Pilaf is a part and parcel of our family meals in Sapanca, and we are no different from other Turkish families. When mothers fry a pile of home-made meatballs (köfte) they do not forget to make buttery rice pilaf as a garnish. Pilaf with orzo (dark-brown pasta looking like an oversize rice grain) is cooked everyday at the canteens serving sulu yemekler (stews): indeed, kuru fasulye and such are only right to eat with pilaf and let the grains coat in the tasty gravy. At a kebab restaurant your portion of Urfa kebab arrives with a neat pile of bulgur pilaf reddish with the tomato paste. Stuffing wine leaves, mussels an what not also means preparing pilaf called iç pilavı in Turkish (literally, pilaf for stuffing) that everyone loves for the sweetness of onions, crunch of pine nuts, tartness of the raisins and fragrance of the spices.
Pilaf with Green Lentils and Caramelized Onions
Bulgur Pilaf with Roasted Winter Vegetables
Today while reorganizing my kitchen pantry I have found four varieties of bulgur in my cupboards. How unfair I have not written about bulgur more frequently! But I am going to improve right now. Bulgur - yes, I insist it is bulgur and not ‘bulgur wheat’ just like there is no such a thing as ‘lemon lemonade’ - is a wheat berry that was briefly boiled first and then cracked and ground. The ground bulgur is sifted and separated based on the degree of coarseness, each for different use.
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.
