Life 'n' Such

Have you ever gone to a Turkish restaurant, and tried this. If you haven’t then I beg you to try this dish. I absolutely love it.

But, if you dont have a Turkish restaurant in your neighborhood, then you gotta follow my recipe. Its awesome, and this was a lucky accident.

Actually I started making the recipe for seekh kebabs (as my MIL) taught me, but I forgot to add the garlic! I know.. big Oops! And I made them (baked and shallow fried)
Then, I was thinking, how could I add garlic to this. I recently had eaten in a Turkish restaurant* this entree, with chicken kebab on a bed of warm pita (called ‘pide’ in Turkish) and yogurt garlic sauce. Hmmm it was sooooo good!!
*(again a lucky coincidence – we were driving by looking for a restaurant in Beachwood, and found this real nice Turkish restaurant called Antalya; It was excellent food and the price was not too bad. I will try to google the address, if you would like to dine there sometime.)

Anywho… here is the  recipe, enough yak yak…more recipe details! Sorry I get carried away talking about food, you know that!

Ingredients:

For kebabs:
2 chicken breast, ground until minced in a food processor
salt, 1 tsp
garam masala 1/2 tsp
red chilli powder,
1 egg
and ofcourse garlic 1 tsp
(optional 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, 1 hot green pepper)
oil for frying
For yogurt sauce:
2 cups of yogurt,
2 cloves of garlic,
few pinches of salt

For tomato sauce:
oil,
3-4 tbsp of tomato sauce,
cold water – 2 tbsp
red pepper

Pita,
olive oil
Method:

First mince the chicken (chop it up in medium sized pieces and using a food processor or a meat mincer, mince it well). Add the egg and the spices to this while mincing.

Finally using skewers (bamboo or metal), and dipping your hand in cold water, apply the minced chicken mixture on the skewers, and lay them hanging over a baking tray. For more details, follow the seekh kebab recipe here.
Preheat the oven to 375 deg F, and then bake for 15 minutes.

In the mean time, make the garlic yogurt sauce by grating a couple cloves of garlic in about 2 cups of yogurt and whisking it with little cold water, add some salt.

To make the tomato sauce, heat oil, add a few tbsp of tomato sauce, and wait till it bubbles, then add the turkish red pepper to it. Add some cold water, and mix and let it come to a bubble (boil) again. Turn off the heat. Add a couple pinches of salt.
Chop up about 5-6 pitas in small 1 inch pieces with a knife. (If you have a middle eastern bakery close by, I would recommend getting the pitas fresh). Spread them in a baking tray (which you will finally use for serving as well) Drizzle some olive oil over it. Keep aside.
When they kebabs come out of the oven, immediately pull them off the skewers.

Fry them in oil, and keep aside.

Put the pita in the oven for a few minutes(5-8 minutes), until they are all warm and slightly crispy.
Now, begin making your layers: over the warm pita, pour the yogurt sauce, then lay the kebabs on them, and drizzle the tomato sauce over it.

That’s it!!!!!!!!!!! It is just too good that I cannot find words to describe it. It is very much like the one they serve at a restaurant.

Note: You could also put different seasoning for the kebabs, my Turkish friends usually have salt, black pepper, red pepper and oregano in their kebabs.

My recipe is almost the same, with Indian twist to it.

Looks beautiful, and tastes great! Oh, did I mention easy to make recipe?

I love to eat these stuffed zucchini boats (stuffing can be potatoes, or ground meat, or chopped chicken). How versatile!

Ulfet has made these a few times, and finally I remembered to ask her the recipe yesterday over the phone. By the way, belated birthday wishes to her!

Ingredients:

zuchini (1 per person), cut lenght wise into 2 pieces
stuffing: either mashed up potatoes, or ground meat, or chicken (Recipe for each stuffing follows)
(Also, chopped onion, tomatoes, garlic and oregano for meat or chicken stuffing)
spices and seasoning (salt, red pepper black pepper)
mozzarella cheese grated
oil for cooking/frying
water as per the requirement

Method:

Fry the zucchini halves till they are golden. Then remove some of the core with a spoon (scooping it out slowly). Mix the boiled potatoes with red pepper, black pepper and salt. Fill in spoonful(s) in the fried zucchini. Top it off with mozzarella cheese. Bake/broil in the oven, till the cheese melts.

For Chicken/ground meat Stuffing:

Fry the onion, add the chicken/meat to it, and cook till done (water is evaporated, and the meat/chicken is ready). Add the tomatoes, garlic, and cook till the tomatoes melt in. Add the salt, pepper, red pepper and the oregano. 

Fadime said, this was really easy, and said, her family likes this so much, that they have to buy tons of peppers and stock up! So here it goes:

Ingredients:

potato cut in cubes, and fried till golden brown,
green  peppers cut in little bite sized pieces,
1 tomato chopped,
little oil for cooking
salt, (optional: black pepper, red pepper)
For the sauce:
Yogurt, grated garlic, salt (little water for diluting)

Method:

On one side, keep the potatoes for frying. In the mean time, in little oil, sautée the peppers, on medium heat, for about 20 mins, till they are tender. Add the chopped tomatoes, and turn the heat off when the tomatoes changes color. At this point, add the fried potatoes to this and the salt/black/red pepper. Serve with yogurt garlic sauce on the side.

This is soooo good, now I want to go and buy peppers to make this, even when its snowing outside! Ta-Ta!

Another weekend of summer, another barbecue with friends. Only this time, it was a farewell party for our dear Turkish friends. I am going to miss them all. Let’s not talk about that now.

We had a nice menu for barbecue. There were sheesh kebabs, meat kofte and chicken. This is a turkish recipe for making sheesh kebab. In India, we call it boti-kebab, but its marination is different.

Ingredients:

salt, red pepper, oregano
and ofcourse boneless meat/chicken cubes
skewers
onion and green pepper diced, cherry tomatoes

Method:

Marinate the meat/chicken over night. Then string them on the skewers, such that, there is a meat/chicken cube between a onion/tomato/pepper. Thats it. Next step grilling and then eating