I spent half of this week in Tarabya, a village on the Bosphorus, so remote that after reaching there one gets surprised she has not left city limits yet. But then it is Istanbul, possibly the most spread out city in the world. You get on a boat along the Bosphorus and keep marveling the villages with grand mansions that Istanbul does not run out of until the very Black Sea.
It took me two hours to get from my house in Moda to the Grand Tarabya hotel by public transport. In the same two hours I could have ended up at our countryside property in Sapanca. But then it is Istanbul where you change from a ferry to a tram, then you get on a funicular and finally hop on a taxi constantly wondering why the city authorities keenly introduce new modes of transportation instead of connecting the dots of the existing ones.
What brought me to Tarabya was a combination of business and pleasure. Let’s not talk about the business, but the pleasure part was our second wedding anniversary. True, we already celebrated the second wedding anniversary this February, but then by design we can celebrate twice: the day of the civil ceremony and the day of the merry wedding with family and friends, six moths apart from each other. To celebrate the former we went to Morocco, to celebrate the latter we traveled to the other end of Istanbul. Why not?
The Grand Tarabya hotel was the occasion worthy offering the right amount of luxury and the peace of a remote city corner. You could just wake up to the Bosphorus view, sit on your balcony or enjoy the marina view from the terrace all day long and never wish for anything else. I told my sister I could move here, and she argued I would not because I need a kitchen. And she is right, normally I can’t do without a kitchen, but I have not missed my kitchen even once at the hotel because they serve excellent food.
Eating out this year has often been frustrating due to my restrictive diet (that has greatly relaxed by now regarding the grains, even though I continue no sugar and very little wheat, out of choice). For my road trips and all I pack food. This time I did not have to: breakfasts and lunches at the Grand Tarabya exceeded all my expectations. On the lovely terrace overlooking the marina I enjoyed a stellar breakfast of lovely local and French cheeses, fresh vegetables and olives. At lunch I easily composed a balanced delicious vegan meal, as I like it in summer, from the buffet.
Life on the Bosphorus is a universe of its own. This still and eternal body of water becomes the stage for so much happening at the same time. Bosphorus lets through countless ships from the luxurious private yachts and small wooden fishing boats to the huge tankers and, as I saw one morning, even an oil rig heading out into the Black Sea accompanied by five pilot boats. One night I took a stroll along the shore watching the fishermen getting their nets and boats ready for the first catch of the season as the ban on commercial fishing would be lifted the day after.
Once we traveled so far, we decided to dine at the places we don’t often go to. We revisited old-time favorite Set Balık, one of the best seafood restaurants in Istanbul and definitely one of the most inventive; they create seafood versions of the classic Turkish meat dishes. It’s been 1.5 years since I have written about them, and I found the place just as I left it: cheerful service, delicious food and a reasonable bill. Their approach stays the same: you have a say on the cold appetizers, mains and desserts, but their inventive hot starters arrive as they please. I could not decided on the highlight of the meal. I thought it was Adana kebab, minced fish patty on a skewer, grilled and tasting of smoke. But then a saute pan arrived with pan-fried thin kırlangıç (red gurnard) slices served on the bed of generously buttered chard, a sensational dish alone worth a trip to Tarabya.
We also discovered a new worthwhile place to eat on the Bosphorus - Chef Mezze located at Sortie, a posh night club on the Bosphorus, with an ambiance to match. A recent addition to the Istanbul dining scene, Cheff Mezze is a creation of two brothers, Gazi and Bilal, previously the guys behind the kitchen at my favorite Arabesque. Hats off to them for they serve outstanding food while they could have followed the lead of their numerous colleagues and simply sell the view.
At Chef Mezze we enjoyed a lovely spread of appetizers including silky hummus, abaganush salad of roasted eggplant and red peppers, dip of fresh tomato, teasing chillies and walnuts that is best described as a cross of two popular dips - muhammara and acılı ezme, then charred eggplant with strained yogurt and marinaded sea bass in the mustard sauce accompanied by delicious corn bread. The main of the oven-baked sole fillet was cooked to perfection. Tender and light fish arrived on the bed of stewed spinach, chard and green beans. The choice of dessert was impossibly hard with abundant options ranging from fig baklava to the chocolate covered semolina cake of revani, but Özgür settled on trileçe, airy and creamy milk pudding. I only wish Chef Mezze served wine to match their excellent food as I could not justify the glass of mediocre white that accompanied my dinner.
On Wednesday I planned to leave the hotel right after lunch to get a week-worth of seasonal produce at the organic market in Göztepe, back on the Asian side of Istanbul. One thing after another, and I was running late. I called Ahmet Abi from Doka Organik, a diversified farm at the Istanbul outskirts that sets the best stall at the market to tell him I might be late. Ahmet Abi reassured me they had reserved some things for me and were waiting.
Istanbul traffic was not on my side, and by the time I made it to the market I was grateful to get anything. Ahmet Abi has showed me the vegetables and greens they set aside for me. With a beaming heart I started inspecting the brown bags filled with produce: flat green bell Bosnian peppers with a thick skin, plump red bell peppers, dill and parsley, purslane, a huge bag of cucumbers and a small box of the most beautiful (ok, ugly according to my husband and yet the most beautiful) huge pink tomatoes, possibly the last crop of the season. They remember exactly what I have been regularly buying from them! It took me only a few more minutes to finish my marketing. Now, I was ecstatic to arrive before the market closes and and put my hands on the excellent late summer produce that will soon vacate the stall space to the wonders of fall.
As I arrived home, the adrenalin vanished and I inspected the brown bags, this time thoroughly. I realized I ended up with two bunches of purslane (semizotu in Turkish; if you wonder what purslane is, read this). My enthusiasm for purslane at the market always exceeds my excitement to use it once back to my kitchen. Now, I love purslane, but 1 ) I can eat just this much purslane per week and 2) I tend to discriminate: I prefer wild to the garden one as the wild plants have smaller but more sturdy and succulent leaves evenly distributed along the stem. The cultivated purslane has larger leaves at the tip of each plant and the vane stems, too long and too bare. What on earth I was going to do with so much purslane, or with so much purslane stems for that matter?
At the moments like this one I incline to stick to the classic ways, which in this case meant Turkish purslane stew. Here in Turkey unless you eat your purslane raw with thick garlicky yogurt, you default to the purslane stew. As the green itself is overpoweringly acidic (no wonder, it’s a champion in the oxalic acid content), you want to balance it with as much sweetness as you can without turning your savory appetizer into a desert. So I chopped a good amount of onion, carrot, the sweetest tomatoes and red bell peppers for more sweetness and also more cheerful color. I also added a bit of pekmez instead of the refined sugar to boost the sweetness of the dish.
What distinguishes an ok purslane stew from an excellent one? For me it’s sufficient cooking time you allow the tomatoes so they not only reduce, but also caramelize as much as possible and give away all their sweetness to the dish. Another critical point here is chopping as it’s pretty easy to turn the stew into an unappetizing mash. To avoid that I cut carrots and peppers into matchsticks and chop purslane super-coarsely.
You can fortify the dish with cooked beans (e.g. chickpeas get along with the purslane famously) or grains (typically, 1-2 tbsp rice added along with the purslane to make the dish heartier). I have chosen to keep it plain and enjoy with yogurt, while I served it to my husband atop a rice pilaf. After all my sister was right: I need a kitchen. And thank you Ahmet Abi for I have plenty to cook with this week.
End of Summer Purslane Stew
Source: Olga Irez of Delicious Istanbul
Prep Time: 10 Min
Cook Time: 40 Min
Total Time: 50 Min
Serves: 4 as a main, 8 as a side / appetizer
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large (160 g) carrots cut into 3 cm long matchsticks
- 1 large (180 g) onion
- 1 medium (110 g) red Romano pepper
- 2 medium (300g) tomatoes
- 2 garlic cloves
- 700 g purslane coarsely chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 2 tsp grape molasses (pekmez)
- red pepper flakes for serving
Directions
- Prepare purslane and vegetables: Chop off the purslane roots if still attached and soak the plants in a large basin for about 20 min. Rinse and drain to remove any remaining particles of salt or bugs. Dry in a salad spinner and chop into 3 cm /1 inch long pieces. Slice the carrots into 3 cm /1 inch long matchsticks. Quarter the red peppers lengthwise, remove the seeds and slice each quarter into the pieces matching the size of the carrot matchsticks. Finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Pour the boiling water over the tomatoes, prick each tomato with a knife, immediately discard the water and rinse the tomatoes in a few changes of cold water. Remove the skin and dice finely keeping all the juices.
- Cook stew: Warm up the olive oil in a large pot. Cook the carrots for about 2 minutes on the medium heat until slightly soft. Then add the onion and continue cooking for about 4 min. Stir in the red pepper and let be for a minute. Now add the tomatoes and garlic and let simmer for 15-20 min, until the bottom of the pan dries and the vegetables start sticking to the bottom. Reduce the heat to the low and cook for 5 min longer to caramelize the tomatoes. Next stir in the chopped purslane, sea salt and grape molasses. Simmer covered for about 10 minutes, or until the purslane stems soften. Cool down before serving. The dish tastes even better the next day and keeps for 2-3 days in the fridge. Sprinkle the stew with red pepper flakes and serve with a bowl of thick yogurt.
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Looks delish. Why I didn’t know purslane is edible? I used to collect them for my grandpa’s goats to eat.