I always wanted to take part in Taste of Sydney so I was thrilled to be invited among 16 of Sydney’s best restaurants this year. It was a great chance for us representing quality regional Turkish cuisine at the open air fine food event of the year. We decided to go with three dishes and an icon dish.

Somer Sivrioglu

Kadayif Karides: Our signature meze, the only dish that is left from the original menu 5 years ago. Ali Nazik: Very traditional kebap from Gaziantep, that I learned on my recent trip to the region Trio of Pistachio desserts: Baklava, sarma and kadayif, all handmade of course … and our Icon dish was lamb testicles, pan-fried in butter and served with garlic almond toum

I thought we can prepare 20 serves of testicles every session, quickly learning our lesson after we sold out each session in less than half an hour. But the real star of the show was Ali Nazik, a succulent kebab made in traditional way with mixing equal amounts of veal backstrap, leg of lamb and lamb tail fat.

I have always been asked why we did not make kebaps before. Here is the reason. I refuse to do any dish if I don’t believe I can represent it properly. The only way you can make real Turkish kebaps are with lamb tail fat and always cooked in purpose built barbecue. I am so lucky to have access to this liquid treasure, lamb tail fat, travelling in to outer Sydney to pick up every week from the only local farm that produce it in very small quantities.

So, you say why is lamb tail fat so essential in kebabs? Soon, I will explain in detail why, how and what real kebaps are made the way they should be. But getting back to Taste of Sydney, in total we rolled kadayif on to 2000 king prawns, cooked 30 trays of baklava and smoked 800 kgs of of eggplant. In making Ali Nazik we opened 500 tubs of wonderfully strained Chobani Greek yoghurt. I really like this product cause you don’t need to strain the yoghurt losing half of its volume and it is time and labour costly. It is very important to use strained yoghurt for this recipe, since you need to warm the yoghurt and straining stops it from splitting.

Ali Nazik was such a laborious project  since we chop the meat with a zirkh knife and do not mince. On the first night in the middle of service we were asked to submit our dish for the awards. So, I picked up the first four dishes on the line, put them in to our traditional copper domes to keep it warm and send it over for judging.

Chefs at Taste of Sydney 2012

All the chefs were called for a group shoot to the VIP area for the announcement of the award,  Looking at the talent and legends of the industry I was very happy to be among them representing a cuisine that is much misunderstood and mistranslated in to Australia. I just could not believe my ears when the chief judge announced the winning dish saying she was very happy the restaurant that won the best dish did not serve them the ICON dish lamb testicles. Our humble kebap was the WINNER ! This was a win not only for us but for Turkish food and kebabs. We were very happy to win the inaugural Best in Taste award in front of best chefs of Sydney but even more excited to win with a dish that represents us in true tradition. For an in-depth blog on Best in Taste Wards click on the link.

http://84thand3rd.com/2012/03/10/exclusive-taste-of-sydney-part-1-best-in-taste-award/

I like to thank the brilliant Taste of Sydney team and in particular Meghan and Toby for their support and never ending energy, Chobani yoghurt for producing such a great tasting, authentic  yoghurt that I could use at ease, my two neighbouring restaurants Manu and teams’ L’etoile and Alessandro and Anna Pavoni’s Ormeggio for putting up with all the smoke and smell of the charcoal BBQ, all the Efendy crew led by Fatih, manager extraordinaire, that stayed behind and ran the restaurant with minimal staff while we were at Taste of Sydney, my crew at Taste, Mehmet, Utku, Memocan, Fouad, Sinem, Serhat and Tayfun, my wife Asli for being at the show for every session while juggling the demanding schedule of our two lil’ ones and finally our friends Faruk and David of Wasamedia who came just to say hi and stayed all day and night long to help us trying to feed everyone at the ever present queue in front.

Until next year,

Turkish Coffee with Turkish Delight

I grew up in 70’s in Istanbul in the midst of transition from traditional to modern lifestyle.

I still remember grandmas devotion to make perfect Turkish Coffee traditional way, over burnt charcoal slowly cooking for more than 15 minutes, while regularly removing the ‘cezve’ the traditional copper pot- from the coals to prevent coffee to overcook.

Those days, a prospective wife was judged by the taste of her coffee making skills, that shows not only the technique but more importantly one’s patience.

For seasoned Turkish coffee drinkers it is not hard to tell the difference between a properly made Turkish coffee and one prepared the way cheap restaurants would do, basically boiling the coffee quickly, degrading thus the taste and producing little if any froth that needs to cover the cup of coffee.

Although to this day there are still a few people who either do or at least know the days when coffee was heated on charcoal, for all practical purposes modern electric or gas stove tops became the heating equipment of choice.

Turkish coffee is made by pulverizing freshly-roasted medium-roast beans in a mortar and pestle, or grinding them extra fine in a cylindrical brass coffee mill (kahve degirmeni).

To make Turkish coffee:

1. Pour in cold water in the coffee pot. You should use one cup of cold water for each cup you are making and then add an extra half cup “for the pot”. Add a teaspoonful of the ground Turkish coffee per cup in the water while the water is cold and stir. The amount of coffee may be varied to taste, but do not forget, there will be a thick layer of coffee grounds left at the bottom of your cup for properly made Turkish coffee. Don’t fill the pot too much. If you need to add sugar this is the time to do it.

2. Heat the pot as slowly as you can. The slower the heat the better it is. Make sure you watch it to prevent overflowing when the coffee boils.

3. When the water boils pour some (not all) of the coffee equally between the cups, filling each cup about a quarter to a third of the way. This will make sure that everybody gets a fair share of the foam forming on top of the pot, without which coffee loses much of its taste. Continue heating until coffee boils again (which will be very short now that it has already boiled). Then distribute the rest of the coffee between the cups.

Since there is no filtering of coffee at any time during this process, you should wait for a few minutes before drinking your delicious Turkish coffee while the coffee grounds settle at the bottom of the cup.

Here’s how to order ‘Türk Kahvesi’ when you’re in Turkey:

Sade (sah-DEH) – plain, no sugar (fairly bitter)

Az sekerli (AHZ sheh-kehr-lee)- w. a little sugar (takes off the bitter edge; less than a teasp. per cup)

Orta sekerli (ohr-TAH sheh-kehr-lee) – with medium sugar (sweetish; about a teaspoon of sugar for each cup)

Sekerli (CHOK sheh-kehr-lee) – with lots of sugar (quite sweet; two teaspoons of sugar or more)

Midye Tava with Tarator Sauce

Beer-battered Mussels with Walnut Sauce

Serves 6 as part of a meze

1. 30 blue mussels, scrubbed
2. 1½ cups plain flour
3. 165ml lager beer
4. 1 egg, separated
5. Vegetable oil, for shallow-frying
6. Salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
7. Tarator, for serving (recipe follows)

• Place mussels in a bowl and cover with boiling water.
• Using a blunt knife (such as a butter knife), along the broad edge, open shells and remove mussles. Snip off the beards and place on paper towel to drain.
• Place ½ cup of the flour in a bowl, pour in beer and egg yolk and mix well.
• Whisk egg white until it forms soft peaks and fold into the flour mixture.
• Heat oil in a frying pan.
• Add salt and pepper to remaining flour.
• Toss mussels in flour, shaking off any excess, then dip in the batter.
• Lower carefully into the oil, in batches, fry for a minute or so, until dark golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel. Serve with Tarator.

Tarator – Walnut Sauce

1. 3 slices day-old white sandwich bread, crusts removed
2. 100ml milk
3. 1½ cups shelled walnuts
4. 2 cloves garlic, peeled (see notes)
5. 1 teaspoon salt flakes
6. ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
7. 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
8. 1 lemon, juice strained

• Soak bread in milk for 5 minutes, then squeeze to remove excess liquid.
• Finely chop walnuts in a food processor then place in a bowl.
• Add bread and knead to combine.
• Place garlic and salt in a mortar and crush with a pestle to form a fine paste.
• Stir oil, vinegar, lemon juice and crushed garlic into the walnut mixture.
• Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour; return to room temperature and stir well before serving (as it may separate). If refrigerating overnight, mix in a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil to loosen it up before serving.

Notes: If you don’t like the taste of raw garlic, roast it at 200°C for about 5 minutes, or use finely chopped garlic scapes (or shoots) when in season. Mix in a drizzle of olive oil before serving if refrigerating overnight.