End of Semester Barbeque

TAWA organized the summer barbeque party of Turkish Cooking Classes on May 22nd. We had a great afternoon, enjoyed the barbeque, delicious home-made pastries, deserts and cakes. If you don't want to miss out the fun, follow us from our website http://www.tawadallascookingclass.blogspot.com/

Turkish Cooking Class organizers wish a great summer to all our students!!! We'll be delighted to see you again in the next semester!!

;)))

Session # 8 Photos

TAWA organized the last session of Spring 2010 Turkish Cooking Classes on April 18th. We had a great afternoon playing a game on remembering the ingredients of select dishes, in which Althea was the winner, presenting a lovely movie of the pictures from previous classes and of course enjoying special Turkish dishes. We will be delighted to see everybody in the next semester!!!
TAWA attended "The Annual Turkish Cooking Classes Competition", which was held in Houston. Our representative was Melanie Cottam who was selected to be the third among eight participants from different cities of Texas. Congratulations Melanie! We are all very proud of you!! Here you can see some photos from the competition:
Cooking Class Team & Our Students

Althea was the winner :)

Turkish Pizza (Lahmacun)

Stuffed Grape Leaves (Sarma)

Salad (Salata)

Sekerpare

Turkish Cuisine Cooking Competition/ Houston, 2010

Melanie is preparing kisir

Kisir is almost ready

Melanie is making small balls of sekerpare

Contestants and the judges

Melanie was selected to be the 3rd !!

Congratulations Melanie!!!!

Session # 8 Recipes

Turkish Cooking Class April 17th Menu

LAHMACUN (TURKISH PIZZA)

Ingredients:
filling:
½ lb ground beef
1 onion
3 Roma tomatoes
2 green peppers
1 small bunch parsley
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp red pepper paste
3 tbsp oil
Salt, pepper

10-11 uncooked frozen tortillas

Chop onion, parsley, tomatoes and pepper finely or use a food processor. Add ground beef, tomato paste, red pepper paste, oil and knead all the ingredients for the filling.
Spread this filling over the uncooked tortillas as thin layer, cook at low heat on a nonstick pan with close lid.

STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES

Ingredients:
1 jar canned grape leaves
2 cups calrose rice
1 medium onion
Olive oil
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon red pepper paste
Salt, pepper, dried mint
Boil grape leaves for 5 minutes to get rid of excess salt. Sauté the chopped onions in a separate pot. Add tomato paste, red pepper paste, rice and spices. Add 1 cup water and cook little bit on low heat. Break off the stem of the leaf and put about 1 teaspoon of the filling and roll. Line stuffed leaves into a pot tightly and add 2 cups of water. Place a plate on the top to prevent unrolling and lower the heat after it reaches a boil.

SALAD

Ingredients:
Onion
Parsley
Tomatoes
Salt, sumach

Cut the the onion into four and slice thinly, knead with salt, wash and drain. Mix onion with thinly sliced parsley and sumach. Place the onion salad on a service plate and serve with sliced tomatoes.

SEKERPARE

Ingredients:
2 sticks of butter (room temprature)
2 eggs
4 tbsp powdered sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3 1/3 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
Syrup
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
Few drops of lemon juice
Prepare the syrup first by boiling sugar water. Boil for 5 minutes and add lemon juice, boil for few more minutes and let the syrup cool down at room temperature.
Mix and knead the ingredients for the dough and prepare a soft cookie dough (add the flour gradually). Make small balls from the dough and press with your fingers to flatten them little bit. Put one hazelnut on each balls. Place them on oven tray and bake in preheated oven until they get golden brown. Wait 3 minutes after removing sekerpares from the oven and pour luke warm syrup on. Cover sekerpares with another tray to absorb all the syrup until serving.