Recipes    

Turkish cuisine provides healthy, hearty, delicious food for family and friends.
Find out more

Cookery Classes

I teach Turkish cooking classes in England,Turkey & USA, hope you can join us!,
Find Out More

Mother’s Turkish Yoghurt and Meatballs Soup– Annemin Kofteli Yogurtlu Corbasi


This is lovely and comforting soup that appears a lot on our table. You can easily have it as a substantial lunch or for a light dinner on cold winter days. Children also love it – especially the little meatballs. Yoghurt gives a creamy texture and makes it a healthy choice too. Yoghurt features a lot in Turkish cooking, thanks to our Nomadic past. It is rich in calcium, phosphorus and vitamin B and carries good bacteria that supports the immune system and helps indigestion; just what we need with cold winter days coming up.
This soup is also a great example of how we use spices to flavor the dishes; the dried mint and the red pepper flakes work magically and bring a refreshing and lovely spicy (moderate) flavor. This soup can be cooked ahead of time and freezes well.

Serves 8 – 10 generously

Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking Time: 40 minutes

For the mini meatballs:
225gr/8oz ground beef or lamb
110gr/4oz long grain rice, washed and rinsed
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
90ml/4 tablespoons flour (placed on a tray)
Bowl of water to wet the hands to make the meatballs

For the yoghurt sauce:
1.75lt/3 pints/7 ½ cups hot water (you can also use any stock of your choice)
15 ml/1 tablespoon mild olive oil
Pinch of salt
2 eggs, beaten well
1lt/1 ¾ pints /4cups plain whole milk yoghurt (brand Fage works well)
4 fl oz/ ½ cup hot water
1/2 tablespoon dried mint
11/2 teaspoon (or more!) red pepper flakes
Drizzle of olive oil to serve

Combine the rice, ground meat, salt and ground black pepper, and mix well. Wet your hands and shape the mixture as little meatballs of 1/2″ diameter. Place the meatballs in the tray with flour on. After putting every 6-7 meatballs, shake the tray in a way to coat the meatballs with flour. That will prevent them from sticking to each other and falling apart.

Boil the water in a saucepan; add the olive oil and the salt. Once the water boils, place the meatballs gently into the water – a couple at a time – . Stir gently so that they won’t stick together and simmer for 15 minutes.

Place the remaining flour in the tray in a bowl. Add the yoghurt and egg, and whisk well. Add the hot water from the saucepan to the bowl and stir gently. That will help the egg “not to cook” in the soup and adjust to the mixture. Now stir the contents of the bowl into the saucepan slowly, while mixing continuously. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Once cooked, turn the heat off, add the olive oil, dried mint and red pepper flakes, and mix well. Serve warm.

Note: You can also add any vegetable of your choice to this soup; diced carrots, peas or broccoli work well.

Afiyet Olsun!

Continue Reading

Winter Pumpkin Dessert, Turkish Style – Kabak Tatlisi


Luscious bright orange pumpkin prepared this way warms up any winter evening. In Turkey, the seeds of the pumpkin are never discarded but oven roasted with salt to nibble on thru winter months, very delicious, nutritious and a huge Anatolian pastime!

This lovely light dessert is wonderful served with crushed walnuts. If you can get clotted cream, it accompanies Kabak Tatlisi wonderfully.

Serves 6
Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 40 minutes

1 kg/2 ¼ pumpkin, peeled and deseeded
450 gr/1 lb sugar
8 lf oz / 1 cup water
Juice of 1 lemon

Crushed walnuts and clotted cream (if available) to serve

Cut the pumpkin into manageable wedges. Place in a broad-based pan in layers, sprinkling sugar between the layers. Add the lemon juice and water and cook on a low heat until the pumpkin is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Add a little more water if required during cooking time to prevent the fruit sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Leave to cool in the pan. Serve sprinkled with crushed walnuts and accompanied with a dollop of clotted cream.

Afiyet Olsun!

Continue Reading

Crumbled White Cheese or Feta Salad with Spices; Cokelek Salatasi

Cokelek Salatasi- crumbled feta with spices, tomato, cucumber and onions

Cokelek Salatasi- crumbled white cheese, lor peynir or feta with spices, tomato, cucumber and onions

This is such a satisfying, delicious and healthy salad. The cumin and red pepper flakes amazingly transform the humble Turkish white cheese (or if it’s not available, Greek feta cheese). In my hometown, Antakya (Antioch), this special crumbled dried white cheese mixed with cumin, red pepper flakes and oregano is called Kuru Cokelek (also known as Surk) and readily available. Well, I can’t get Kuru Cokelek at the moment, though pleased to say that the crumbled feta with these spices work just as good, highly recommended. If you are in Turkey, you can also make this salad with the creamy lor peynir; its mild taste goes well with this salad.

This easy salad is a wonderful treat for lunch or weekend brunch with some pita bread. My heartfelt thanks goes to my mother, who made this salad to us almost daily and injected us the love of food.

Turkish cuisine is packed with delicious, wholesome choices and based on seasonal produce; this delicious salad and over 90 authentic recipes are included in my cookery book, Ozlem’s Turkish Table – you can order at Amazon now or you can get a Signed copy here (distributed worldwide, including USA). Signed copies are also 20 % off at this link until end July 2019, delivered worldwide.

Serves 2

Preparation time: 10 – 15 minutes

½ small yellow or red onion, finely diced
2 medium tomatoes, finely diced
¼ of long cucumber or ½ small cucumber, finely diced
Handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
110gr/40z Cokelek or lor peynir, as available in Turkey (or Greek feta cheese as an alternative),
5 ml/1 teaspoon ground cumin
5 ml/1 teaspoon red pepper (or paprika) flakes
5 ml/1 teaspoon dried oregano
30 ml/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
5 ml/1 teaspoon lemon juice
Salt and ground pepper to taste

Pita bread wedges to serve

In a bowl, mix the Turkish white cheese, lor peynir (or Greek feta cheese), onion, cumin, oregano and red pepper flakes with your hands. This will soften the onion and infuse the spices to the feta and onion. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice, and mix well. Check the seasoning and add salt and black pepper to your taste.

Serve with pita bread wedges.

Afiyet Olsun,

Ozlem

Continue Reading