Turkish Cuisine : A Date With History

This is Turkish food: Peppery radishes in a hummus-like sesame dressing. Grilled quail, faintly sweet-sour from marinating in tomatoes, yogurt, olive oil and cinnamon. Mastic ice cream, with an exotic flavor something like Juicy Fruit gum; on the side, apricots stuffed with toasted almonds and slightly soured cream so thick it’s almost butter.

It may be little known in this country, but in the last few years, European foodies have been discovering Turkish cuisine, and in the process a remarkable food writer named Nevin Halici (her name is pronounced something like “Neveen Halaja”). “Nevin Halici’s Turkish Cookbook,” recently printed in England, is the first book by a Turkish cookery writer ever translated into English. The food heavies see her as a sort of Turkish Paul Prudhomme.

In fact, she is not really anybody’s image of a cookbook writer. The daughter of a Sufi family long associated with the Mevlevi Order (known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes), she is very much a traditional Muslim woman who wears long-sleeved dresses and covers her hair with a sort of pleated turban. Some people have the feeling that if the veil weren’t illegal in Turkey, she’d prefer to wear it.

But her quiet, pious manner should not lead anyone to underestimate her. Halici’s English may be halting, but it represents a triumph over centuries of family opposition to educating women. And if that doesn’t impress you, I have seen her get a provincial Turkish Air Lines agent to change a plane reservation in under half an hour, simply by an invincible sort of gentle persistence.

She is a diligent researcher and has published book-length studies in Turkish of her country’s various regional cuisines, which are quite various indeed. Two years ago at a symposium on food history in Istanbul, she read a paper on the little-known poppy-based cuisine of Turkey’s traditional opium-growing area--a cuisine likely to disappear because of the Turkish government’s campaign to restrict opium-growing.

And she is certainly an excellent cook. At a dinner she prepared for the American Institute of Wine and Food in San Francisco some months ago, she made a very ancient pasta dating from the days when the Turks were nomads in Central Asia. Called manti , it is tiny triangular lamb ravioli cooked in a mixture of lamb stock and garlicky yogurt sauce. Her version was dashingly topped with reduced tomatoes, sage and mint.

She also made a tomato-sweetened eggplant salad that was subtly enfolded in a roasted pepper, and a bulgur wheat pilaf with onions, green peppers, tomato and mint, but her repertoire includes far more exotic dishes. One that she didn’t make for this dinner is Perdeli Pilav , a sort of chicken pilaf baked in a thin crust which looks like a cake when it’s done but has a rich flavor of chicken and rice. Another is Tavuk Gogsu Kazandibi , a traditional Turkish pudding flavored with an ingredient no one ever guesses: shredded chicken breast.

The most spectacular course at the San Francisco dinner was a variation on the famous dish imam bayildi (“the imam fainted with delight”), where quinces, instead of eggplants, were stuffed with the traditional filling of lamb, currants and rice, achieving a dish of stunning richness. Contrasting with it was a subtle and exquisite side dish that was simply leeks very slowly stewed in olive oil with a bit of tomato.

At the end of the meal, she apologized for shortcomings in the food, which most of the diners were in no position to recognize. The American white beans, for instance, were really too small for the white bean salad. California radishes are not as sharply flavored as Turkey’s, and California rice takes longer to cook, so the rice in the quince dish was not properly done by her lights.

Diners also learned that this scholar of Turkish food tradition makes her own innovations. The idea of using quinces instead of eggplants in the variation on imam bayildi was hers, so she had decided to name it Claudia bayildi , since it was the Middle Eastern food expert Claudia Roden--rather than an imam --who practically fainted with delight on tasting it. Someone asked her why she cut her leeks lengthwise, rather than crosswise, as would be instinctive for a Western chef, and she explained that in her experience it exposed more surface to the sauce.

At this point her English began to give out on her, and the husband of the Turkish Honorary Consul encouraged her, saying, “Go ahead, we will listen carefully.” She smiled gravely and replied, “If you will listen carefully, I will answer in Turkish,” and lapsed into the introspective harmonies of her own tongue. If that quiet, pious face could show impishness, at that moment it did.

VARTAVIT

(Radish and Tahini Salad)

1/2 pound daikon radish

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup grapefruit juice

Grapefruit slices

Black olives

Peel radish and grate pulp. Add salt and let grated radish sit 3 to 4 minutes, then squeeze dry.

Place garlic and tahini in mixing bowl. Whisk in grapefruit juice. Fold in radish. Arrange in middle of plate and garnish with grapefruit slices and olives. Makes 4 servings.

The name of the following recipe is pronounced approximately hahvoochloo jahjuhk.

HAVUCLU CACIK

(Carrot and Yogurt Salad)

1/2 pound carrots

1 cup Thickened Yogurt

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

Place unpeeled carrots in pot of boiling water. Cook about 15 minutes, or until tender-crisp.

Remove carrots and place in bowl of cold water 5 minutes. Drain. Rub off skins and grate carrots. Mix with Thickened Yogurt, garlic and salt. Drizzle with olive oil before serving. Makes 2 servings.

Thickened Yogurt

1 pint plain yogurt, preferably without starch stabilizer

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix yogurt with salt and place on 2 thicknesses of dampened cheesecloth in colander. Cover and let drain in sink at least 3 hours.

This festive pilaf with its decorative veiled appearance is the centerpiece of wedding menus in the southern Turkish city of Siirt.

PERDELI PILAV

(“Veiled” Pilaf)

6 ounces sliced almonds

Pastry Veil Dough

Shredded Chicken

Rice Pilaf

1 teaspoon flour mixed with 2 tablespoons water

Butter 10-inch springform pan generously and press sliced almonds evenly to sides and bottom of pan. Freeze until firm.

Set aside about 1/4 of Pastry Veil Dough. Take small round pieces remaining dough and roll out on lightly floured board to 1/8-inch thickness. Line prepared pan with dough, pressing pieces of dough together to seal.

Alternate layers of Shredded Chicken and Rice Pilaf in pan. Press down lightly with back of spoon. Roll out reserved dough to cover pilaf. Put pot cover or heavy duty foil over pan and seal edges airtight with flour and water paste.

Bake at 375 degrees 45 minutes or until dough turns faint pink. To serve, unmold onto serving plate. If pilaf does not unmold easily, return to oven and bake few minutes longer. Makes 8 to 10 servings.

Pastry Veil Dough

1 large egg

2 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons plain yogurt

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups flour

In bowl stir together egg and olive oil with fork. Stir in yogurt, salt and flour. Knead gently to form ball. Cover with cloth and let stand 20 minutes.

Shredded Chicken

1 (2 1/2- to 3-pound) chicken, giblets removed

4 quarts water

1 medium onion, peeled and studded with 8 whole cloves

1 carrot, cut in large chunks

1 stalk celery, cut in large chunks

1 leek, split and washed thoroughly to remove sand

1 teaspoon salt

Place chicken in large pot with water. Bring to boil over medium heat. Cover and simmer over low heat 1 hour.

Add onion with cloves, carrot, celery and leek. Cover and simmer another hour or until chicken is very tender. Add salt and simmer 5 minutes longer. Remove chicken and reserve 5 cups stock for Rice Pilaf. When chicken has cooled, remove skin and bones and shred meat.

Rice Pilaf

2 1/2 cups uncooked rice

1 quart warm water

Salt

5 cups reserved chicken stock

1/2 cup butter

Seasoning Mixture

Rinse rice and soak in warm water with 2 tablespoons salt 30 minutes. Drain and rinse rice again.

In 4-quart pot with tight-fitting lid, combine rice, chicken stock and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.

Melt butter and pour over rice. Press over rice piece of wax paper or foil large enough to cover surface of rice. Replace lid and cook over lowest possible heat 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Gently fold in Seasoning Mixture. Cover and let stand 10 minutes. Stir again and set aside.

Seasoning Mixture

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup sliced almonds

4 ounces chicken liver, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground thyme

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Melt butter in small skillet. Saute almonds until very lightly browned. Add chicken liver and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Stir in cumin, thyme, pepper, cinnamon and cloves.

This celebrated Istanbul dessert is for open minds. It uses chicken breast as a dessert flavoring, as did the medieval European dessert blanc manger.

TAVUK GOGSU KAZANDIBI

(Chicken Breast Pudding)

1 small chicken breast

Water

1 quart milk

1 cup rice flour or ground rice

3/4 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar

3 tablespoons butter

Powdered sugar

Place chicken breast in small saucepan and add water to cover. Cook over medium heat until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and soak chicken in bowl of cold water until cool. Drain and pat dry with paper towels. Cut lengthwise into 4 or 5 strips.

Hold ends of each strip with fingers and rub to separate meat into fibers. Continue rubbing towards center of strip so that it is entirely separated into fine shreds. Place shreds in cold water and set aside.

Heat milk gently to boiling. Quickly stir in rice flour. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring continuously. Add granulated sugar and cook 10 minutes longer, still stirring. Add drained chicken breast fibers and cook another 10 minutes.

Heat 10-inch heavy skillet over low heat. Add butter to melt. Add chicken mixture and pat with hands or rubber spatula until round, then smooth with flat of knife. Brown underside carefully over low heat, about 20 minutes, shaking pan from time to time. Turn onto serving plate. When cool, sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar and cut into rectangles and serve. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Note: If superfine sugar is unavailable, place 7 ounces granulated sugar in blender container and blend on high speed until very fine.