Going to the Market/Pazar

After I moved out from the dorm and stayed in a house, I realized that I don't really eat healthily - I would buy nuggets, sausages, instant mee..and if I bought fresh chicken I would most probably deep fry them and eat with rice. I knew that I needed fruits and veggies but as I have a limited budget, I ended up not buying them. That is, until I discovered the pazar.

So this is another survival tip for students who live in houses and not dorms - go to the market/pazar! This market in Cebeci is open every Thursday from 10am to about 8pm and you can really find cheap fruits and veggies - sometimes way way cheaper than the supermarket.

Early in the morning.. they were still setting the place up

Dry goods

At one point during spring I managed to buy 5 avocados for 3TL - and they were really tasty avocados. The normal price for avocados are between 3TL to 6TL per piece. We bought so many that we didn't know what else to eat them with haha

More than 5 - because my roommate also bought some

Before they turned into guacamole *yum*

This was also in spring - apples and pears between 1.50TL to 2TL per kg

Usually I would go to the pazar to get some tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, spinach, tangerines, bell peppers, cauliflowers, carrots....of course not all at one go, because there was this one time when I got too excited at the pazar and bought so many things and end up not eating them and they turned rotten. It feels really bad to throw food. I learnt my lesson :p

There is also another pazar nearby, the Mamak pazari - also on Thursdays. Their fruits and veggies are not that cheap, but you can find really cheap fish there. About half the price that you see at other fish stalls and supermarket. 

the Mamak pazari at night

It's more crowded

So yeah! Even if you stay in the dorm, if you feel like having some fresh fruits you can buy from the pazar :)

Nasi Ayam - Chicken Rice

A complete plate of Nasi Ayam - served with some soup, cucumbers, tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, fried chicken, chilli and soy sauce

At the end of last semester I had some friends over for Malaysian food and I decided to make Nasi Ayam (literally translated to chicken rice). 

I usually feel discouraged when I try to make Malaysian food because it seems like it needs a lot of work, and a long time is needed in the kitchen. So when it is only for myself I will end up not doing it - that's why I prefer to have friends over to enjoy the meal together. I still haven't tried gulai or rendang though. One day, maybe.

After asking my mom, my sister and finally selecting one recipe from the internet, I set out to cook my first ever attempt at Nasi Ayam. I got a good recipe from here.

There are four parts to cooking chicken rice - the soup, the rice, the fried chicken and the chilli and soy sauce. The chicken will be boiled to become the chicken broth/soup, and then some of the broth will be used to cook the rice and to add in the chilli. We waste nothing :p 

The first thing to do is to blend some garlic and ginger together. This mix will be used for all the four parts so I used about 15 garlic cloves and a thumb of ginger. 

1. the Chicken Broth/Soup

- heat some oil
-sautee the blend of garlic and ginger (about 2 cloves of garlic and some ginger)
-put in 1 whole chicken (cut up in big pieces)
-add about 2 litres of water and 1 cube of chicken stock
-let the water come to a boil and cook until the chicken is tender (but not too long as we are going to fry the chicken later)
- take out the chicken and proceed to step 2

2. the Fried Chicken

- add some light soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and some blended ginger and let them marinate while you prepare the rice

-after that, just fry the chicken 

3. the Chicken Rice

- this is for 6 cups of rice
- 7 cups of the chicken broth
- 4 tablespoons of butter
- some pandan leaves
- some spices :

The spices - cinnamon bark, lemongrass, star anise, cardamom and a blended mix of ginger and garlic 

I did the following steps in the rice cooker so that it will be easy to cook the rice as usual afterwards :-

- heat the butter 

- add in the blended ginger and garlic, pandan leaf and the spices

- add in the rice, stir well until you can smell the yummy smell

- add in the water, some turmeric for color, and salt

-cover the rice cooker and let it do its job

before serving take out the pandan leaves, the lemongrass and the spices

4. the Chilli (and the Soy Sauce)

-chilli : blend red chillies, garlic and ginger

- add salt, some sugar, vinegar and some of the chicken broth

-soy sauce : add some of the chicken soup to some sweet soy sauce - that's it

As for the side salads, we usually use iceberg lettuce, cucumbers and fresh tomatoes. And for the soup, some green onions.

Ready to eat! Afiyet Olsun

At the same time, my Turkish neighbour gave some Turkish food -
so those two dishes at the top were from her (peas and Turkish rice)

İçli Pide (Turkish Pita) / Turkish Pizza

İçli Pide (Turkish Pita)- in a boat like crust

One of the many survival tips that I have learned from an experienced frugal grad student is that I can have İçli pide for a much cheaper price if I prepare my own topping and bring it to the nearby pide shop (Pide Salonu) to be baked in a stone oven with wood fire. (Well, it should be a neighborhood pide shop and not a fancy schmancy restaurant). 

You can first go and ask them if it is okay for you to bring your own toppings by saying "iç getirirsek pide yapar mısınız?" - which roughly means "if I bring toppings can you do pide please?"

At the pide salonu - preparing the pide crust

This is a pide that I ordered from a restaurant, the normal price for it is around 9 to 15 lira - depending on the toppings and the place. About 70 cm.

So if they say yes, you can go ahead and and prepare your own toppings at home, and ask them to make as many pide as they can with that much toppings. You can say "pide yaptıracağım, çıktığı kadar". Usually I can get about 6 pide with these ingredients :-

• 200 grams of beyaz peynir (white cheese) 

  

  this is the white cheese - made of cow and not goat

• 2 whole onion
• 4 green chillies
• 2 tomatoes 
• 1 egg
• salt, pepper, cayenne pepper
• some oil
• chilli flakes

- Dice the onions, green chillies and tomatoes. Mix them with the white cheese and (raw) egg, add some oil, salt, pepper, chilli flakes and cayenne pepper. If you like parsley you may also add chopped parsley. 

the ingredients

mix the chopped green chillies with the cheese

add the chopped tomatoes, onions and egg

mix them well, add a bit of oil, salt, pepper, chilli flakes

-Put them in a container, and bring a big plate or plastic tray with you so it will be easy for you to carry those pide back home. The guy charges me around 1.25 lira per pide. Even if you add up the costs of the beyaz peynir, onion, oil etc it is still so so much cheaper.

My own peynirli pide

You can also put kasar peyniri (cheddar cheese), mushroom, pepperoni and whatever your heart desires.

This was the time I put mushroom, sucuk (turkish pepperoni-like), and kasar peyniri

Afiyet olsun :)

Special shoutout to my sister

This post is especially dedicated to my sister Ateh, who sent money for me to buy my first oven  - yeay thank you Ateh - may God bless you! It was the start of my many experiments with baking and whatnots.

And to eKi (we were just friends at the time - I wondered why you were so nice ahaha :p), who helped me research on the best value for money oven, and helped me carry it home in the cold winter.

It's just the right size - not too small and not too big, and the price was good. Balim for scale.

welcome to the family!

The first thing I did was to bake a whole chicken. *Excited*

I think I marinated with some soy sauce, black pepper, salt, olive oil 

After 45 minutes at 220 degrees in the oven - then lowered to 180 degrees

Ready to eat!

Black Sea Salmon

Black Sea Salmon/Karadeniz Somon

Every time I pass by the Balikci (fishmonger stall), I will see the Norwegian Salmon for about 38 Lira/kg, and another type of salmon called the Black Sea Salmon (Karadeniz Somon) for a cheaper price. The Black Sea Salmon is usually about 17 Lira/kg.

I got very curious.

How does this Black Sea Salmon taste like? So one day I decided to try it out. I asked for the smallest fish, and I paid 20 lira for it.

I asked the guy to clean the fish, but due to language barrier, he went ahead and filleted the fish. Tamam (Okay), I said.

So at home I decided to bake half of the fish in the oven, and the other to be grilled on the stove the next day.

I just seasoned them with salt and pepper

Okay this doesn't look that nice - but i put potatoes, onions, green chillies, lemons, bay leaves and baked it at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes

Ready to eat - and look at the crispy skin

The taste is not that bad, there's a bit of an earthy taste - like when you eat river fish, but I think it is nice and worth the money I paid. However, the fish was so much nicer when I grilled it the next day.

I didn't take an after photo - too hungry maybe

So yeah, I am glad I bought the fish to satisfy my curiosity hehe. With one fish I got 8 pieces of fillet - so not that bad! 

Pulut Kuning and Bubur Kacang Hijau

It was my first time making pulut kuning and it was a bit salty haha, but I guess it's okay for my own consumption :p

There are times when you just miss your own local food, and in my case - Malaysian food!!! After a few weeks of Turkish food, wholewheat breads, veggies and fruits (I had to seriously start eating healthily as I just got back from a short summer break in Malaysia), I decided that today is my cheat day. But seriously, eating out and Malaysian food made me gain a lot of weight, and I really mean a lot. But your own local food, and they are just soo good...

So I set out to make Pulut Kuning (Yellow Glutinous Rice) with Fried Chicken and Sambal, and Bubur Kacang Hijau (Green Beans dessert).

Oh this time I made sure my kitchen is well stocked up on gula melaka, pandan leaves, coconut milk powder, serai, daun limau purut, (to name a few impossible-to-find ingredients here) so that I can make Malaysian food easily.

So both the glutinous rice and the green beans have to be soaked overnight, and I did that.

Glutinous rice soaked with some turmeric powder overnight, or at least 6 hours

Line some pandan leaves on a steamer, put the rice on top

Cover the lid and steam until they are fluffy- then pour some coconut milk with some salt, mix them well, and return to steam.

And now it's ready! I had mine with some sambal and fried chicken on the side - yummeh

and..a final picture of my sweet dessert, Bubur Kacang Hijau :)

Afiyet Olsun

Dolma Biber - Stuffed Peppers

I've made Dolma Biber or Stuffed Peppers a few times, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't! I think the one I made in my mom's claypot tasted the best. I know now that the best result comes from the type of pot.

I remember when I was younger my mom did make stuffed peppers, but she made it in the oven by stuffing uncooked rice in the peppers. I found out that the Turkish way is sort of to fry the rice first, stuff them in the peppers, and then let the bell peppers cook in water. (Oh but if you check YouTube comments, people are fighting about where stuffed peppers come from - just like how Malaysians fight with Indonesians/Singaporeans and vice versa about the origins of dishes - let's not go there :p)

Well the name stuffed pepper is quite misleading, because we can also make stuffed eggplant, stuffed zucchini, and stuffed red peppers. I personally prefer stuffed zucchini.

so first you gotta empty out the insides of the peppers and the zucchini and eggplant like so

as I've mentioned earlier, the rice is fried for a bit - (uncooked) rice fried with olive oil, some chopped onions, tomato paste, minced meat, cumin powder, red chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.

Then you stuff the rice in the pepper. Okay actually this picture is from the first time I made the stuffed peppers, and I made the vegetarian version - it similar except that there is no meat, and there are raisins and pine nuts

excuse the messiness

you then 'close' the peppers with tomatoes 

pour water, add some more tomato paste and salt. close the cover and let it cook for about 45 minutes

Voila! Afiyet Olsun :)

Kayseri Manti

Today I made Mantı ~ a popular food from Kayseri. It is like a lot of little dumplings with minced meat inside them, served with garlic yoghurt (sarimsaklı yoğurt) and topped with burnt butter (yağ yakma) with chili flakes (pul biber). It's simple and yummy.

Here's a short video of how I made it :

One day maybe I will try to make mantı from scratch, (with the dough and the rolling pins and all) but since I'm kinda lazy, I cheated with the ready made ones :D

this is the soy meat version

First boil some water and empty out the whole pack of manti. Let them boil for about 20 minutes (or depending on the instructions on the pack). 

once boiled they will look like this

While waiting for the manti to cook, you may go ahead and prepare the garlic yoghurt sauce. It's very simple, just chop a few cloves of garlic finely, mix with the yoghurt and put some salt to taste. How much garlic to be put depends on how you like it. I prefer to have more garlic-y taste so I put about 4 cloves of garlic to half a tub of yoghurt.

plain ol yoghurt

If possible, you should chop the garlic finer than this, especially if you don't want to bite into the garlic. I was too hungry and lazy ("_")

just mix them together and add some salt

Next, put some manti in a bowl or a deep plate, add some of the garlic yoghurt on top, and get ready to make the butter sauce. 

put about a tablespoon of butter, melt it over medium fire

add some chili flakes and stir

pour the butter on the yoghurt and ta-da, it is ready!