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 # 8 @ April 17th

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.