Turkish Muse

Good Eats: Beyti Sarma

So. It's Saturday morning around 8 am as I write this and I am in a piss poor mood. I'm tired. I'm groggy. My head is swimming because I have finally weaned myself off my depression meds and let me tell you, it doesn't matter how slowly you do it, the few days after you take your last one-fourteenth of a pill are a real bitch. I feel like I'm hungover and my brains are sloshing around inside my skull.

So today is all about the sofa and the down comforter and episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty for me. Oh, and The Philadelphia Story because I watch that movie pretty much twice a month regardless of whether I'm happy or sad or sick or healthy. It's like my wet blanket.

So today for lunch I want you to do something for me. Eat beyti sarma. Make sure you're good and hungry first.

Are you hungry? I mean, are you really really hungry? Because you have to be to eat an entire plate of beyti sarma. This dish is not for the faint of stomach. Ground lamb patties wrapped in tortillas, then covered in tomato sauce, melted butter and ground pistachio, beyti sarma is a whole lot of gooey goodness, especially if you order it with melted cheese. It's served alongside bulgur and yogurt, and often some grilled tomatoes and peppers, which are also coated in melted butter. If you haven't ordered this dish yet, go. Go now. Or better yet, wait four hours until you're really hungry, then go. Trust me, it'll be worth it.

Just do me one favor. Don't eat this for breakfast. I did that once -- last week in fact -- and it gave me such bad heartburn. Except I didn't know it was heartburn. I thought it was a heart attack and I almost managed to give Jeff one because we don't have health insurance yet and we didn't even know where the nearest hospital was and oh my god, seriously, just don't eat this for breakfast. Bad idea.

 

I'm off to make an entire pan of homemade mac and cheese now. Anybody know of any good recipes I can try?

Afiyet olsun!

Good eats: Karnı yarık

This is one of my favorite home-cooked Turkish dishes. I'm not sure exactly how it's made, but I sure do know how to eat it: often and in great quantities. The eggplant is filled with minced meat and covered in a sauteed pepper and sweet tomato sauce, often accompanied by rice and rich, creamy yogurt. You can get this dish at many restaurants that serve ev yemekleri (home food).

Good Eats: Karides

Karides means shrimp in Turkish, and this particular dish pictured above is a staple at most meyhanes in Istanbul. I don't normally like shrimp, or any kind of seafood except salmon and seabass, but this dish is to die for. The itty bitty shrimp are first boiled (I think), then baked in garlicy tomato sauce and topped with kasar peynir. Like most Turkish dishes, karides served this way is heavily salted but never so much that it drowns out the combination of fresh tomato, cheese and garlic. In fact, you might even forget there's shrimp in there. Maybe that's why I like it so much.