Traditional Turkish 'Börek' with Courgettes and Cheese

Making bourek (börek) or filo pastry is such a heart-warming activitiy that reminds me of my childhood days, when my grandmother would come and bring fresh filo pastry to make yummy stuff. Generally it would be bourek or fried small envelope pastries made with filo. My paternal grandmother used to make the best courgette filo pastry with milk, and however much I try, I cannot attain the same texture. There are numerous delicious recipes you can make by using filo pastry (ready made or home made). It is a good snack to have at home, great for a quick breakfast on work days, an amazing afternoon tea and if you are making it yourself, you know what's inside, thus you can make it healthy.

  
Ingredients:

4 sheets of big filo pastry (or 8 sheets of Greek baklava filo pastry)
2 small courgettes
400 gr of white cheese (or Greek feta cheese)
1 egg white
A splash of milk
Olive oil
Salt, pepper
Dry mint
Dry red chilli

How to:

1. First, let's start with the courgettes. Wash and grate them in a bowl, add the cheese, one egg white, 2 or 3 tablespoons of milk, a pinch of salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, 1-2 teaspoons of dry mint and a sprinkling of dry chilli. Mix well in a bowl and set aside.

2. Take a big oven tray and lightly grease it with olive oil.

If you are using big Turkish filo pastries, the filo should be bigger than the tray, so keep the bigger parts drooping outside of the tray, so that you can overlap it on top of everything and it will look like a big envelope.
If you are using Greek filo sheets, they may be the same size as your tray, which is fine.

Lay the first filo sheet and sprinkle with some extra virgin olive oil. Lay your filo pastries one by one and between each layer keep spreading olive oil. This will make your bourek very crunchy.

3. Once you have used a little bit more than half of your filo pastries, take the bowl with the courgettes and cheese mixture and pour it over the filos, spread evenly and add a splash of milk (yes, even more milk).

4. Keep layering the filos, brushing with olive oil in every layer. And when you come to the last filo, put it on top firmly. If you are using big Turkish filo pastries, fold the overlapping bit on top and tuck in from the sides, so you will have a big envelope kind of bourek.

5. Now brush the top layer with generous amount of extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle some sesame seeds and black cumin (nigella sativa) seeds and sprinkle a little bit of water with your hands.

6. Bake in the preheated oven of 200 degrees for 45 minutes or until it rises and is golden brown.

 

 7. Leave to cool before you slice your bourek. Perfect for tea time, or for kids when they come back from school. I know because I used to love it so much! Eat and enjoy. 

 Utterly delicious snack for the afternoons when you feel peckish! 

Briam or Greek Roast Vegetables

This dish is perfect for many reasons. A: It is very healthy and light. B: It cleans your fridge, any leftover vegetables, bits and pieces get used up. C: It is the easiest dish to make. D: And, it keeps for three four days in the fridge and gets better each day. Briam is a dish that I learned from my husband. In Greece, this is a very traditional side dish that can go with chicken or meat dishes. There is no set recipe because you can use any vegetables you like. However there has to be these ingredients: Tomatoes, garlic, onion, olive oil (plenty), feta cheese and thyme or oregano (or both). This is the basic of the dish, you can then add any type of vegetables you like and think that would go well together. In the summer courgettes, aubergines, onions and tomatoes, with a bit of potatoes are the best combination. In this recipe, I used mostly winter vegetables, and some summer vegetables like courgettes. Chop them in big pieces, throw into a deep oven dish, pour generous amount of olive oil, crumble some cheese inside and your briam is ready to go. Eat and enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 big onion
3 big tomatoes
6-10 cloves of garlic
3 leeks
1 small bunch of cauliflower
10-12 mushrooms
2 courgettes
A glass of tomato juice or tomato paste mixed in water
2 teaspoons of thyme
Pinch of salt
1/2 glass of extra virgin olive oil
Fresh rosemary (optional)
A chunk of feta cheese
Some parsley leaves (to sprinkle over the top)

How to:

1. Take out a deep oven dish/tray; wash and clean the vegetables; chop them into big chunks; throw all of them into the dish.

2. Add the tomato juice, olive oil, thyme, rosemary, garlic cloves, salt, pepper and mix well. Cover the top with aluminum foil or the lid of your dish and put into the 200 degree oven for half an hour.

3. Take the briam out of the oven, stir the vegetables to cover with tomato juice and olive oil if necessary; also add some more juice if necessary. The vegetables should not be dry. Then crumble some feta cheese on top, cover with your lid and put into the oven again for another 15 minutes.

4. The baking time depends on the vegetables you use in your briam. If you are following this recipe, the vegetables should be cooked and soft by now. Be careful, potatoes and carrots take longer than the other vegetables.

5. Sprinkle with some thinly chopped parsley and your briam is ready to serve. Eat and enjoy!

 This briam was made by our friend Artemis and served with a piece of baked chicken.

 Start with chopped vegetables. Do not tarry too much, big pieces are okay. =)

 Glass of tomato juice. In my case I mixed two table spoons of tomato paste with water and came up with this sauce.

 Almost ready to go in the oven.

Finishing touch... Thyme. Yum!

Colourful Veggies Bread Pizza

  Making pizza out of stale bread is a very common technique. Sometimes we forget to do it but actually, it is one of the best comfort food you can prepare. It is easy and practical, also very flexible, you can put any type of ingredients you like. In my stale bread pizza, I went for the vegetable love again. I made some bacon to go with it. Chicken would also be a very good alternative. I wouldn't mind having this pizza all by itself, as it has loads of cheese. Just go inside your fridge, take out the bits and pieces of vegetables, add some chorizo, sausages, ham, prosciutto, chicken or anything you think will be fit for a pizza. No dealing with a dough, no rolling, no flouring... Only one important tip: Use a deep baking dish, not a flat tray. In order to turn the bread into a soft and gooey pizza dough, we are going to add some milk, an egg and olive oil. Let's start!

Ingredients:
Depending on the size of your baking dish

10 thin slices of stale white bread
4 table spoons of tomato puree and pepper puree (you can put 3 tomatoes and one big red pepper into a blender and mix until it makes a sauce) 
100 gr mushrooms
1 red pepper
1 green pepper 
1 small onion 
2 cups of milk
1 egg
A small bunch of spirng onions (to sprinkle over the top)
A small bunch of parsley (to sprinkle over the top)
Olive oil
Thyme
Black pepper
200 gr melting cheese (cheddar, mozarella, gruyere, any type of cheese you like on your pizza)

How to:
1. Thinly slice the bread. I had a whole bread, which made 10-12 slices. Line the bottom of your dish with the bread. My dish was a square sized one, so I could get four big slices that are enough for one person each.

2. In a separate medium size bowl, mix the milk, egg and two table spoons of olive oil, then pour a little bit more than half of it over the bread to soak.

3. Grate a thin layer of cheese on top and add another layer of bread and pour the rest of the milk mixture. If you think that two layers of bread will make the bottom of the pizza too thick, don't worry. Slice your bread very thinly, so when they come on top of each other, with the cheese in the middle, it will be just thick enough and very delicious. That is the whole point of this pizza. It is not a crispy flat bread, on the contrary, it is loaded vegetables on top of a soft cushion of bread. =)  One last thing, if you find the milk mixture is not enough, add some more milk and olive oil. If you have a big dish, use 2 eggs.

4. The rest is the easiest part. Spread the tomato and pepper puree generously on top of the bread. You can also use tomato paste instead.

5. Slice the red pepper, green pepper, onion, mushrooms and layer one by one. Cover the breads with vegetables so that the bread should not show. Then, top everything with grated cheese. Cook in a 200 degrees oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the bread looks golden.

6. For extra indulgence, add some more cheese after you take the pizza out of the oven. Sprinkle some chopped spring onions or chives and parsley. Share, eat and enjoy!

First the red peppers and tomatoes...

 Then the whiteness of the mushrooms and cheese...

 Some freshness with spring onions and parsley; here goes our colourful pizza!

Three Herb Salad

So practical, healthy, low in calories, high in presentation looks, delicious and fresh salad recipe. Perfect for spring as the fresh herbs on the market are getting better and better. No need to prepare beforehand. This is not only a healthy salad, but it is also pretty filling because of the pomegranates. The dressing is made from sour pomegranate dressing, which is found in any market in Turkey. It is made from the sour pomegranate juice and it is a little bit sweet, too. You can use balsamic vinegar instead. I made this salad for my friends, so the recipes goes for 6-7 people. The only important thing is all the fresh herbs used have to be in the same amount. I used a bunch of each. Have this salad for lunch with a slice of grilled chicken and you will not be needing anything for the rest of the day.

Ingredients:
A big bunch of parsley
A big bunch of dill 
A big bunch of fresh mint  
A big bunch of spring onions  
1 big pomegranate 
1 cup of raisins  
1/2 cup of boiled orzo pasta
2 table spoons of poppy seeds
Juice of 1 lemon
Sour pomegranate dressing, olive oil, salt 

How to:
1. We begin with washing our herbs, parsley, dill, mint and spring onions. While waiting for them to drain, we boil a cup of orzo pasta. The whole point of this salad is that it is healthy, so we use very little orzo. If you like, you can add more but in my salad you can practically count the pasta.

2. Finely chop all the herbs once they are washed and clean. I separate half of the stems and throw them away, but I like including some of the stems of the herbs in my salad. As long as they are finely chopped, there is nothing wrong. They don't give a bad taste and they are good for you to eat as well.  It is up to you, of course.

3. Put all of the herbs and chopped spring onions into a large bowl, add the raisins and orzo and mix well.

4. Now the dressing, add the lemon juice, pomegranate sauce (or balsamic vinegar), generous splash of olive oil, salt, pepper, poppy seeds and stir everything.

5. Just before you serve, add the seeds of one big pomegranate on top. The flashy red of the fruit makes it really beautiful. Eat and enjoy!

Traditional British: Perfect Apple Crumble

Apple. My favourite fruit. Especially in autumn, when the first fresh red apples start to appear, it is almost a ritual for me to make apple crumble. Generally, you need to use sweet apples for this dessert, but if you are crazy for apples (like me) it really doesn't matter which type you use. Sometimes, I use green apples with red apples or yellow apples. I tend to mix them. Crumble is a traditional British dessert, especially made in the winter. Any type of juicy fruits can be used in this dessert. Pears, plums and cherries are the second best in my opinion. I even made a cherry and plum crumble. It was amazing. Sweet and sour, perfect with whipped double cream or vanilla ice cream. Imagine this: The house smells like delicious cinnamon and butter, you take the crumble out of the oven and immediately serve with cold ice cream. You take the first spoon  and see the steam coming out of the cooked apples while the ice cream is softly melting on top. Use my crumble topping to make  delicious desserts. It is so good! Crumble is not preferable in the summer, so before those heat waves hit us, try this mouth-watering indulgence. =)

Ingredients:
150 gr brown sugar
300 gr flour
5 medium sized cooking apples
200 gr butter
A pinch of salt  
2 tea spoons of cinnamon
1 tea spoon of ginger
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of one orange
Grated rind of one orange or lemon (preferably orange)

How to:

1. First of all, take out the deep baking dish for your crumble. The deeper the dish, the juicer the dessert. Flat and wide trays are not suitable for this recipe because you want your crumble to be juicy. Remember, this is not a pie, it is a British crumble.

2. Squeeze the lemons and orange inside the bowl, add the cinnamon an rind of one orange. Next, wash and peel the apples. Peeling is not mandatory, but it is better if you do it. Chop the apples into small dice and put inside the bowl. Since they will be waiting inside lemon juice, they will not go brown.

3. For the crumble topping, we need room temperature butter. You should mix the butter and flour first by using your fingertips, and then add the brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger. Alternatively, you can put everything in a food processor and mix in high speed. Don't forget to add a pinch of salt to highten the flavours. 

4. Now the mixture looks like bread crumbs. Pur over the fruits in the bowl and press lightly with your palm. 

5. Cook in the pre-heated oven of 190 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. When the topping is crispy and golden, the apples are soft inside the juice take it out of the oven.

6. Serve when warm in a small bowl with some ice cream or whipped double cream. Eat and enjoy! 

  

 Ready to go in the oven!

This is my plum and cherry crumble. If you like sourish sweet desserts, you should give this a try.

English Tea Bread or Bram Brack

This is a traditional bread I learned from my English mother-in-law. It is so yummy and light! It is commonly known as an Irish recipe -which is special to Halloween. Today I will share my take on the bram brack. I give it another name: English Tea Bread. Traditionally, it is made with only tea. However, in my cake mixture, I have a little bit of milk, plus walnuts and some cinnamon. The best thing about this cake is it has no oil in it. So, when you bake this bread, try to serve it when it is still warm, with butter and jam. It is perfect for your tea time. Make this cake and leave on your counter for a week, it will be fresh. It is pretty filling, so good for the young ones when they come back from school as well.  It is very easy to make. Although there is just one tip my mother-in-law told me. Before using the raisins or sultanas, soak them in tea for at least two hours. It is not compulsory but better to do it. :)

How to:
2 cups of strong brewed tea 
2,5 cups of flour
3 eggs
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 cups of white sugar
1/4 cup of milk
1 cup of chopped walnuts
1 cup of raisins/sultanas
1 heap teaspoon of cinnamon

How to:

1. Soak the raisins in cold tea. Leave for at least a couple of hours. (You can do this one day before).  Brew some tea and leave it to cool. In the same way, you can use your leftover tea. =)

2. Mix all of the ingredients in a deep bowl, pour into a rectangular bread tin and bake for 50 minutes in 175 degrees.

3. Serve with butter and jam for tea. Bonne appetite!

 

 

It is still good with coffee the next day. 

Dinner Rolls

 
Bread making is an art, an activity that gives me peace, calmness and takes away all my stress. Kneading, putting your fingers through the soft and gooey dough, pressing and pulling stimulates your nerves and relaxes you. I think. At least for me, this is so. It is about patience and care. Since I bought some books about bread-making, I stopped going to the bakery. I am making a different type of fresh bread every week now. Plus, I always thought I needed special equipment, oven, a big multipurpose kitchen. However, you can make almost all types of bread at home. These bread rolls are perfect to start your meal, with a tiny bit of butter and jam; or they can make a great snack for whenever you feel like during the day. They are easy to make, and pretty quick. This is a practical but cool recipe to impress your friends.

Ingredients:
150 ml milk
60 gr butter (3 tablespoons give or take) 
2 table spoons of sugar
3 teaspoons of dry yeast
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons of salt 
550 gr flour
Poppy seeds to decorate 

How to:

1. Heat the milk in a sauce pan. Once it starts boiling, turn off the heat and add butter and sugar. Mix well and wait for it to reach a warm temperature.

2. In a small bowl, melt the dry yeast inside 3 or 4 table spoons of milk. The milk has to be warm, not cold and the yeast should melt completely. Just stir once and let it sit for a short while. 

3. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs. Add the milk and sugar mixture and the yeast mixture. Add the flour and bring everything together to form a soft dough.

4. When everything is combined and you have a dough, knead for 5-7 minutes. When I say knead, do it like the bakers do. Pull the dough outwards and then bring into itself, like folding and making a ball and do it again. That is the basic tip for kneading bread. 

5. Make a ball of dough and put in a bowl, cover with cling film, then wait for 1 or 1 and a half hour to rest. In this time, the dough will rise to double.

6. After the dough has risen, take on a clean counter dusted with flour. Then cut into two pieces.

7. Take one of the pieces, make into a cylinder shape and cut into 8 equal pieces. Do the same with the other big piece. Before you start shaping the dough, turn the oven on for 220 degrees Celsius.  

8. From this step on, it is up to you to decide the shape. You can make long strips and roll them like a snail shell. Or by holding each end and rolling them towards the middle, you can create another shape. You can make an 8 shape also. You can bake some of them like small balls if you can't be bothered to shape each and every piece. 

9. You can take your bread rolls onto the baking sheet or tray. Leave 3 centimeter distance between one and another as the rolls tend to rise in the oven. Brush them with egg yolk and generously sprinkle with poppy seeds. That's it! You will have nice, sweetish bread rolls to start your meal and impress your friends. Eat and enjoy!

Crunchy Caramel Cups

Very quick and practical, easy to make, this recipe will be a life saver for your dinner parties and kids' birthdays. This is my latest post from my Turkish blog, so I'll start with this one. It makes me feel like it's a nice beginning, the first recipe being a very easy, very yummy, light dessert. You can serve these cups with or without ice cream on top, it's up to you. Also, I specifically used caramel biscuits, the lightly burnt flavour, plus the crunchy texture of the biscuits work very well. You can choose to use ginger biscuits or crunchy cookies or any other type you fancy. That is the best thing about deserts in cups, you get the main formula and you can experiment with flavors and tastes. All you need is something creamy, something crunchy and something mellow. In this recipe I used delicious little local bananas with dried coconut because I think these two tastes go very well, both exotic, both warm and both leave a tingling sensation on your tongue. My other favourite combinations are chocolate and hazelnuts; caramel and milk; rose and pistachio (I'll write more about it soon, you can create amazing desserts especially by using rose flavored Turkish delights); or cocoa and gum mastic. I really like the fact that with a recipe like this, you are flexible. You can use bits and pieces from your kitchen cupboards. Instead of bananas, you can use strawberries, raspberries, pineapples; instead of decorating with chocolate chips, you can add hundreds and thousands or crushed peanuts, candies or you can try shaving chocolate, or add wafers. I think I've said too much, let's cut to the chase! Bon apetite.

Ingredients:
2,5 cups of milk
2 soup spoons of rice flour (or corn starch)
1 soup spoon flour
1 soup spoon margarine
4 soup spoons of granulated sugar (if you really have a sweet tooth, you can make it 5 or 6 spoonfuls)
1/2 a packet of Lotus caramel biscuits (byou can use ginger biscuits, digestives or any other type of crunchy biscuit or cookie you like)
2 soup spoons of dried and shredded coconuts
2 little bananas
1 packet of vanilla sugar or preferably, half a vanilla pod

How to:
1. Pour in the milk, rice flour, flour, sugar and margarine in a sauce pan and cook until it thickens. Generally, I don't tend to use margarine in my recipes, but with this one I thought a little goes a long way. So when you add only a spoon of margarine, it'll really transform the taste and make your pudding more creamy. Once it starts to boil and makes little bubbles in and aroun, turn off the heat.
2. Add the vanilla and bananas and mash all up with a hand blender. The bananas have to blend in the mixture smoothly, if you see some tiny bits, leave them as they are and they make your pudding rustic. Then add the dried coconuts and mix with a spoon.
3. Take out your cups or glasses and pour in two spoonfuls of pudding, top it with the crunched biscuits, then do this one more time to create another layer. In this step, I didn't mash the biscuits so much, I wanted to have big chunks at the same time. 
4. After you add two layers of pudding and biscuits top everything up with the rest of the pudding and decorate with chocolate chips. Don't forget to add your chocolate chips, when the pudding has cooled down, otherwise the chocolate chips will melt and look messy. In my picture above, I used two different glasses to show two different presentations. It's up to us to get creative! This recipe is very good with kids as well, it has fresh fruit and milk, so you can choose their favourite chocolate and candies. Bon apetite!