The Sweet Life : Discreet Charms of Sultan’s Fingers, Lady’s Navels

Turkish desserts are made for Valentine’s Day.

They even come with names you couldn’t make up for the occasion if you tried: Lady’s navel, sultan’s fingers, nightingale’s nest. Lady’s navel, for instance, is a fried cream puff pastry that is rolled into a round “belly” shape marked with a sensual dimple in the middle. Sultan’s fingers (a.k.a. vizier’s fingers) are also fried puff pastries, but these are shaped into “fingers” so delicate you can almost see Suleiman the Magnificent popping one into the rosebud lips of one of his favorite wives. The nightingale’s nest is a coil of nut-filled filo rolls sprinkled lavishly with pistachio or other nuts and served dripping with syrup.

When D. Oguz Celikkol, consul general of Turkey in Los Angeles, told us about the desserts, we immediately consented to a tasting at the consul’s home where his Turkish cook prepares official dinners and receptions as they are done in Turkey.

According to custom, all Turkish meals end with dessert followed by Turkish coffee or tea (Earl Grey is a good substitute for unavailable Turkish tea from the Black Sea). Turkish coffee (also known as Greek, Armenian or Arabic coffee), a thick brew with a foamy float served in tiny demitasse, is made by cooking powder-ground coffee in a narrow-necked brass pot filled with water until brought to a boil three times.

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A separate table is often laid to accommodate the rich variety of desserts, which at the consul’s home cover a huge banquet table. “Many Americans, like many Turks, have a sweet tooth, so they truly enjoy our table of Turkish delights,” Celikkol says.

What’s not to like?

The consul’s table, when we arrived, had been laid with 10 different desserts, including cookies, filo pastries and some of the most unique puddings we’ve seen.

The star of puddings, according to Celikkol, is asure (pronounced ah-shur-eh), a wheat pudding usually served cold for festive occasions. The dessert is also a specialty served to ring in the New Year. Shelled wheat, which can be found at most Middle Eastern grocery stores, is combined with peas, beans, nuts and raisins, representing riches of a harvest to come. A touch of cinnamon heightens and unifies flavors. Today’s Turkish cooks use canned beans and peas to cut cooking time.

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Another unusual Turkish dessert is a pudding made from chicken breast shredded fine and mixed into a pudding made from cornstarch or potato starch. The reason for using chicken is not taste, but the velvety texture produced by finely shredded cooked chicken. Several washings of the chicken are required to eliminate the gamy flavor, however.

Zerde , a sweet rice pudding, is flavored with saffron to create a jewel-like yellow diamond color enhanced by a ring of garnet-colored pomegranate seeds. The Turks’ love of gems is characteristically translated visually into desserts.

Fruit, too, is considered a must at dessert time, and one of the most popular of the Turkish table is ayva tatlisi , quinces in syrup.

Quince, when heated, acquires a beautiful blush-pink color. A crown of clotted cream ( kaymak ) is always added to the dessert. The syrup produced by cooked quince is exceptionally pleasing when mixed with cream.

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Kaymak is made by simmering whole milk with cream and skimming off the super-rich skin of cream that rises to the surface. Real Turkish kaymak is not available in the United States, but British clotted cream or French or domestic creme fraiche are close cousins, and considered acceptable substitutions. The so-called “breakfast cream” found in Middle Eastern grocery stores is also a good substitute for kaymak.

Clotted cream is often used to stuff dried fruit, such as apricots or prunes, for a simple yet satisfying sweet.

A social visit to a Turkish home calls for Turkish delight ( lokum ), the traditional greeting sweet believed to have been in use since the 15th Century. But Turkish delight is virtually impossible to produce at home. Formerly, honey and condensed grape juice were cooked with flour for a gelatinous consistency. In today’s Turkey, sugar, corn starch and water are boiled in huge gyrating vats for hours to produce the gummy texture, to which numerous flavorings and fruits and nuts may be addd. Lokum may be flavored with rose or orange waters, mint--even chocolate. Lokum is available at any Middle Eastern or gourmet food store, packed in powdered sugar.

Filo dough is a standard dessert ingredient of the Turkish cuisine, lending itself to infinite shapes, textures and fillings. It is also shredded to make crusts for numerous fillings. To make kunefe , a shredded wheat-type dessert filled with cheese, the filo dough is commercially processed through a shredder, creating mounds of strands resembling angel hair pasta. The strands, available in package or loose form at any Middle Eastern grocery store, are mixed with butter and used as layers for sweet custard or cheese fillings. The dessert is then baked, drizzled with honey-flavored syrup and cut into diamond or square shapes to serve with or without clotted cream.

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It’s important to loosen the strands before working with the dough. Adventurous cooks will enjoy working with this easy-to-use dough and might even invent their own fillings--both sweet and savory--to create fascinating dishes.

LADY’S NAVEL (Kadin Gobeci)

6 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups flour

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 cups oil

Syrup

Melt butter in saucepan. Add water with salt and bring to boil. Add flour all at once and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with wooden spoon, 1 to 2 minutes, until dough is shiny and leaves sides of saucepan. Set aside to cool.

Add eggs and egg yolk to dough mixture, stirring to mix well. Knead 10 minutes. Oil palms of hands. Pinch off walnut-size pieces of dough and roll each piece into ball. Press to flatten slightly, then with finger, indent middle of dough ball.

Heat remaining oil in skillet until medium-hot. Drop pastries into oil and fry until golden brown on both sides. Drain well. Drop balls into Syrup. Let soak 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough pieces, letting oil cool before cooking each batch. Makes 20 pastries.

Each pastry contains about:

149 calories; 101 mg sodium; 44 mg cholesterol; 5 grams fat; 24 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.03 gram fiber.

Syrup

2 cups water

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine water and sugar in saucepan. Add lemon juice and bring to boil. Simmer 15 minutes until thin Syrup is formed. Cool. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Variations:

Vizier’s Fingers: Proceed as with Lady’s Navel, but shape dough into finger-sized rolls. Fry and soak in Syrup as directed

Beauty’s Lips: Proceed as for Lady’s Fingers but shape dough by pinching off large walnut-size pieces of dough. Flatten and fold each in two to form “lips.” Slit center, then fry and soak in Syrup as directed.

SAFFRON RICE PUDDING (Zerde)

1/2 cup short-grained rice

Water

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 pinches saffron

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup currants

1/2 cup pine nuts

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

In bowl rinse rice. Then cook in pan with 1 quart water with sugar 20 to 25 minutes. Skim off any scum.

In bowl soak saffron in 1/2 cup water. Add to rice.

In bowl dissolve cornstarch in 1/2 cup water. Add to rice. Mix well. Cook over medium heat 20 to 30 minutes, until thickened.

Divide pudding among individual bowls and let cool. Decorate with currants, pine nuts and pomegranate seeds. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

317 calories; 3 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 64 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 0.53 gram fiber.

QUINCES IN SYRUP (Ayva Tatlisi)

4 large quinces

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 to 3 cloves

2 to 3 quince seeds

Clotted cream (kaymak)

Rinse and peel quinces. Cut into quarters and remove cores. Arrange quarters side by side in skillet. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup sugar, cloves and quince seeds. Sprinkle remaining sugar over quince pieces. Cover and cook over low heat 2 to 2 1/2 hours or until quince turn dark reddish color and become slightly caramelized.

Let cool. Arrange on serving platter. Pour syrup over. Place small amount of clotted cream on each piece. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving, without clotted cream, contains about:

171 calories; 3 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 44 grams carbohydrates; 0 protein; 0.80 gram fiber.

* Note: Clotted cream is available at many gourmet stores as French creme fraiche or British clotted cream, or in Middle Eastern grocery stores as breakfast cream.

‘SHREDDED WHEAT’ DESSERT (Kunefe)

Syrup

1 pound knafeh or kadaif dough

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 pound string cheese

Pour 6 tablespoons Syrup in 13x9-inch baking pan.

In separate bowl separate dough fibers to loosen. Mix with melted butter, tossing to distribute evenly. Press half dough on bottom of baking pan. Slice cheese and place in layer over dough. Distribute remaining dough over cheese layer, patting to smooth top.

Bake at 450 degrees 15 minutes until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and pour remaining cooled Syrup evenly over top of hot dessert. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

577 calories; 530 mg sodium; 68 mg cholesterol; 24 grams fat; 78 grams carbohydrates; 16 grams protein; 0 fiber.

* Note: “Shredded wheat” dough called for here is something like raw vermicelli, made by dribbling batter through tiny holes onto warm metal plate. Many Near Eastern delicatessens carry it. In Arab stores it’s called knafeh and in Greek and Persian stores it is called kadaif.

Syrup

2 cups water

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine water and sugar in saucepan. Bring to boil. Simmer until sugar melts, about 15 minutes. Cool. Makes 1 1/2 cups.