the chopped leeks, carrots and apples.  Take a measuring cup and pour the wine or cider that you will use.  Put the vegetable or chicken stock in the wine and try to dissolve it as much as you can.  Then pour it over the vegetables in the roasting tin.  

Put your turkey on top of the vegetables.  You can use a roasting grill if your roasting tin has one but I prefer to put it directly on the vegetables. 

When it's ready, cover it with an aluminum foil and put it in a preheated oven 190° C (375° F) - without fan 170° C (325° F) - with fan on.  Give about 40 minutes of cooking time for each kg of turkey.  Then take out the foil and give another 30-40 minutes to roast without the foil so it gets all nice and brown. 

If you are not sure and want to check if the turkey is cooked, just stab it with a knife then you should see a clear juice coming out. 

Moussaka

Here is another traditional recipe that I love.  In my family this dish is cooked more or less the same way except the cream sauce.  The cream sauce seems to be more common in Greek based recipes and this one I generally use is an adapted version of the Moussaka recipe from my The Complete Middle East Cookbook.  I wanted to write about this recipe a long time ago, but I didn't like the photos I took back then.  But it seems you can't take a good looking moussaka picture (If you don't believe me just Google Moussaka for images).  There is only few decent ones.  I just took these shots for you to give you an idea what it sort of looks like.  Despite the way it looks in the photos, it's one of my favorite dishes.  I only used aubergines here but you can also add sliced potatoes.

Moussaka

(Serves 5-6)

300 g minced beef

3 Aubergines (Peeled partially and sliced 1-1.5 cm (1/4") thick)

1 medium onion (chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (chopped or crushed)

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 cup of chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 tablespoon of chopped parsley

salt and pepper

Cream Sauce:

1 tablespoon of butter

2 tablespoons of flour

2 cups of milk

a pinch of nutmeg 

1 tablespoon of grated parmesan

1 egg

salt and pepper

1. Start with peeling your aubergines as described in the ingredients section.  In a large bowl, put some water and about a teaspoon of salt and leave the aubergine slices in this salty water for about an hour.  Dry them with a paper towel.  This process is not necessary but it is done so that aubergines don't absorb too much oil during frying. 

2. Next, put 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a non-stick pan and fry both sides of aubergine slices until they are light brown.  Put them on a plate until you are ready with the rest of the ingredients.  (Here you can use oil spray or brush the aubergines slightly with a little bit of olive oil as an alternative).

3. To make the meat sauce, saute the onions and garlic in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil.  Add the minced beef and continue to cook.  Finally add the tomatoes, tomato paste with some salt and pepper.  When it's all done, take it off the heat and stir in the chopped parsley.  

4.  Make your cream sauce in a small sauce pan over medium heat.  Put in all the ingredients, except the parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  With the help of a whisker, keep whisking the sauce over medium heat until you have a thick sauce.  Take it off the heat and stir in the parmesan, nutmeg, salt and pepper. 

5.  Take a medium size casserole dish to layer up the moussaka.  Put a layer of aubergines at the bottom, then a layer of minced meat sauce over the aubergines.  Repeat the same process until you run out of the meat sauce and aubergines.  Finally, spread the cream sauce on top.  If you have some left over parmesan, sprinkle it over the cream sauce.  A little bit of black pepper on top and then you are ready to put it in the preheated oven (180° C/356° F) for about 45 minutes until you have a golden brown creamy sauce on top.  Serve it with rice, potatoes or with some nice plain yogurt. 

Cordon Bleu

This was the last thing I thought I would be cooking after the holiday.  To be honest, I was so used to not-cooking after being cooked for such a long time, I felt like I couldn't be bothered to cook proper meals again.  Oh well...  I had to start at some point.   Husband and kids were hungry so I did what I had to do.   I went to look in my freezer to see what I can find in there, hoping that there is a frozen pizza somewhere hidden or forgotten so I wouldn't have to do much work.  The only thing I could find was some frozen meat including some beef fillets cut for Cordon Bleu.  I have to say, I get these delivered as a part of a package but I have never used them in a real Cordon Bleu, except once. Mainly because I was too lazy to do the work.  Stuffing it, frying it, etc.  It just looked too complicated.  I ended up cooking them as schnitzels or chop them into something else.  This time somehow,  I had the ingredients at home although we had not yet done a proper grocery shopping.  I already had the Gruyere and some Turkey ham.  I have done this once before from a recipe book but it didn't quite work that time, but this trial turned out to be a success.  Meat was cooked perfectly and was soft.  Kids loved it. (Surprisingly!)
I did it really quickly in a very simplified way so if you have the ingredients then go for it.  Below recipe is adapted from Betty Bossi Fleischküche cookbook.

Cordon Bleu

(Makes 3)

3 pieces of beef or veal fillet, sliced into two thin pieces each.  You can leave them attached from one side so it would be easier to close them up. 

100 g Gruyere Cheese (should make about 3 large slices to fill up each steak)

3 pieces of Turkey ham or usual ham

1/2 tablespoon of mustard

Salt and freshly milled pepper

12-14 toothpicks to close up the steaks

To fry:

3 tablespoons of flour

1 egg beaten

1 cup of breadcrumbs (keep the pack near by just in case you may need more depending on the size of your steaks)

Oil 

Prepare your fillets on a chopping board so it's easy for you to work on (See picture).  First brush a little bit of mustard on the insides of the fillets.  Then put the ham on one side. Next the slices of Gruyere on top of the ham.  Try not to stuff the fillets too much, otherwise you won't be able to close them up well and cheese will melt out of the steaks during cooking. The proper way is to wrap the cheese in the ham and then put it on the fillet, however I was in a rush.  Mine looked like this.

Last is to close up those steaks with toothpicks as in the photo above.  Then season them on both sides with some salt and pepper.

When you are done start preparing for frying in this order.  

Put your flour on a flat plate.  

Put your beaten egg on a slightly deep plate. 

Put the breadcrumbs on a flat plate.  

Then put them right next to each other in the same order.  Flour, egg, breadcrumbs. 

Then heat up the oil in a non stick pan.  Don't need to use too much oil, just enough to cover the base of the pan. Start preparing your steaks for the final round. 

First roll the steak on flour, then dip it in the egg and last, roll it on breadcrumbs.  Next onto the frying pan with oil.  Fry 5 minutes on each side over medium heat.  This is very important to get tender meat. 

I served this with some oven baked potato wedges, which I will post here soon.  For now I leave you with Cordon Bleu. 

Beef Wellington

The first time I made this I was a little bit afraid, because I really thought that it was a bit too gourmet for me.  The fact is, when you have a ready-made puff pastry and you don't use the fancy ingredients, it all becomes very easy.  You can make various dishes from ready puff pastries that looks like gourmet food anyway.  I have never tried to make a real puff pastry at home, although I have probably made all other kinds of pastries.  There are even organic ones available in the supermarkets if you want the healthier option.  For this version of Beef Wellington,  I don't use the pâté de foie gras (chicken liver paste), which is called in the original recipes.  This one I have, is an adapted version of a recipe from my good old Swiss Betty Bossi cookbook Fleisch Küche.  I don't think there is an English version available, but I love this book.  It was recommended to me by my dear friend V. and I learned how to cook nice meat dishes from this book. 

Beef Wellington

600-700 g beef fillet

1 round or square puff pastry (you may need to cut bits out or trim it according to the size of your fillet- I used a round one here-33cm)

1 egg white - beaten

1 egg yolk - beaten together with a tablespoon of water

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Filling

300 gr of mushrooms - finely chopped. 

1 teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley

1/2 teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of mild chili powder

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Start to make your filling by sautéing your mushrooms in a frying pan with the olive oil, salt and lemon juice.  When it's done, take it off the heat and add the chili powder and chopped herbs and leave it to cool.  

In another pan with a tablespoon of oil, cook your fillet for about 5 minutes on all sides until it forms a nice crust on the outside.  Take it out and leave it to cool for a while.  While the meat and your filling is cooling, prepare your pastry.  You can trim the ends if you have too much pastry like I had and then decorate your pastry parcel later on with these left over pastry bits.  Open the pastry on a baking paper.  It will make it easier to transfer on a baking tray later on.  If you are using a large try you can open the pastry directly on the baking tray.  

When it's ready, first spread the filling over your pastry and then put your meat on it.  Brush the ends of the pastry with the egg white so it can stick together when you wrap it up.  After this, wrap the meat up, turn the the parcel on its other side so that the folded part is at the bottom.  Move your parcel onto a baking tray.  Brush the top of the parcel with egg yolk and put it in the pre-heated oven on a bottom shelf at 220°C for 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 180°C and roast for another 15 minutes.  In my case this resulted in medium to well-done meat.  If you like medium-rare then roast it for about 10 minutes less.   

For serving, I recommend some green salad and a glass of red wine.  Enjoy your meal! 

Lady's thighs meatballs - Kadinbudu köfte

The trouble of making lunch everyday is, of course, I need to think in advance what I am going to cook.  I generally start to think about it after my breakfast and then I have one or two hours before the lunch has to be ready.  That is only a part of the problem.  Then when I finally decide, I may not have all the ingredients I need.  I may have to go to the shops quickly to buy the missing ingredient.  In my case that's not very easy, as I have to take two little kids with me and it takes to long just to get out of the door with those two.  Yes I know, I should plan everything ahead, but I am not that organized and I like being a little bit spontaneous.  I only plan some of the meals in advance but not every meal.  Most of the time, I cook with what I already have in my fridge or freezer.  If I'm missing an ingredient then I try to substitute it the best way I can.
This meal was again something I was planning on cooking for a while now, but I never got around it.  Somehow it looked a little complicated to me but it wasn't at all complicated.  I'll be making this again for sure.  It's a Turkish dish and a very classic one.  The name is translated exactly like in the title and I believe it's just showing an appreciation for women.  It's a very easy recipe but if you're doing it very first time give yourself an hour for the preparation (this excludes the cooking time).


Lady's tighs meatballs - Kadinbudu köfte

500 g minced meat - beef

about half a cup of chopped parsley

1 medium onion - grated or finely chopped

3 eggs

1 teasppon of salt 

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of ground cumin
2 tablespoons of rice

2 tablespoons of flour

oil to fry ( sunflower or olive oil is fine here but I recommend a mixture of both) 

Start with boiling the rice in a pan.  When they are cooked, leave them on a colander to drain the water and let it cool.  Take a non-stick pan, put half of the minced meat in and start cooking.  Add the onions to the meat and cook them together with the meat.  Let them cool before you mix the cooked meat and onions to the rest of the ingredients.  Put the raw half of the meat in a bowl, mix in 1 egg, the salt and the spices.  When they are all mixed well, add in the cooked meat and onions and last stir in the rice together with parsley.  You shouldn't add the rice at the beginning because they will be mashed until you are done with mixing everything.  Then take a scoop from the mixture and shape it into oval looking meatballs.  See photo below. 

When you are ready to fry them, first beat the 2 eggs in a bowl.  Put your flour on a flat plate.  Heat up your pan to high heat with a lot of oil to fry because these lovely meatballs need a lot of oil to cook nicely with the eggs.  When it's ready dip the meatballs first into the flour and make sure they are covered all over with it.  Then dip them into the eggs and start frying them.  You can lover the heat to medium after they are all in otherwise you may end up with too brown egg crust. 

Best way to eat this dish is with fries or a potato salad or just bread.  I definitely recommend to have a juicy tomato salad or the typical (and very Turkish) çoban (Choban) salad with it. (Shepperd's salad and that will be for another post sometime in the future). 

Venetian Liver

This is one of my favorite liver recipes. I have two favorite ones and the other one is a Turkish recipe.  Next liver recipe I write will be for sure the Turkish one, but this time I am writing about the Venetian liver.  Venetian liver recipe is a classic and you can find in many Italian restaurants.  This is a recipe that I adapted from a German version that I found somewhere.  I used veal liver to make this one.  In the meantime I found some other versions on the web. This one on the Epicurious site here looks like a good one too but I haven't tried it yet.  If you want to give it a go please let me know what you thought of it.
I made some rice with this one but you can have it also only with some bread, because it tastes really good. 

Venetian Liver

500 gr liver from veal, sliced.
2-3 medium size red onions, sliced
1-2 sage leaves
50 ml Balsamic vinegar
20-30 ml red wine
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a handful of chopped parsley

Make sure you have everything ready before you start, because you have to cook everything really fast over high heat.
Start with heating butter and olive oil in a pan over high temperature. When it's hot enough, put in the liver and stir-fry it for about a minute.  Take it out and put it on a plate.  Don't worry if it's not cooked, it is supposed to look still red and raw.  If you want the liver to stay soft do not ever overcook it.  After you take the liver out of the pan, put in the onions and fry them until they are soft and slightly brown.  Add the balsamic vinegar, wine and the sage leaves.  Reduce the heat to medium and cook it for another 2-3 minutes.  Add the liver back in and cook for another minute or two.  Add some salt and pepper before you taste.  Liver should stay soft like this and it will be cooked enough.  Before you serve it sprinkle some chopped parsley on top.  Enjoy it with some rice or bread.

Thai Curry with Chicken and Leeks

Why is it that anything with coconut milk, always tastes delicious? It's so tasty that no matter with what you use this ingredient, it just changes the flavor of it into something dreamy and exotic.  Since I learned to cook with coconut milk I can't seem to forget about it.  I do have phases where I get into cooking with certain things, then after a while I get bored and I forget about them.  Until I see them somewhere and remember to use them again.  However coconut milk hasn't been one of those boring and forgettable ingredients for me.  I absolutely love it, especially when it's combined with coriander and hot chili.
I was inspired to make this when I was looking through Delia's book How to Cook 2. She has a great recipe of a very easy wok dish with chicken and coconut curry called "Stir-Fried Chicken with Lime and Coconut.  I say it's easy, cause it doesn't have too many fancy ingredients, but you still have to marinade the chicken for 1 hour before cooking.  Unfortunately I didn't have this much time and most of the ingredients in her recipe so I came up with something quite different from that, but it still tasted very good.
The best way to end up with soft and nicely cooked meat while making a stir-fry is to use high temperature.   If you keep that in mind, all your stir-fries will end up tasting very good.  It's also necessary to make all your ingredients ready before you start cooking if you don't want to end up over cooked meat and vegetables.
Here is what I used to make my quick Thai curry with coconut milk.

2 small chicken breasts chopped
About 125 ml coconut milk (alternatively you can use coconut powder and some normal half fat cream)
1 tablespoon of coconut fat (I always have this at home for cooking, but you can replace this with peanut oil or olive oil)
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
1 whole leek chopped in thin circles
a handful of fresh coriander leaves chopped
1-2 hot chilies chopped (depending how spicy you want it to be)
some black pepper

Heat your oil or fat in the wok to a high temperature and stir-fry the chicken for 2-3 minutes. Add the leeks in and stir-fry them for another 2 minutes. Add the soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce with the chilies, then add the coconut milk. Cook for another 3-4 minutes and then it's all done.  Before you serve, put some fine chopped coriander leaves on it.  Enjoy it with some basmati or jasmine rice.