Turkish lentil and bulgur kofta (mercimekli kofte)

Turkish lentil and bulgur patties (mercimekli kofte)
Recipe adapted from here  and there are many other recipes online, it's a very easy customizable recipe 

2 cups red lentils

2½ cups water (or more)

1 cup fine bulgur (cracked wheat) (I used brown, must be the one used in Tabouleh that doesn't require cooking, just a quick soak)

2 garlic cloves finely minced/grated/smashed in mortar and pestle with the spices

1 bunch parsley, finely chopped (I substituted Cilantro) 

1 tsp sweet paprika
1/4 tsp dry mint

1 tbsp Turkish capsicum paste (biber salca)

1 tsp cumin (smoked cumin works nice too!) 

2 tsp salt

1 squeeze lemon, according to taste 

Reserved ingredients: 

1 onion, grated

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp olive oil

Lettuce leaves or greens of your choice for serving (I used Arugala) or a nice small salad works too! 

Boil the red lentils in the water for 15-20 minutes or until soft. Add the bulgur and cover, allowing it to absorb the remaining water.

Add the garlic and parsley and mix through well. Add the other spices and seasonings and adjust seasoning to taste.

Heat olive oil in a pan on medium and sautee with tomato paste and grated onion until nice and caramelized, add to mix. 

Form into cigar-shaped patties and place on freshly washed cos lettuce leaves to serve. The patties can be rolled into the leaves and eaten as a parcel.

Turkish Borek Appetizer (using Cookin' Greens)

I want to express my excitement for this product that I recently discovered, it's called Cookin Greens and it's basically all those good healthy greens that you should be eating but might be too intimidated to try, or maybe like me you're just too inconvenienced by the process of buying those large bunches of wet leaves from the supermarket and then having to shove them in the fridge somewhere and wash/chop/blanch whenever you have a moment in your busy life!

Who has time for all that? I'm sure those are some of the reasons that people are less encouraged to buy them regularly!  .... so you can imagine my excitement when I saw this bag of frozen greens on tv, I mean flash frozen greens which are at the convenience of your fingertips, just open the bag and throw it into soups, pasta dishes, casseroles, blanch, steam, make dip, whatever you fancy but you can at least sleep at night knowing that you've had your GREENS! Those greens that we keep hearing about as cancer fighting and probably the healthiest of all the vegetables.

I will be buying these, for sure! They are available at the organic frozen freezer in Metro, and Loblaws Superstore as well as other stores, check their site www.cookingreens.com for more details.   I think it's totally worth it because you're getting the healthy and fresh greens which you sometimes can't even get in the regular produce department.
I wanted to make something that is fun for parties so a Turkish borek was perfect, we make it regularly in our household and it's a hit with guests because it's crispy, delicate, fancy and vegetarian too but healthy all at the same time!  Normally we make it with spinach but adding the greens will just bump up the nutrition.  You can do it with just greens or greens and feta cheese.

Turkish Borek Appetizer  (using Cookin' Greens Designer mix instead of plain spinach)

Filling:


- 1 pack Cookin' Greens designer mix (it containers spinach, rapini, collards, onion, yellow wax beans)  I dumped it all into a shallow pan and picked out the wax beans then threw them back into the freezer for another use.

Blanch greens: Place in a pot with 1/2 cup water, pinch of salt and 2 cloves of garlic whole, steam for 5-10 minutes.  Strain the greens from the water really well and place into shallow pan.

Use the water for soup or just add some salt and drink it! It's healthy :)



- 1 cup feta cheese
- 1-2 tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Shell:
- 1 package phyllo from freezer, thawed overnight in fridge.

Batter, mix in a bowl:

- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup yogurt
- 1/2 cup olive oil (or melted butter) You can use another oil if you'd like.

- 2 eggs

Pinch of salt



Preheat oven to 350 F

Open phyllo package, lay the pieces flat.
Take 2 layers and place in pan, if the pieces are larger than the pan it's ok, crinkle them up a bit to make it fit.

Add a ladle or so of batter and spread over the phyllo layer, using hand make sure to cover all areas so the phyllo isn't dry.

Do another 2 layers, then batter, then another 2 and batter and another 2 then you would have achieved 8 layers.  No batter on the top here.

Add the greens, spread out.
Grate the feta with a large grater over top, sprinkle with lemon juice and begin with another 8 layeres, two at a time adding batter over top each 2 layers.  If you want them more crispy use less batter, you could have 2 ladle fulls leftover like me.

Score almost all the way through into long finger shapes or into squares, if making appetizers do them smaller.

Bake, and check in 35 minutes. Broil on top if needed for a golden layer (it boils in seconds so stay close to the oven)

Recipe adapted from this lovely video by Turkish Mother and Daughter duo cooking in the kitchen.

Enjoy!! :)
.. And there is no excuse when it comes to entertaining... I threw together this little party grazing station in seconds!!   Thanks to the mounds of stuff I collect from my favourite places like IKEA/ Chapters/Indigo and HomeSense as well as some small treats I had laying around (dry nuts/cookies, kettle corn)  it all came together.

Turkish Manti Dumplings

Last autumn I made an Armenian Manti recipe, with a wonton wrapper shortcut, but this Ramadan I wanted to do the Turkish kind, dough and all from scratch. Also using my homemade yogurt to make the sauce (not that it makes any difference in taste but if you got a big pot laying around you gotta use it ; ) )

It's very simple and the most time consuming part is making the dough and stuffing the little dumplings, the rest just comes together in no time.

So here it goes.

Serves about 6, it's everything in the blue casserole dish (in the last photo, and what is on the serving plate above)

Dough:

3 cups flour

1 egg

Pinch of salt

2/3 cups water

Prepare the flour and salt, make a big heap (think pasta making!)

Crack the egg in the centre and drizzle the water... now with your hand mix the liquid mixture in the middle incorporating flour from the sides of the well of flour as you mix until all is incorporated.

Now it's a dough, keep kneading it for 10 minutes or so until it's soft and pliable.

Cover in cling wrap after forming into a disk and set aside for 30 mins.

Prepare your filling:

-Ground beef or lamb (I used about 1 lb and has a tiny baggie leftover)

- Salt & Pepper

- 1 small onion (finely chopped or grated) optional.
- A bunch of parsley finely chopped. Optional.

Mix it all up and knead, then to make the process easier I made little meatballs, those balls in the photo on the plate were actually too big later so I divided each one into two but still having them laid out like that makes it easier than having to stick your hands in the meat bowl and pull some out every time.

When you're ready to make them divide the dough into 3 portions.

Begin rolling one portion (keeping the others covered well with cling wrap as not to dry out)

Try to roll in a rectangle or square to the best of your ability and roll it very thin, the original recipe says knife thin, the thinner the better I think (think wonton wrappers)

Once your sheet of dough is rolled out cut into squares about 1 inch (that's pretty small) to 1 1/2 (this is what I tried to stick with)

Get a little glob of meat and plop it in the middle then fold the corners up to join in the middle, now seal the sides so you have this cute little shape (like in the photo)

Repeat, repeat, repeat, and then repeat with the other 2 portions of dough.

Bring a big pot of water to a boil, add salt and boil the dumplings until the meat is cooked (if the dough is thin enough you'll see the meat through the sides which makes for a more tender dumpling I think) and once the meat is cooled drain.

To make the yogurt sauce you'll need:

- 2 cups Yogurt

-Salt to taste

-3-4 cloves of garlic, minced

Peel and crush the garlic, add the salt to it on the cutting board and mash it into a paste (the salt helps to soften it) or use a mortar and pestle if you like.

Mix the garlic with the yogurt and set aside.

Red sauce:

3-4 tbsp butter/oil

1 tbsp tomato paste/2/3 tsp paprika

2-3 tbsp water

Dried mint

In a pan add some butter, tomato paste and water, let it simmer for a few mins, then add the paprika (at the end!)

Ladle some yogurt sauce over the manti in a platter, then spoon the red sauce over and sprinkle with dried mint. Garnish with fresh mint.

You could sprinkle red turkish chilli pepper or sumac over if you like.