Feteer meshaltet with cheese and olives (Egyptian stuffed flaky pastry)

I had a relaxing weekend planned, and my idea of relaxation usually involves cooking of some sort. I'd had a dream a few nights previously about feteer meshaltet, I'm not sure what triggered it but I woke up with the taste in my mouth and knew I had to make it...
For those unfamiliar with the dish, feteer meshaltet is an unbelievably delicious Egyptian pastry dish, it has the crispness of filo pastry and the layering and moistness of puff pastry. Layers of super thin pastry are smothered in clarified butter and stacked and folded upon themselves, sometimes it's stuffed, savoury and pie-like and sometimes just the pastry is baked and served with a dusting of sugar and honey. I prefer the savoury version and decided to go with a filling of feta and green olives (cheese is quite a common filling, often of the processed variety... Mmmmm)
I'm not a big maker of pastry, and I did wonder whether I would be able to re-create the transparently thin layers, and had bought some ready made puff pastry as a back up should it not work. However, the pastry was actually quite straightforward to make, the trick being to knead it well, and rest to allow the elasticity to develop, so I would encourage anyone to give it a go!

Ingredients
450g plain flour
250ml water (you may need a little less)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
100g margarine or ghee (melted)

For the filling
100g feta (crumbled)
1 handful green olives (roughly chopped)
1 tsp za'atar 

1. Pour the flour, salt and sugar and slowly add the water, I've said 250ml but you may need a bit less, orpossibly more. The dough should be quite wet and sticky, but still kneadable
2. Once the dough has come together in a smooth ball, knead for 10-15 minutes, then divide the dough into four parts. Drizzle with a little of the melted margarine (or olive oil), cover and leave to rest for an hour 
3. Once the dough has rested you're ready to make the feteer. Pour some of the melted margarine on a clean work surface and start pushing the dough flat with the heel of your hand, keep the dough well oiled for this. With the kneading and resting the dough should be quite elastic and you'll find it spreads quite easily. The idea is to get it as thin as possible, if you can see your work surface through the dough then it's think enough! As an aside, if you get the occasional hole, don't worry. It's going to be folded up so the odd tear doesn't matter

4.  Add the crumbled feta, olives and za'atar to the centre of the dough circle (or square/oblong/rectangle) and fold the sides in over the filling. Once it's encased put it to one side
5. Repeat the process with the second ball of dough, this time when it's reached the desired thickness carefully pick up your filled dough parcel and place it in the middle of the circle, and fold the pastry over it 
6. And repeat again with the third and fourth balls, you'll end up with a well wrapped dough parcel

7. Bake in a preheated oven until golden brown and crispy, I can't give temperatures as my oven doesn't have a temperature gauge, but 190C for around 20 minutes seems about right!

8. Eat, and then wish you'd made more! 

Zeytinli açma (Turkish soft bread rolls filled with olives)

I don’t bake much, it’s not that I don’t enjoy bread, but the process of baking always seems to be a bit too precise. However I had been dreaming of zeytinli açma, the beautiful soft Turkish bread rolls stuffed with a tangy black olive paste. One of the first things I do as soon as I arrive in Turkey is to hunt out one of these beauties, usually easy enough as a branch of a certain world famous coffee shop in the arrivals hall stock them. I only realised I had a bit of an addiction a couple of years ago when I realised I was planning my day around where I could buy my next fix…

I’m back in turkey next month, but as I’m still trying to get to grips with the oven in my new house I decided to try my hand at some baking, and what better bread to start than with the delicious zeytinli açma. I wasn’t too precise about measuring out the ingredients, and as far as the cooking times go, my oven doesn’t have a temperature scale so I’ll have to be a bit vague with regards to timing, but the end result was extremely tasty! The quantities make 10 açma, enough to eat with a few left over to freeze for later.

Ingredients
3 cups of white flour
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup of milk
A sachet of yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
Squeeze of honey
Salt

For the filling

100 g black olives

2 tablespoons margarine (or butter)

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and add the milk and vegetable oil. Mix together, you should get a moist dough. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour
2. To make the olive filling, puree or finely chop the olives, and add a tablespoon of margarine or softened butter
3. Break off tangerine sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls, these quantities should make 10
4. Taking one ball of dough, roll it into a sausage shape and either squash flat, or roll flat with a rolling pin. This doesn’t have to be too precise. 

5. Take a spoonful of the olive and margarine mixture and spread on the surface of the dough. Roll up, and taking one end of the roll in each hand, twist and then form into a ring. Don’t worry if some of the filling starts to come out, this is the intended effect
6. Repeat with the remainder of the dough
7. Brush the tops of the açmas with milk or egg yolk (most recipes call for egg yolk, I had no eggs in the house) and sprinkle with sesame seeds or nigella seeds
8. Bake for around 20-30 minutes

Nevzine (Turkish walnut and tahini cake)

It seems that when I have things on my mind, or am distracted I cook. That is my coping mechanism, and as life has been rather chaotic recently (a house move, and possibly another move on the horizon) my response is to make food. I'm not really big on comfort eating, but I find the preparation of meals to be the ultimate in relaxation. I guess with cooking it is one of those things that is seen either as a pleasure or a chore. My grandmother worked as a cook for a living, and when she wasn't working she would be always found in the kitchen cooking for pleasure. My mother on the other hand, while a good cook sees food preparation to be something that has to be endured between doing far more interesting things like gardening! So the love of cooking obviously skipped a generation. 

I’ve been trying to use up odds and ends left in my store cupboards, and had some ground walnuts and half used bags of flour and a quarter of a jar of tahini. In addition I’d unearthed a jar of pekmez, that thick gooey Turkish spread made from grape must. Ingredients that spoke to me of their desire to be made into a cake. And what better way to use them up than to make nevzine, a rich and utterly delicious Turkish cake that is lovingly soaked in pekmez until it is oozingly delicious. It's very similar to basbousa or revani, though more commonly made with regular flour. I didn't have enough flour for the recipe, so substituted fine semolina. The cake may not have been quite as dense as the traditional variety, but I think the semolina gave it a nice texture. Feel free to use all flour if you prefer. I also substituted yoghurt for milk, again I don't think that the flavour or texture suffered for this addition. 

Ingredients

2 cups of flour (either regular white flour or use half semolina and half flour)

50g ground walnuts

100g melted margarine

3 tablespoons yoghurt

3 tablespoons tahini

For the syrup

Make a 1:1 sugar syrup (i.e. 100g sugar to 100ml water with a squeeze of lemon juice)

3 tablespoons pekmez

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the melted margarine and mix until you have the consistency of wet sand. Then stir in the yoghurt and tahini. The dough should be thick batter-like consistency

2. Spoon it into an oven proof dish. Smooth down the surface and cut it into squares, placing a walnut half in the middle of each portion

3. Cook for around 40 minutes, a little bit vague, but my oven doesn't have set temperatures and my method is to light the fire, put in whatever I’m baking and then check it after 30 minutes! It's a method that seems to work (I'm guessing you should heat it to around 175C if you have an oven with settings). You want the cake to be firm and the top lightly golden

4. While the cake is cooking make the sugar/pekmez syrup and leave to cool

5. Once the cake is cooked, reinforce the score marks, and then pour over the syrup until all the cake is covered. Allow to cool and ideally refrigerate overnight so the syrup can completely soak in

The cake is delicious with coffee, and if it needs any further accompaniment a spoonful of ice cream or strained yoghurt complements it beautifully!

Kakaolu muhallebi (Turkish style chocolate milk dessert)

Of all the varieties of muhallebi available, kakaolu muhallebi (cocoa / chocolate muhallebi) is probably one of my favourites. Because after all, who doesn’t love chocolate?!

The recipe couldn’t be any simpler, and the whole process takes maybe 10 minutes maximum, you do need to give it a few hours (or ideally overnight) to cool and set, but apart from that, it’s something that can be knocked up at a moments notice. The amounts of ingredients are an estimation, when I made this I prepared it by eye, using enough milk to fill the size of containers I had plus a little extra. Add more or less sugar depending on your personal taste, I wanted the dessert to be a little bittersweet...

Ingredients

500ml milk

50g sugar

3 heaped tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder

3 heaped tablespoons cornflour

Dash of orange blossom/rose water (optional)

1. Add the milk (reserving a little) to a pan with the sugar and bring to the boil

2. Mix the reserved milk and the cornflour, stir well until you have a smooth paste

3. To the cocoa powder add some boiling water and mix until smooth, then add this to the cornflour mixture

4. By now the milk will probably be boiling, to create silky smooth muhallebi you need to take care when pouring in the cornflour mixture as it will start to thicken immediately*. I whisk the milk using a hand whisk and slowly pour in the cornflour, whisking all the time. Once it’s all incorporated lower the heat and cook the muhallebi for another minute or so and then take off the heat. Now add the orange blossom or rose water (if using)

5. Pour into small containers and allow to cool, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours (or overnight)

6. Eat!

*As an aside, if you are distracted and horror of horrors your wonderfully silky smooth muhallebi turns into a lumpy fright, all is not lost. Using a hand blender will remove the lumps and no one need ever know

Çiğ köfte (Bulgar wheat and ground walnut kofte)

In addition to bean cuisine, Turkey is a land of the kofte or meatball. Obviously for a vegetarian, meatballs are possibly not something that one shows much interest in, however çiğ köfte (or raw meatballs) are something quite special. Yes, you did read that correctly, 'raw meatballs' and vegetarian in the same sentence. Traditionally, çiğ köfte were made with raw meat (either lamb or beef) finely pounded with soaked bulgar wheat and ground chillies, however due to food and hygiene laws in Turkey (or at least in Istanbul) it has not been possible to serve raw meat in restaurants for the last ten years or so. Hmm... what can a creative person do? Well, a vegetarian/vegan version came into being, and amazingly delicious it is too. The 'meatiness' comes from the soaked bulgar wheat and ground walnuts. It reminds me a little of some of the Georgian walnut-based pastes such as pkhali. The recipe itself is so simple, yet utterly delicious and rewarding. The only time consuming bit is the kneading of the mixture, but slip a box set in the DVD player, take your kofte mixture into the living room and knead away  :)

Ingredients

1 cup fine bulgar

1 cup ground walnuts

Boiling water (to soak the bulgar)

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 onion (grated)

2 cloves of garlic (crushed)

1 tsp dried mint

1 tsp cumin

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 large ancho chillies (soaked in water for 30 minutes, deseeded and pureed)

Fresh coriander and parsley

1. Pour the boiling water over the bulgar wheat and soak for around 30 minutes

2. Pour into a muslin square (or clean dish towel) and squeeze out the excess water

3. Mix in the ground walnuts

4. To this, add the grated onion, tomato paste, herbs, spices and chillie puree and mix well. If it’s too crumbly then add a little olive oil. Texture wise you want a doughy like consistency. As an aside, if you can’t find the fine bulgar wheat needed to make this recipe, using a stick blender to ‘mush’ up the standard bulgar wheat works just as well. Don’t overdo it though as you want a little bit of texture in the mix

5. Knead this mixture for at least 10 minutes (ideally 30 minutes)

6. Pinch off golf ball sized pieces and roll into sausages, squeeze hard to create indentations

7. To eat serve in lettuce leaves with a squeeze of lemon. Delicious!

Kuru fasulye (Turkish white bean stew)

I've been a bit lax in putting up recipes recently, in my defence I was in the middle of moving house and for most of the time internet-less or in the midst of craziness. I've now settled in my new home, made myself familiar with the kitchen and as I have not long returned from a holiday in Turkey, I think a Turkish recipe is appropriate! Turkey is a bean lovers paradise and there are a multitude of delicious bean-based recipes to choose from. This is perhaps my favourite, kuru fasulye or white bean stew. I have eaten it on numerous occasions, but it was one of those dishes that I had never actually cooked at home. A food related discussion with a Turkish friend led to some recipe swapping, and this is his recipe – give or take a few tweaks. It's the sort of recipe I love, one that gives no amounts or specific directions but assumes you know the basics and can figure out the rest. More a list of ingredients and suggestions than a regimented mehod. Really, all you need for this are the beans (cannelini ideally, though I only had butter beans which I have to say I probably prefer as they have such a smooth and creamy flavour), dried tomatoes, tomato paste and a green pepper. As with a lot of Turkish food, the flavour comes from the fresh ingredients and the cooking process. This is a classic dish and you really don't need to mess with it.

Ingredients

250g dried white beans (butter beans or cannellini)
Water
2 garlic cloves
50g Margarine or butter
Olive oil
A few sun dried tomatoes (chopped)
1 tablespoon dried mixed herbs
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tsp Aleppo pepper (ideally, or chilli flakes if you don't have)
1 large onion thinly sliced
2 green peppers (cut into rough chunks)

1. Soak the beans overnight
2. Drain the beans and add to a pan of fresh water and boil for 20 minutes
3. While the beans are boiling, fry the onions and garlic in the olive oil/margarine (or butter) mixture until softened
4. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for a couple of minutes
5. Drain the beans, reserving the boiling water and add to the pan with the onions
6. Add around 500ml of the boiling liquid, I’ve left the amount vague. The finished consistency of the cooked beans can vary, some people like their kuru fasulye to be almost soupy, others with very little cooking liquid. I’ve gone for the happy medium
7. To the pan add the spices, chopped dried tomato and peppers, bring back up to the boil and then simmer covered for around 2 hours
8. Halfway through cooking check on the liquid, if you feel it needs more top up. If you want your beans to be more ‘stew-y’ leave the lid off slightly to allow the water to evaporate
9. After around an hour and a half check one of the beans to ensure that they're cooked. For a bit of extra luxuriousness, once the beans were cooked and the sauce the desired consistency stir in a knob of butter or margarine
10. Serve with crusty bread, or delicious with a rice and vermicelli pilaf

Moussaka (Middle Eastern style)

I love aubergines, probably one of the finest and versatile vegetables that there is. I have to say though, thanks to various cookery programs and articles the British* seem to have some strange ideas about this vegetable. 

Even as recently as 10 years ago I remember watching Delia Smith salt the poor creature and then wring it out in a kitchen towel “to remove the bitter juices”. I am not sure where the fallacy that aubergines are bitter came from, quite possibly some early semi-feral variety. In my decades of aubergine eating I have only once come across one bitter little bugger and that was some teeny tiny baby aubergines I bought from an Asian grocery store.
So I say for the sake of the poor wee veggies, unless you are frying them in which case you want as much moisture drawn out of them as possible to stop them being a little fat-soaking-up sponge – don’t salt your aubergines, they really don’t need it!!!

This recipe is a halfway house between Lebanese style moussaka and Egyptian style moussaka (or mesakaa / messa’aa depending on the transliteration). Both sharing a name and perhaps a few similarities to the more widely known Greek dish. The Lebanese moussaka is vegetarian and contains chickpeas. It’s also usually a stew cooked on a stove top. The Egyptian moussaka may be vegetarian, though more often than not it contains lamb, especially when cooked at home. It also may or may not have a béchamel sauce like the Greek variety, and like the Greek variety it’s baked.

Ingredients
1 large aubergine
1 large tomato
200ml passata
1 large can of chickpeas
1 onion (thinly sliced)
4 cloves of garlic (crush 2 cloves, chop the remainder finely)
Bunch of coriander
Handful of ground walnuts (optional)
Handful of chopped black olives (optional)
Handful of grated halloumi
A splash of pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried mixed herbs
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp ras el hanout (optional)
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tablespoon of harissa (or to taste)

1 Slice the aubergine into 1cm rounds and grill
2. While the aubergine is cooking, fry the sliced onion and crushed garlic in olive oil until softened
3. To the onion, add the spices, passata, chickpeas, pomegranate molasses, olives and ground walnuts (if using, I was clearing out the fridge and had a few odds and ends knocking around)
4. To assemble, get a large oven proof dish, spoon a little of the tomato mixture in the bottom and then layer on the aubergines. Sprinkle with some of the chopped garlic and halloumi and then add more sauce. Repeat until you run out of aubergine reserving a little sauce to add on top. Decorate with the sliced tomato, some chopped coriander and the remaining grated halloumi
5. Bake in a 250C oven for around 30 minutes or until bubbling. I’m not overly fond of over browned cheese so I covered the dish with tinfoil for the first 20 minutes
6. Eat! Delicious served with a salad and topped with a yoghurt tahini dressing, or if you want something a little more filling, a vermicelli rice pilaf

*Not just the British, at least half the recipes I see online that contain aubergine will somewhere mention in the article that salting is required to draw out the bitterness. Don’t believe me?! Have a nibble of a raw slice, go on – it wont kill ya! Sure it may not taste of much, but I guarantee it’s not going to taste bitter!!!