The arrival of fall always finds us heading instinctively, like salmon swimming towards their ancestral headwaters, to the Balık Pazarı, Beyoğlu’s historic fish market. Autumn is quince season in Turkey and that means the appearance – for a limited time only – of one of our favorite desserts, ayva tatlısı (literally meaning “quince dessert,” although “quince in syrup” might be more accurate). Nestled in the fish market is Sakarya Tatlıcısı, a pastry and sweets shop with old-world charm that is one of our top stops for this dessert.
The apple-like quince is one of those complicated, mysterious fruits that take on a new life when cooked. Raw, quinces are often astringent and inedible. Cooked – with a generous amount of sugar – the fruit assumes a different personality, with a newfound depth of flavor and a seductive perfume. To make ayva tatlısı, large quinces are halved, stewed and then baked until they turn meltingly soft and are coated in a thick and sticky reddish glaze; the color is the result of a chemical reaction that is yet another of the fruit’s mysteries.
Once cool, the glazed quince is served with a dollop of kaymak, the heavenly Turkish version of clotted cream. The addition of the kaymak – whose buttery richness cuts through, yet deliciously complements, the sweetness of the glazed fruit – takes the dessert to almost sinfully good levels. The guilt eating it evokes is only tempered by the realization that you’re actually eating a fruit – albeit one glazed with thick, sugary syrup and topped with extremely rich cream. We like to think of it as a highly refined version of the glazed jelly-filled doughnut.
Like doughnuts, ayva tatlısı can become addictive, and Sakarya Tatlıcısı – in business in the Balık Pazarı for more than 50 years – is a perfect spot to get our fix. At this time of the year, Sakarya Tatlıcısı’s display case always holds a tray of the glistening quinces, next to the small shop’s usual assortment of (very good) baklava and other traditional pastries and sweets. Many other places around town like to spike their quince dessert with food coloring, turning it radioactive red. At Sakarya, however, the fruit is left to its own devices, achieving an ethereal color that hovers somewhere between rosy pink, ruby red and burnt orange.
Although most people breeze into the shop and get their dessert to go, we prefer to sit down at one of Sakarya’s two tables, order a tea with our quince and take in the atmosphere of the fish market. We would go there more often but, sadly (or, come to think of it, fortunately), quinces – unlike doughnuts – are only available a few months of the year.
Address: Dudu Odaları Sokak 3, Balık Pazarı, Beyoğlu
Telephone: +90 212 249 2469
Hours: Mon.-Sat. 7am-10pm; Sun. 8am-8pm
(photo by Yigal Schleifer)
via Addictive Quince Dessert in Istanbul’s Balik Pazari | Culinary Backstreets.
A visit to Bursa İskender Kebabı® feels as if you’ve stepped right into the war room of the İskenderoğlu family’s never-ending quest to establish ownership over the İskender kebab, a plate of döner laying on a bed of cut flatbread doused with tomato sauce and butter and served with a scoop of cool yogurt on the side. The tables and walls of the restaurant are covered with literature about what the owners see as their family’s inheritance, but the rest of the world seems to consider public domain.
In Bursa we ate at the flagship restaurant and, by chance, we found a branch on the side of the road in Susurluk. But in addition to the official İskender kebab, we admit to eating dozens of delicious pirated copies all over the world, so we feel comfortable speaking as an authority on the subject. In Istanbul, though there are many tasty options for this specialty, the best one belongs to its “originator,” Kebapçı İskender in Kadıköy.
As our placemat informed us, the restaurant holds the trademarks for Kebapçı İskender, Bursa İskender Kebapçısı, Bursa Kebapçı İskender, İskender Kebabı, İskender Kebapçısı and Hakiki İskender Kebabı. (A warning to anyone named İskender: steer clear of this restaurant; they even hold the trademark on your first name.) According to the restaurant’s website, the kebab’s inception was in Bursa in the late 19th century, when İskender effendi took roasted lamb to new heights by turning the spit upright – the modern vision of döner – and shaving the meat over chopped pide, adding a sauce to the result. The İskenderoğlu descendants not only claim the recipe as their family’s heritage, but also credit their grandfather with inventing vertically roasted döner.
A good İskender kebab takes a while to prepare, so we had plenty of time to ponder these claims while we waited for our order. In a recent issue of Yemek ve Kültür we’d seen photos of vertical döner kebab taken in Istanbul in the 1850’s, nearly 20 years prior to the date of invention claimed by the İskenderoğlu family. Even earlier sources in the same article describe vertical döner kebab being sold on the streets of Istanbul. And what are the chances that those documented preparations of döner were the first in the history of roasted meat? We are certain that once the mosaics of Haghia Sophia are fully uncovered, we’ll see divine depictions of Byzantine-era döner.
Our senses snapped back to the intense smell of browned butter sizzling in a skillet before us. This is what in Turkish is known as the püf noktası, or the crux of the preparation, in which the waiter drizzles rich melted butter all over the ingredients assembled on the plate. The butter rampaged through, ravaging the yogurt, scalding slices of tomato, softening the green pepper and conspiring with long slices of döner in a conspiracy to soak the slightly crispy pide with otherworldly flavor. Fork in hand, it was easy to forget that this place was on the frontlines of a battle. Dredging delicious smoky shavings of lamb döner and cubes of pide through buttery yogurt, we didn’t even care to estimate the number of hours that must have been spent in the notary office collecting all of those trademarks.
Above our table, we noticed a framed picture of İskender effendi scowling down at us above several rows of his descendants. We wondered if he would feel honored or outraged by the fact that three other places on the very same street are selling a dish named after him. Despite their efforts, his grandsons may have failed at being the only İskender Kebabı, but by our measure they have succeeded at serving the best one. That’s an inheritance defended in the kitchen, not the courtroom.
Address: Rıhtım Caddesi, next to the PTT (post office), Kadıköy
Telephone: +90 216 336 0777
Web: www.iskenderkebabi.com
Hours: 11am-10pm
(photos by Gökçen Ceylan)
via The Best Iskender Kebab in Istanbul | Culinary Backstreets.
Culinary backstreets. Two words I can relate to. If you don’t like looking down narrow streets, searching for that little hole-in-the-wall jammed with locals eating food worth sinking your teeth into for a reasonable price, well, you probably don’t have to read on.
Modern day Istanbul has been called a foodie paradise, based on the same model as cucina Italiana, freshness of ingredients and simple preparations are involved. That means a near miss can be close to disaster. You have a whole lot more culinary leeway when a dish involves 12 different meats and 27 spices. So where do you turn for simple, local food?
You can probably do a lot worse then the site called Culinary Backstreets, which offers the local’s view of Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, and Shanghai.
It’s a place on the web you might want to turn to when you’re planning a trip to one of those cities–not just to write down a few recommended restaurants, but to get familiar with the local chow.
Culinary backstreets has an iOS app on the food of Istanbul as well, which has garnered rave reviews. See Culinary Backstreets Istanbul if you have an iDevice.
This is the second installment of Hoss Zare’s overseas trip diary. For Part One — his experience in Oslo —
The mosaic of spices on the street.
The day after celebrating my 50th birthday, I flew to Turkey to reunite with family I had not seen for 26 years. My six sisters were traveling from Tabriz, one brother from Oslo, and another brother from Antalya. All together, the nine of us had not been under one roof for 37 years.
I’d secured an apartment building with six units. It was important to be together. A hotel, I thought, would feel impersonal. I arrived a couple days earlier, so I walked around the neighborhood meeting people. One thing that was really touching about Istanbul was the way they treated stray animals. There were stations on the street with a bowl and a container. A sign read if you see empty bowl, please put one cup.
My first welcome to the neighborhood came at the market. Every block has its corner market called a baggali.
I met the owner of our baggali. He was very nice, patient. We talked for a while. He said he’d heard about our reunion. I asked him to help because I needed to fill six refrigerators. He told me not to worry, to just pick out what I wanted. Two hours later, his car rolled up in front of the apartments. He had six boxes, all perfectly organized, and he even put a few extra things for me. We became friends after that. I told him whatever new exotic product he got, he had permission to make six assortments and bring them to me. Some days he knocked on our door before breakfast. My favorite thing was the beautiful multi-colored mulberries; I hadn’t had those in a long time.
***
When it came to my family, I made everyone promise not to bring sadness. How can I explain it? If one person started crying, everybody was going to cry. It would have turned into crying all the time.
I had not been to my parents’ funeral. I didn’t want, in my presence, to have another funeral for them. I wanted this to be a celebration in their honor. That was the whole thing.
First, my brother Saeed and his daughter arrived from Antalya. The next day, the three of us went to the airport in a big bus. The whole time we were waiting for my sisters, I was fine. I was like ice. 15 minutes before they landed, it hit me. My brother looked at me. He said, “It’s about time. You’re human.”
Seeing them all in one place after 26 years is hard to describe. It’s very hard. They were all walking towards me. I was walking, but I was watching them. I was watching and feeling proud. At the same time, they were looking at me. I could see their heads lifting. My posture straightened. Our pride was showing. It was intense. We had no idea at the time, but everybody in the airport was watching us hug.
Counting the nieces and nephews, here were 24 of us. We put the luggage away and boarded the bus. There was a tense, silent moment. I didn’t know what to say. I thought I would break down.
Suddenly, I said something that I had no idea where it came from. As a joke, almost scolding them I was like, “Hey! Which one of you sisters was the one that told the secret about me being in the tree naked?” This happened when I was five or six, but by then even the youngest niece had already known about it.
[Background: Growing up, I was a bad boy. One day my mom and dad weren’t home. My sister was watching me. She decided to go to a party. I told her they had to take me too. She told me I was a kid and the party was for adults. I told her I wanted to go. She said no. I took off all my clothes and ran out of the house. There was one meter of snow outside. I ran through the snow into the garden. We had a beautiful, huge garden. I climbed to the top of a plum tree and stood there, freezing. They yelled for me to get down. I said they had to take me too. They said I was going to die. I said they had to take me. Finally, they said, “We can’t take you, but we won’t go either.” Then I was happy. I came back down.]
Boom — laughter erupted on the bus. That story led to another story about my brother crying over bone marrow. See, everytime our mother made abghoost — braised lamb shank — we’d take turns for the bone. He never waited his turn. He had this honking cry that got under everybody’s skin. One day it was my turn. My brother, Hassan, starts honking. I try to give him the bone, but my father says don’t. My father asks Hassan to come to the other room. Hassan perks up, he stops crying. He follows our dad. From the other room, we hear the real crying start. That story led to another story.
After that, we were laughing and hugging each other all the time. On the trip, my sisters had a little routine between themselves. I found this out later. I would be talking with one of them, and the next thing I know she would make the conversation short. Then another sister would come close. They were timing it so they could share their brother evenly. It was like every ten minutes, they kept shuffling.
Occasionally, of course, there were tears. We were good about not bringing it to the entire group. We started to joke that whoever brought the crying would be the one to buy the dinner.
***
One day we were having lunch. All of us were sitting there. I’d bought a hat and put it on. It was like the hats in old gangster movies. We used to call them shapo. Suddenly, all my sisters were going one by one to the bathroom. They were crying. I didn’t realize why. They were all in the bathroom. My brother came and sat next to me. He said, “Take the hat off.” Then it clicked. My father used to wear a shapo. My face, the hat — it was the image of our father sitting there.
I kept thinking that in a few days, none of this would be real. Before the trip, I had been saying that I wanted to cook for them, but we had so much fun all the time that we didn’t even think about cooking together. The last day they were like, “What happened? We didn’t even cook together.”
I told them time goes fast, and it does. I can say this though: No matter how long you don’t see your family, be it five days or 26 years, when you get together, everything is like there never was a distance. At the end, they were hugging me and not letting me go. I told them this was not going to be goodbye. This was ‘see you later’. Later is coming next month, and let me tell you, next month couldn’t come faster.
Sleet is falling and it’s well below zero, but the guide for our culinary walking tour is waiting as arranged outside the Spice Market at Eminonou.
SMORGASBORD: Step outside the hustle of the Grand Bazaar to find a fascinating array of food stores.
People come to Istanbul for many reasons, such as the history and the art, but for me, this time anyway, it’s all about the food. And what better way to make some new discoveries and tread some new back streets than under the guidance of an expert?
Istanbul Eats’ culinary walking tours are designed so you can experience an Istanbul that tourists rarely can, and we have been warned to come with empty stomachs. Its website also provides the most up-to-date information about dining in Istanbul, from street snacks to fine meals at top restaurants.
Our lovely American guide, Megan, made the city her home many years ago and speaks the language well. Our small group of six sets off, not to the Spice Market as expected, but to the surrounding streets.
Megan explains that, sadly, it is more a general bazaar now, rather than the glorious food market I remember from past visits.
However, all around it we find a fascinating array of food stores, all specialising in something different.
We wander from store to store, tasting, at the friendly insistence of the vendors, olives, nuts and cheeses from the many different regions of Turkey. Then, huddled out of the cold near a tiny tea shop, we are plied with tiny glasses of tea and cups of Turkish coffee, which the owner carries to us on a traditional “hanging” tray.
Turks, Megan explains, drink as many as 30 or 40 tiny glasses of tea a day. She also shows us how to let the coffee rest so the grounds sink to the bottom before taking a sip. It is strong and needs lots of sugar lumps, but is perfect with our breakfast of freshly baked simit (sesame crusted rings of chewy bread), olives and fresh white cheese that Megan has gathered along the way.
Back out on the street in front of the fishmonger’s shimmering wares, we discuss which fish come from where and how each can be cooked. Next door, at the butcher’s, we squeamishly admire the beautifully displayed offal, still very much a staple of Turkish cuisine. The proud vendors pose as we take photos of them behind their counters.
Further on, we stop for a warming and utterly delicious lentil soup – squeezing in lemon juice and sprinkling on red pepper flakes – at what was once a soup kitchen adjoining a mosque. It is so hard not to finish it all up, but we are all very conscious there are many more tastes still to come.
On the street of wood turners, we buy lovely hand-crafted wooden spoons before pausing at a tiny pide shop where the owner cheerfully shows us how to make wood-fired, pointy-ended pide with the traditional fillings of minced lamb and red capsicum or goats’ cheese and tomato. On we walk, enjoying halva and Turkish delight from a family-run store 150 years old and, further on still, delicious lamb kebab from a corner vendor who spends two hours each morning layering lamb for his spit with onion, tomato and capsicums – so colourful and tasty compared with the commercial, meat-only versions.
At the lovely old-fashioned cafe Vefa Bozacisi, we try boza, an ancient fermented millet drink that has been made there since 1867, served with cinnamon and roasted chickpeas. It’s definitely an acquired taste.
For our final stop for lunch (yes, lunch!) we follow Megan as she weaves through the Kurdish area of the city until we come to Seref-Buyan Kebap Salone, which specialises in both pit-roasted lamb (buryan) and perdi pilaf, a scrumptious little “pie” of borek pastry filled with pilaf rice and chicken that is traditionally served at weddings. Our table groans with these dishes and more.
Somehow, we manage to eat a freshly made walnut baklava and a delicious cheese-filled pastry called a kunefe.
Istanbul offers so many dining options and it’s quite easy to find really good food if you stay away from the tourist haunts and don’t depend only on your guide book or the hotel concierge. My rule of thumb is to explore the back streets. That is where the best food always is.
I had read about the new Datli Maya, where chef Dilari Erbay cooks traditional Turkish fare in the wood-fired oven of an old simit bakery. It turns out to be very close to our hotel. Entering off the street right into the kitchen, you choose your dishes – yoghurt soup, wood-fired pide or lamuchan (very thin Anatolian pizza) or the stew of the day – before ascending the narrow stairs to the top-floor dining room.
On the way up, you pass through another kitchen where a chef is preparing kebab skewers.
For a simple and very inexpensive lunch after visiting the Grand Bazaar or Blue Mosque, experience a traditional working man’s eating house at Erol Restaurant. Choose from the selection of home-style dishes on display in the kitchen before finding a table. There are lots to choose from and always daily specials – stuffed cabbage rolls, eggplant kebab or Kiremit (casserole) – a stew of lamb, green capsicum, carrots, eggplants and tomato with large moghrabieh couscous or the ubiquitous lentil soup.
In summer, I imagine the dishes would be quite different, as the food is based on what is available.
On this trip, I was also keen to try some modern Turkish cuisine, something which is quickly gaining worldwide attention.
At Lokanta Maya, a female chef, Didem Senol, prepares her acclaimed cuisine. In her stylish, contemporary restaurant, we enjoy a series of small plates to share: her famous zucchini fritters, tender-grilled octopus and red onion on olive-oil grilled bread and warmed white cheese with caramelised onions, followed by a couple of lovely desserts, including a mastic pudding with cherry compote – a first for me.
Back at our hotel, the beautiful Tomtom suites in Beyoglu, two talented young chefs are cooking some of the best food in the city at La Mouette. Both Uryan Dogmus and Cihan Kipcak were classically trained abroad and have returned to Istanbul to cook modern interpretations of the dishes they grew up with.
An afternoon spent with them in the kitchen introduces me to some fascinating ingredients and cooking methods – thankfully, not molecular gastronomy, but clever, lighter, and more beautifully presented dishes adapted from those learned from their mothers and grandmothers.
Quinces are poached in hibiscus sherbet (sherbet is a syrup) and served with buffalo clotted cream (kaymak), something the Turks love to have on toasted bread and drizzled with honey for breakfast.
A simple casserole of prawns, tomatoes, bright-green capsicums, tarragon and garlic is quickly assembled and baked – a dish I could imagine eating at a small eatery anywhere along the coast of Turkey – then a traditional borek, a long, coiled “pie” filled with different local cheeses, such as dil peyniri and ezine, onion and herbs.
Later, we dine in the restaurant itself, an enclosed rooftop terrace which affords an expansive view across to the Galata Bridge and beyond to the Sultanahmet. At night the mosques and the Topkapi Palace are magically lit, as are the ferries that glide across the Bosphorus.
The small menu of just seven entrees and seven main dishes is as enchanting as the view. My favourite dish is one of delicate veal liver with a light-as-air potato and cumin mash, cherry wine confit and parsley coulis.
It is clear that Istanbul’s culinary offerings should not be underestimated. There is so much more to this city than trays of mezze, apple tea and baklava.
WHAT TO DO BESIDES EATING
Antique hunting or browsing: I particularly enjoy wandering the labyrinth of tiny back streets around Ukurcuma Square (Beyoglu area) where antique stores sell everything from furniture and carpets to interesting Ottoman era curios.
Take a ferry down the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea: It’s the perfect way to see the beautiful Ottoman houses that still line the shore and the ancient fortresses that once protected the straits. Be aware the ferry stops for three hours when it gets to the last village but you can enjoy a simple lunch at one of the lokantas nestled over the water.
The Grand Bazaar: Even though this is probably the most tourist-infested place in the city, it is a must-see. Sixty covered streets, some like boulevards, others barely wide enough for two people to pass, have more than 5000 shops selling just about anything you could imagine. Don’t forget to look upwards – to see some of the most beautiful vaulted ceilings.
Arasta Bazaar: If you want a slightly more exclusive shopping experience, this small bazaar, just below the Blue Mosque, has lovely stores selling traditional Turkish wares. Jennifer’s Hammam specialises in beautiful fringed cotton towels and colourful Uzbekistani pottery.
The Harem at Topkapi – this palace deserves a full day’s exploration but at the very least you must see the Harem apartments. Each room seems more exquisitely tiled than the last and of course it is fascinating to see where all the Sultan’s wives and their eunuchs were housed.
Aya Sophia: Once a Byzantine church and an Ottoman mosque, it has been deconsecrated and is now a museum. The austere exterior in no way prepares you for the beauty within, especially the sea of Ottoman era chandeliers, viewed from above.
Kadakoy market: I love the fresh market just a 20-minute ferry ride across the Bosphorus on the Asian side and not far from the dock. The simple stalls line narrow streets and more permanent stores sell everything from honey to roasted sheep heads. This is also where you’ll find the eponymous Ciya restaurants.
Buy a carpet: If you have both the time and money, the experience of being entertained with endless cups of tea while carpet after carpet is laid out for you to see is really not to be missed. The only prerequisite is that you must make a purchase at the end.
FACT FILE
Where to stay: Tomtom Suites – The Old Franciscan House, Tomtom Mh, Tomtom Kaptan Sokak 18, 34413 Beyoglu, Turkey, ph +902122924949, tomtomsuites.com.
What to do: Istanbul Eats walking tours cost US$125 (NZ$152) and you won’t need dinner. istanbuleats.com.
Where to eat: La Mouette at the TomTom Suites tomtomsuites.com/tomtom–taste.php. Lokanta Maya, lokantamaya.com. Datli Maya, datlimaya.com. Erol Restaurant: Catalcesme Sokak. No 3, Cagaloglu. (From a previous visit) Ciya, located in Kadakoy on the Asian side and considered one of the finest restaurants for regional cuisine, ciya.com.tr.
How to get there: Singapore Airlines flies one stop via Singapore to Istanbul from Auckland, singaporeair.com.
Catherine Bell is a food educator and writer and is chairwoman of the Garden to Table Trust. She flew to Turkey with Singapore Airlines.
At 6 PM on a Monday evening the dining room of Adana Ocakbasi was nearly full and the wide grill in the corner was covered with skewers loaded with meat. While most restaurants, worldwide, were closed or waiting for a slow night to start, this neighborhood kebab house was busting through a bumper rush of early birds in for a quick lamb chop or two on the way home. The dinner crowd had not even arrived.
“This place will ruin you,” said our waiter showing us to two stools at the marble counter that circles the grill, the smoking heart of the room. “You wont be able to eat meat anywhere else.”
The usta behind the grill skewered, slapped, turned, shifted, spiced and plated meat with the concentration of a tantric yogi. When he reached a relatively calm moment in his grilling cycle, he gently mixed a bucketful of sumac and raw, chopped onions with his hands – all of it an awesome sight of endurance. If we we’re going to be ruined we might as well enjoy the show.
Along with a bottle of raki, we ordered a couple of starters – an excellent ezme, a relish of finely chopped onions, tomatoes, red peppers and plenty of parsley dressed with olive oil and pomegranate molasses, and kozde patlican, a whole eggplant grilled until the inside has gone meltingly floppy and then peeled. Served with small fresh rounds of tirnakli ekmek, a flatbread ubiquitous in kebab houses, the meze clearly play a supporting role to the meat here, but they were simple and delicious.
We soon moved onto the stars of the show, ordering a couple of skewers of just about everything we’d seen on the grill. Small cubes of lamb liver and cop sis, tiny bits of marinated beef bookended by slivers of fat came out first. There is an entire classification of restaurants in Istanbul devoted specifically to grilled liver and cop sis and not one of them serves liver as tender and succulent as Adana Ocakbasi. It would be well worth a visit for the liver alone, but a crime to leave before the parade of bone-in cuts made their way from the grill.
The lamb chops and ribs, liberally dusted in red pepper and thyme, were so juicy they drenched the thin sheet of lavas beneath, making it all the more palatable. The beyti kebabi – in our favorite rendition, a sis of Urfa wrapped in lavas, cut into slices and drizzled with tomato sauce and yogurt – was nothing more than a sis of Urfa kebab, minimalist for a beyti, but exceptionally tasty.
Already full and hooked on this place, we needed a little something more to tide us over until the next visit. Scanning the grill, we asked about uykuluk, or sweetbreads, a specialty often found on kebab house menus but rarely in stock. Within minutes our usta was sliding a dozen or so small charred orbs onto a plate for us. Springy in texture, this uykuluk carried a characteristic whiff of organ meat, which stood up well against the spice dusting and the char from the grill. These well-prepared sweetbreads, more than the meat even, were our personal ruination.
Paying the modest bill and leaving the room packed with people feasting on prime cuts of lamb, we felt as if we’d just been initiated into a carnivorous club. We imagined one day having two seats at the grill designated as “our usual” spot. If being “ruined” means becoming a regular here, that’s a fate we welcome.
The arrival of fall always finds us heading instinctively, like salmon swimming towards their ancestral headwaters, to the Balık Pazarı, Beyoğlu’s historic fish market. Autumn is quince season in Turkey and that means the appearance – for a limited time only – of one of our favorite desserts, ayva tatlısı (literally meaning “quince dessert,” although “quince in syrup” might be more accurate). Nestled in the fish market is Sakarya Tatlıcısı, a pastry and sweets shop with old-world charm that is one of our top stops for this dessert.
