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.

Session # 7 Photos

TAWA organized the 7th session of Turkish Cooking Classes on April the 3rd. Eastern Anatolia Region and its cuisine were introduced. Here you can see some photos from our class. Come join us in our next class on April 17th, which would be the last class for Spring 2010 semester. We will have the certificate ceremony and a lot of fun!

Turkish tea
Clay pot lamb with vegetables
Bean Salad
Rice with currants and pine nuts
Judy, Sandy, Yasemin, Lynne, Harriet, Abenet
Susan and Dalin
Peerly, Dorit, Dezi, Riki
Althea and Esther
Noah's Pudding

Session # 7 Recipes

Turkish Cooking Class April 3rd Menu

CLAY POT LAMB WITH VEGETABLES (CHOMLEK KEBAB)

Ingredients:
1 lb lamb cubes
1 large eggplant
2 banana peppers
2 tomatoes
Salt, pepper, thyme
Butter

Place lamb cubes at the bottom of the clay pot, place cubed eggplant, pepper and tomato on the meet in order. Place some butter chunks on the top, sprinkle the spices and salt. Cover the lid and bake at 375ºF.

BEAN SALAD (PIYAZ)

Ingredients:
1 can navy beans
¼ cup sliced red onion
Olive oil
½ lemon’s juice
Salt, parsley

Wash and drain the beans. Knead sliced red onions with salt, rinse off the salt and drain. Mix beans with onions and parsley. Sprinkle olive oil and lemon juice.

RICE WITH CURRANTS AND PINE NUTS (ICH PILAV)

Ingredients:
2 cups long grain rice
2,5 cups boiled water
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 tbsp currants
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp red powdered pepper
½ tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 small onion
½ stick butter

Soak rice in salty warm water for 15 minutes. Wash the rice until starch is gone and drain.
Melt butter in a pot, add small cubed onions and pine nuts, stir fry until nuts turn golden brown. Add the rice and continue to fry. Add currant and spices, stir. Add boiled water, when the rice starts boiling, lower the heat and cook until the water boils away. Let the Pilav stand for about 15 minutes before serving.

NOAH’S PUDDING (ASURE)

Ingredients:
½ cup wheat
½ cup rice
1 can boiled chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 can boiled navy beans
½ cup small diced dried apricots
½ cup golden raisins
3 cups sugar
3-4 cloves

Garnish
(Optional)
Currants, cinnamon, pine nuts, hazelnut, pomegranate etc…

The night before making asure, wash and drain wheat, add water to cover about half inch and boil. Cover boiled wheat with a cloth and let it sit at room temperature overnight. Next day, add more water to wheat and boil again. Add rice, chickpeas, and beans and continue to boil. In a separate pot, boil dried apricots and currants, when they get softer add into boiling wheat. Boil cloves in a small pot and add only its water into wheat. Add sugar last, when the pudding reaches desired thickness pour into small serving bowls. Serve warm or cold as desired. Garnish with cinnamon or nuts.

Session # 6 Photos

This week in Turkish Cooking Class of session # 6 we learned about Central Anatolia and its rich, traditional dishes. Please, join us in our next cooking class on April 3rd, Saturday to enjoy Eastern Anatolia dishes.

Green Lentil Soup with Noodles

Fried Ravioli

Purple Salad

Rice Pudding

Session # 6 Recipes

Turkish Cooking Class March 20th Menu

FRIED RAVIOLI

Ingredients:
1 package dinner rolls (36 rolls)
½ lb ground beef
1 small onion
Black pepper, salt
Oil for frying

Sauce:
1 clove of garlic
1 cup yoghurt
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp tomato paste

Leave dinner rolls at room temperature for 3 hours.
Grate onion, mix with ground beef, add salt and pepper, and knead the mixture thoroughly. Divide dinner rolls into two, make a little hole in the middle of the dough pieces, then put half teaspoon of beef filling inside, and close it up. Fry the filled doughs in oil. In a separate bowl, mash the garlic and mix with the yoghurt. In a small pot, melt the butter, and mix with tomato paste, add little water and boil for few seconds. Place fried raviolis on a service plate, pour some yoghurt on top, and sprinkle tomato sauce on the yoghurt.

GREEN LENTIL SOUP WITH NOODLES

Ingredients:
1 cup green lentil
3 tbsp butter
1 onion
1 tbsp tomato paste
½ cup noodles
2 tsp dried mint
2 tsp salt

Wash and drain green lentil, boil in salty water few minutes. Drain the lentil. Saute cubed onions in butter and add tomato paste. Add boiled and drained lentil to fried onion. Add hot water and boil on medium heat. Add noodles, salt and dried mint, boil for 5-6 minutes. If the soup gets very thick, add more hot water.

PURPLE SALAD

Ingredients:
1 red cabbage
Mayonnaise
Garlic
Yoghurt

Knead thinly sliced red cabbage with salt. Drain extra water. Mash the garlic in a separate bowl and mix with yoghurt and mayonnaise. Mix yoghurt sauce with sliced cabbage.

RICE PUDDING

Ingredients:
4 cups milk
1 cup sugar
½ cup white rice
1 tbsp starch
1 tbsp rice flour
A pinch of salt

Boil washed and drained rice in 1,5 cup of water. Rice should get very soft. Add milk, sugar and a pinch of salt and continue to boil. In a separate bowl suspend rice flour and starch in cold water and mix with little bit of boiling milk. Add starch mix slowly into boiling milk while stirring. Boil 10 more minutes and pour into heat resistant bowls. Pour some water on a tray and place bowls with rice pudding on the tray. Broil rice pudding and serve after refrigerating.


Session # 5 Photos

Dear Friends!

Our 5th Turkish Cooking Class session was on Saturday, March 6th. We introduced Southeast Anatolia region of Turkey and had a lot of fun learning and tasting its unique dishes.

Come and join us for the next cooking class! Don`t forget, you always get more for what you pay. Hope to see you all on March 20th!!!

Special tray of Chi Kofte

Chi Kofte

Chicken Shish Kebab

Turkish Hot Pepper Dip

Kunefe



Session # 5 Recipes

Turkish Cooking Class March 6th Menu

CHICKEN SHISH KEBAB

Ingredients:
3-4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp pepper paste
1/2 cup water
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp dried mint
1 tsp paprika
a package of wood sticks for kebab

Cut chicken breasts into small cubes. Put all the other ingredients in a bowl and mix them well. Add the chicken in that mixture and toss them together, then marinate them for a while in the fridge (overnight would be better but if you don’t have so much time, one hour is better than nothing).
Put the sticks into water and let them stay there at least for an hour. Stick 6 chicken cubes to each wood stick. Bake the kebabs at low broil using oven grill by occasional turning.

CHI KOFTE

Ingredients:
2 cups fine cracked wheat
5 green onions
1 cup chopped parsley
3 cloves of garlic
1 small onion
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp red pepper paste
½ tbsp dried red pepper
½ tbsp isot (dried red pepper from Southeastern region of Turkey)
½ tbsp groun cumin
½ tbsp dried mint
1 lemon
1 cup oil
3 eggs
1 cup hot water
Blackpepper, salt

Place the wheat into a large bowl. Add tomato and red pepper paste, add also dried red pepper, blackpepper, isot, cumin and salt. Finely chop onion and garlic, add onto the wheat and start mixing everything by kneading. Add one cup of hot water and continue to knead until the wheat gets tender. Chop parsley and green onions, add to the kofte mix.
Place the oil in a large pot and let it heat up. Beat 3 eggs and cook in the oil. Add cooked eggs and lemon juice into kofte mix. Mix everything first with a spoon and by kneading. Take a small piece from the mixture, give it a cylinder shape with your palms and squeeze.

TURKISH HOT PEPPER DIP

Ingredients:
3 tomatoes
1 onion
1 red pepper
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt, blackpepper, red pepper
Mint (optional)

Mix all the ingredients; chop chunky using a food processor.

KUNEFE

Ingredients:
1 package frozen shredded dough (1 lb)
1 package unsalted cheese
½ stick butter
Syrup
3,5 cups sugar
3,5 cups water

Melt the butter and drizzle onto shredded dough. Mix them well and break the shredded dough into small pieces while kneading. Brush the oven tray with butter and lay down half of the shredded dough on the tray by pressing firmly. Grate the cheese and spread on the tray. Lay down remaining half of the shredded dough very firmly. So, the cheese will be in the middle. You can use another tray to press firmly. Bake at 400ºF oven until it takes golden brown color.
Prepare the syrup by boiling the sugar and water around 5-10 minutes.
Turn the dessert upside down before serving and pour luke warm syrup. You can sprinkle ground pistachios on top before serving.