What about dinner cooked in 2 min? I am not talking fancy gadgets. I only mean humble little fishes plus a bunch of greens, sharp knife and red-hot oven! The meal that comes as a result is so quick that before you know you become addicted to making and eating it. I can tell because I have been cooking it all winter. And instead of simply giving you the recipe I want to share with you three simple principles I follow when I make a quick dinner (=very often).
Flash-Roasted Fresh Anchovy “Birds”
Mind-Changing Anchovy Stew (Hamsi Buğulama)
As the winter slowly crawls in hamsi claim larger part of the fishmonger’s stalls and of the weekly ration in Istanbul. Hamsi (also known as anchovy) are a finger-long fish with a shiny silver belly and dark grey back. It smells and tastes sea like no other fish does. Every time I cook hamsi with my cooking class participants I feel on a mission: the odds that my guests are suspicious (at best) about this fish are very high. I don’t blame anybody who got introduced to anchovy through the infamous pizza topping. But the hamsi I am talking about belongs to a different category of food. So bear with me.
Most Genius Fish Cakes in The World
I am not kind of person who will eat the very same food over and over again and will get happy beyond reason. Unless that food is the fish cakes (balık köftesi) prepared by the chef of my most favorite fish restaurant in Istanbul. Sometimes as I am waiting for the shuttle from Kadıköy to depart for the Harem bus station where I will get on a bus to Sapanca I am popping in the place, and they know my order already - a plate of köfte made of Black Sea salmon.
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Istanbul Bonito Fever and 5 Tips For Perfect Roasted Fish
This fall in Istanbul we are crazy about bonito (palamut). As other migratory fish (moving from colder Black Sea to the warmer Sea of Marmara- inevitably through the Bosphorus) is has always been one the most favorite fishes eaten in Istanbul. In fact so favorite and so important that bonito was depicted on some Byzantine coins. And this year sounds very much like those prehistoric times when abundant fish in Istanbul could be caught by hands or baskets.
A Quick Fix of Baked Horse Mackerel
The other day we all happened to be in town - me and Özgür for our clients and anne for her doctor. Done and starving by the afternoon we thought, “Why not to eat at the Kadıköy market?” This was the first time for me in Istanbul together my mother-in-law and as the Kadıköy market is my territory I was determined to get her the best. Fish at Kadı Nimet Balıkçısı followed by the baklava from Bilgeoğlu and washed down with seriously good Turkish coffee at Fazil Bey. Failure-proof plan. Or so I thought.
Ultimate Red Mullet Recipe: Wrapped in Grape Leaves and Baked
My mother-in-law’s kitchen assistant has left and the weekend has come. 30 hours at the kitchen. I don’t know if I should write about the complexities of working with the family members (read - husbands), the joys of having good relationships with your Turkish mother-in-law, the power of yoga to keep your body going after you fall on a wet staircase and hurt your back, mundanity of skinning tomatoes, dreams of hamam, reminiscences of my consulting job which also required working under pressure, the irony of fate which got me back into long hours after I ran away from them and emptiness in my head after all that. There must be a major theme to this weekend and to the post. And I think it is how being bound can be so empowering.
Most Rewarding Anchovy Recipe: Black Sea Anchovy Rice
I was long looking forward to making this anchovy recipe of rice coated with anchovy fillets (hamsili pilav). For starters, I was waiting for the anchovy season to fully blossom. Piles of little silver-bellied fishes on the forefront of the fish stores at the Kadiköy market in Istanbul and dedicated fishmongers orchestrating the humming anchovy trade to the Istanbulites queuing for the 5-lira-a-kilo goodness.
