Overview of Turkish Cuisine

A Tale from Turkish Cuisine

The centre figure in Balkan Cuisine is definitely the Turkish cuisine. This cuisine has played very important role in the development of all Balkan cuisines and the evidence for that is that many meals that originally come from Turkey are broadly found in all nearby cuisines. Generally speaking, Turkish cuisine is the driving force for the Balkan cuisines. Moreover, this cuisine is one and only that has mystery as a main ingredient in its all dishes. It is hard to define a dominant element such as pasta in Italian cuisine or pita bread in Meditation cuisine. Here everything is important! The diversity of dishes, the ways they are cooked, and the manner of their mixture present an eminent evidence of enjoyment in Turkish cuisine. With one word this glorious cuisine will capture all those who are eager to try it!

A Little Bit of History

First of all, we must mention that Turkish cuisine was developed in three periods: Central Asian (before 1038); Seljuk and Principalities (1038-1299) and Ottoman (1299-1923). All of these periods have left their traces in its development, but the wealthy heritage comes from the Ottoman cuisine. In fact Turkish cuisine is born from the Ottoman. The evidence for this is the kitchens in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul where were invented and developed the most splendid feasts. Everything that was good for the Sultan was also good for his people, so in this way recipes were shared among the common people. Maybe sharing was the strength of Ottoman cuisine thus it has remained as the strong motion in all other cuisines.

The Keys of Turkish Meals

The richness and the huge diversity of Turkish food are easily noticeable in every dish. The keys of every single Turkish meal are the freshness of the ingredients, the quality of ingredient’s production and the uniqueness of meal’s preparation. The secret of all Turkish dishes is the simplicity of cooking, and the taste of the ingredient itself. Turks prefer food that is not hidden under spices or herbs or sauces, they wanted to taste the flavor of the ingredient, hence chicken must taste like chicken.

To conclude, Turkish cuisine has made an enormous influence in all Balkan cuisines, it has been a driving force over many centuries. Turkish cuisine represents a unique art that will fulfill you just with immense pleasure. Once you go with Turkish cuisine, you won’t be able to stop it. It is a must adventure in every human life!

Books for Turkish Cuisine:

• A Taste of Turkish Cuisine
• Traditional Turkish Food for the American Kitchen
• Classic Turkish Cooking
• The Turkish Cookbook: Regional Recipes and Stories
• Secrets of the Turkish Kitchen

Overview of Turkish Cuisine

Kacamak (Cornmeal)

Ingredients:

• 400g. Cornmeal
• 1l. water
• Salt
• Oil

Kacamak that is also known as: Kačamak, kachamak or bakrdan is a traditional dish in Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro that is made of cornmeal/cornflour. Instructions for the recipe are very simple:

Put water in a deep bowl, bring to the boil, add salt and gradually add the corn flour, stirring continuously to avoid lumps. The mash should be medium thick.

Cook for half an hour and when cooked pour over with hot fat or oil. You can add potatoes, cheese, hot pepper or kaymak. Serve with yogurt or sour milk

Kacamak (Cornmeal)

Overview of Greek Cuisine

One of the most diverse cuisines in the world is definitely the Balkan cuisine. It is a mixture of all countries’ cuisines that are placed in this area. Greek cuisine is one of the members of this much mingled cuisine. Mainly, Greek cuisine is Mediterranean cuisine having some same characteristic with Italian and Turkish cuisines. Moreover Greek cuisine offers an extremely rich and varied collection of foods and beverages, and here are several meals that are famous and traditional all over the country.

With certainty we could say that the secret ingredients in all Greek meals are definitely olives and olive oil which are also the keys of Mediterranean cuisine. These two products are often used in many Greek dishes. In Greece there is no yard without olive tree and these trees are all over the country. Also, we could find many kinds of olives such as Kalamata, Black, Green, Naphlion and many more.

First, we must mention gyro. It is pure Greek traditional meal, and the name means "turns around, to rotate" which is obviously taken from the preparing method of gyro. The standing huge pile of thin slices of pork, beef and other meet slowly rotates in front of electric bars or coals; hence the heat slowly melts the fat, which leaks to the bottom of the meat pile, and meat becomes crispy and brown. This is the way how the mouth-watering meat for gyro is made. When the meat is ready, the chef cuts very thin slices of the meat pile, and puts them into pita bread, which is the core of the Mediterranean food.

Gyro could be served with tomatoes, onion, different salads, chips and yoghourt depending of the costumers’ wish. Moreover, this meal has become a fast food, so as the time passes gyro is spreading all over the world. Maybe, this is the most popular Greek meal.

Furthermore, souvlaki is another famous traditional Greek meal. It is made of small slices of meat and vegetables that are grilled on a skewer, a thin wooden or metal stick used to hold pieces of food. Souvlaki is served with pita bread garnished with sauces and fried potatoes.

What is more about Greek cuisine is the fact that this cuisine has many different dips used with pita bread as sandwiches. Tsatziki is one of the most well-known dip, and it is made of strained yoghurt mixed with garlic, cucumbers and olive oil. Another dip is melitzana - made of strained yoghurt and eggplants. The dips are served cold. It is interesting that all Greek dips could be used as a sauce for gyros and souvlaki, and as a accompaniments of many Greek meals.

Another Greek meal that is famous around the world is the Greek salad. In Greece this salad is known as “horiatiki” which means country salad. It is made of tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese, onion and olives, dressed with olive oil. This salad is similar to Shopska Salad. All salads are consumed with ouzo, an anise-flavoured drink, or tsipouro, a strong "pomace" brandy. (Pomace is the hard leftovers of grapes or other fruit after squeezing them for juice) Moreover, Greece is a land with a vast variety of cheeses, different in taste and produced in different areas of the country. Here are several famous Greek cheeses: feta, misithra, kasseri, kefalotyri and graviera.

To conclude, despite the fact that Greek cuisine is a very diverse cuisine, it is simple, but elegant, with different flavours from subtle to strong, with textures from smooth to crunchy. Also, this cuisine is very healthy because it belongs to the Mediterranean cuisine.

Overview of Greek Cuisine

Russian Salad (Ruska Salata)

Ingredients:

• 3 potatoes, boiled and chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 can of green peas
• 300g. of ham, chopped
• 300g. mayonnaise
• 100g. olives, chopped
• 5 pickled cucumbers, chopped
• salt to taste

Cook the potatoes and after that cut into slices as same as the carrots, ham, olives and cucumbers. Take all the ingredients (except mayonnaise) in a serving bowl and mix all slowly.

Add salt to taste. You can add pepper too. Now mix it all with mayonnaise. You can garnish with parsley and olives.

Keep in fridge at least for an hour before serving. Try Russian Salad with kiflichki instead of bread. Enjoy

Russian Salad (Ruska Salata)

The Taste of Mediterranean Cuisine

The deep, blue sea named the Mediterranean (or Med) gives heart and life to the countries around her. The Mediterranean got its name from Latin and means “middle of the Earth” or “inland”. People in this region took the sea as the main trading source, so, obviously, people around the Mediterranean share more than a beach and water; they share history, a bit of culture and of course overlapping cuisines. They have created a varied and cosmopolitan cuisine which is one of the most famous cuisines that exist in this world. Like everything in the Mediterranean that is special, so does the Meditation cuisine is special too; every tiny detail that it owns is special; starting from Mediterranean food through out Mediterranean cooking to Mediterranean dishes. The Mediterranean cuisine could be roughly divided into three dining regions: southern European, North African and eastern Mediterranean, but it has also made an enormous influence in many cuisines. This cuisine is considered to be one of the most exotic cuisines in the World.

Keys of Mediterranean Dining

The main keys of every Mediterranean dish are the perfectly grown vegetables. All Mediterranean dishes are abundant with vegetables like peppers, onions, eggplants, mushrooms, cucumbers, squashes, garlic, artichokes and various lettuces and greens. What makes this cuisine one of a kind is the fact that the basic in the Mediterranean cooking is the usage of many herbs like basil, rosemary, mint, cilantro, oregano, parsley, dill and fennel. The heart of the Mediterranean dinning is seafood. Shellfish are extensively used in many Mediterranean dishes from stews, soups, pastas to salads. Also, anchovies are mostly eaten in the Mediterranean region, and there are many ways to prepare this fish. As well, ell, swordfish, octopus, monkfish, squid and cuttlefish are the other fish that are predominantly served.

Source for meats in Mediterranean dinning are smaller animals like goats, lambs, pork, rabbit and sheep. Beef, on the other, is uncommon for this cuisine. In addition, another key of Mediterranean dinning is the usage of olive oil. Almost all Mediterranean dishes start with olive oil. What is more about the Mediterranean cuisine is that it has mouth-watering wines especially famous are the Balkan wines. Wine is the most famous preserved drink, and it is said that Mediterranean dish is not complete if there is no wine.

Pita Bread - The Core of Every Mediterranean Dish

One of the specialties that stand for the Mediterranean cuisine is pita bread, which is a round pocket bread extremely used in all Mediterranean countries including the Middle eastern and the Balkans. Interesting about pita bread is the way of the Mediterranean cooking of the “pocket” in its middle. The “pocket” is made by stream that wisps out the dough; and as the bread flattens and cools, then the pocket is left in the middle of the bread. This pita bread could be found in all forms and sizes. Moreover the Mediterranean cooking has an interesting way of baking this bread: under “sač” which is a large lid, and the bread is covered with the “sač”, and then goal and ashes are put on the lid. Also, baking in brick oven is recommended. This kind of Mediterranean cooking is used in Montenegrin cuisine, Greece cuisine, Croatian cuisine, Turkish cuisine and many more.

We could say that pita bread is used with everything! People fill the “pocket” with everything like a sandwich. In the Greece cuisine pita bread is the main component of pita-gyros and pita-souvlaki. Also, it is consumed with dips like tzatziki. Furthermore, pita in Turkish cuisine (or pide) is used for all pizza-like meals, and here it has a soft texture and it has not got a pocket. One of the pizza-like Mediterranean Turkish dish is lahmacun. Also, pita bread is widely used in whole Balkan countries. In addition, pita bread is sacred to the people where it is used, so there are many customs connected with pita bread. One of them is the pita bread with a hidden coin in it used on the night before Christmas Eve.

Mediterranean Cuisine – World’s Healthy Diet

It is believed that Mediterranean dinning is very healthy, so the modern nutritionists have made a special diet named the Mediterranean diet. Furthermore, it is said that Mediterranean cooking stands for naturally healthy eating. All healthy diets contain vegetables, fish and vegetables which are the keys of Mediterranean dining. UNESCO has recognized Mediterranean diet as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Italy, Greece, Spain and Morocco in 2010. Thos diet has made a great impact in every aspect of human health. Researches have shown that the traditional Mediterranean food prepared with the Mediterranean cooking reduces the risk of heart disease, a reduced incidence of cancer and cancer mortality, and a reduced incidence of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.

To conclude, Mediterranean cuisine isn’t ruled by a single culture, it is a creation of cultural exchange and influence, thus you can be easily confused about the Mediterranean dishes because many countries serve the same dish. It is a highly rich cuisine, with many interesting ingredients. Fresh vegetables, fruits, fish and the high level of olive oil usage make the Mediterranean cuisine World’s number one healthy diet recognized by many famous nutritionists. Also, there would not be a Mediterranean dish if there is no pita bread and wine.

Books about Mediterranean cuisine:

• Secrets from Coastal Italian Kitchens by Academia Barilla
• Islands of the Mediterranean by HF Ullmann
• Delicious Recipes from the World's Healthiest Cuisine by Martha Rose Shulman
• Mediterranean Diet Cookbook For Dummies by Meri Raffetto

Photo: maveric2003

The Taste of Mediterranean Cuisine