The Smallest Kitchen

This is one of the best recipes I tried without knowing how swiss chard tastes which I found in my local farmers market and since then it is one of the main characters in my kitchen as the season allows.

If you would like to read more about farmers market and local eating have a look at this website and watch the video if you can.

And more links, the recipe is by famous Irish chef Dennis Cotter who has a special place in my heart:

Wild Garlic, gooseberries and me… Even the name of the book makes my mouth water : )

olive oil
black pepper and salt to season
breadcrumbs
250 - 300 gr of medium tomatoes - real recipe is with plum tomatoes but these are ok for me
100 - 150 gr of puy lentils - again I did it once with green lentils which were soaked one night, not as tasty as puy lentils but good
1 kg of swiss chard, with stalks
3 - 4 garlic cloves (real recipe says 2 but I am a garlic lover do not go out after dinner then!)
fresh thyme
100 ml white wine
50 gr parmesan or any other hard cheese - I used feta cheese once it was very delicious!

Here we go:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C, slice the tomatoes and place them in a single layer on a tray, season with black pepper and olive oil roast for 15 - 20 minutes.
2. Boil the puy lentils for about 20 minutes, they should be tender, cool them under cold water.
3. Separate the chalks and the leaves, cook the leaves in boiling water for 5 minutes then chop them and mix with lentils in a bowl, add black pepper and salt.
4. Chop the garlic and stalks (not more than 2 cms thick) and fresh thyme and cook them with olive oil for 5 minutes. Then, add the white wine and cover them with a piece if baking parchment and lower the hob and leave like that for 20 minutes, they will get soft. Do not let them dry.

5. (Dennis Cotter uses an oven dish about 24 x20 cm but I am happy with mine) Pour the lentil and leaf mixture over tomatoes then add the stalks with its juice and finally top up with breadcrumbs and cheese. Grill for 5 - 10 minutes. I let the cheese turn brown then serve it with wild rice or bulgur pilau.
6. Oh! I add some lemon juice over the leaves before I serve and I like it very much!

Believe me this dish is an art! Enjoy and let me know how you find it!

Hello everybody,

Here we are with another dish which is world famous and is cooked more or less similar in different countries. This is the first in a series of stuffed vegetable recipes I will put here, mainly known as ‘dolma’ in the cuisines of former Ottoman Empire including Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Armenia and the Middle East.

You can find recipes for stuffed courgettes, aubergine, tomatoes and squash blossoms in time in this blog. (I am not sure I can find them in England but I am hopelessly optimistic

Let’s begin with stuffed bell peppers. There are two ways of cooking, with minced meat - here I will use soya mince- or with rice, you eat the first one with yoghurt, the latter, cold and with lemon juice at the top of it. You can find the olive oil version later on.

I would like to mention the type of green pepper, as they are not the normal ones from sainsbury’s or tesco! In London the green bell peppers are too big and thick - I think they are American- but the ones I used are from TFC- Turkish Food Centre, they are smaller and flavorsome. But as a last resort, I use the big ones of course!

Here we go:

7 - 8 bell peppers
200 gr of soya mince (original recipe is with minced meat)
1 glass full of rice
1 onion
2 medium size tomatoes
tomato or pepper paste (preferably spicy or use chilli paprika instead)
half a bunch of flat parsley
blackpepper
salt
2- 3 spoonful of olive oil

1. Wash the peppers and cut the heads and clean the seeds.
2. Heat some water and pour some over the rice to soak.
3. Chop the onions and parsley and mix them well with olive oil, soya mince or minced meat, tomato paste in a bowl, add some, paprika, salt and black pepper to season.
4. Add the rice to this mixture, stir well.
5. Stuff the peppers with this mixture, leave approximately two cm gap at the top.
6. Slice the tomatoes and put them at the top of each pepper as a cap.
7. Place the peppers in a pan and pour two or three glasses of water, cover the top and cook it on a low heat. Check the softness of the peppers with a fork, if they are not cooked after half an hour, leave them longer.

Stuffed peppers are ready! Enjoy them with a spoonful of plain yoghurt!

Yummy! I have never ever rejected anyone offering borek. If you want to find out why, try this recipe. It is perfect for picnics as it is edible hot or cold, any time of the day.

You can call anything cooked with filo pastries “borek” actually, but this dish is cooked happily in the Balkans as burek, in Greece as spanakopita (with spinach and feta), in Israel as burekas (with cheese).

You can fill your borek with anything you want, but usually cheese and spinach is used.  Flat parsley or minced meat are also good options.

Let’s begin:

• 500g filo pastry
• 1 glass of milk
• 5 spoonfuls of olive oil or butter
• 3 eggs
• some sunflower seeds or black seeds
• 250g feta cheese
• 1 pack of fresh spinach leaves (alternatively a big bunch of parsley)

1. Spread some butter onto your cooking tray, this will stop your borek from sticking the tray.
2. Filo pastry is usually sold in a round shape so leave one sheet aside and cut the rest to fit to your tray.
3. Mix your butter or olive oil, milk, and eggs all together in a bowl.  Stir well.
4. Put the sheet of filo pastry in your tray, leave the corners out, you will close them at the top once you finish layering.
5. Spread the oil-milk-egg mixture with a brush over each sheet, and put each sheet on top of the other.  Use half of the sheets.
6. Soften the spinach in a pan quickly, cool it down and mix with crumbled feta cheese. (if you use parsely, you do not need to cook it.)
7. Pour this mixture onto your filo pastry layers in the tray.
8. Then, carry on putting the filo pastries one by one over this mixture and each time do not forget to spread some butter-milk-egg mixture onto the sheets otherwise they will become dry.
9. When there is no filo pastry left, cover the corners of the first big sheet onto your borek and spread the rest of the butter-milk-egg mixture on top.

10. Sprinkle some seeds over it.

11. Cook it for about 20 minutes in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 200C, until the top and the bottom gets brownish. It is delicious eaten with a spoonful of yoghurt.

Bon appetit!

Hello,

Well, I cooked these lovely lentil koftes for the Greek Easter weekend we had with friends, mostly drinking and eating lovely food.

It is very easy and a good mezze to have next to meaty stuff as well as by itself. Me? I can eat it even first thing in the morning

Here are the ingredients:

• 1 glass of red lentils
• 1 glass of bulgar wheat (fine bulgar)
• 5-6 spring onions
• 2 medium onions
• Spicy tomato paste (or preferably hot pepper paste, but it is hard to find)
• Hot pepper sauce, called Harissa, or just a red pepper
• Lettuce (little gem is preferable)
• A bunch of parsley
• Mint
• Black pepper
• Salt
• Olive oil
• Water - 3/4 glasses

1. Boil the red lentils with 3 or 4 glasses of water until they get very soft - almost melting.
2. Add a glass of bulgar wheat to the lentil mixture. This will make the mixture dry out a bit, so that it is firm but not sticky. Let it cool down until you can hold it in your hands. Taste it - if the bulgar wheat inside the mixture is not soft enough, add half or a glass of hot water to soak it up.
3. Chop the onions finely and cook them in olive oil then add the pepper paste and harissa or red pepper, mix it well.
4. Add the onion and pepper mixture over your already cooled down lentil & bulgar wheat and mix them well.
5. Add some salt, black pepper and mint.
6. Chop the spring onions and parsley and add them to this mixture, stir well. It should not be too dry not too wet, make some balls with it and put them over little gem lettuce on a plate.
7. Cool it down for an hour or so before you eat it!

Well, easy, having tried this recipe, butternut squash is no longer an unknown! Everytime I saw this yellow funny shaped thing in the market, I wanted to buy, but had no idea how to cook except in a soup. Eureka! It is a recipe Ebru suggested but she says it is some well known chefs recipe, so as soon as I learn, I will let you know.

Lets start now, ingredients for 4 people:

two equal sized butternut squash
feta cheese
parsley
olive oil
garlic cloves 2- 3
paprika, black pepper, salt

1. Halve both butternut squashes into two so, now you have for pieces.

2. Crush the garlic cloves then put some olive oil paprika, black pepper and the crushed garlic in a bowl and mix them well then brush this mixture onto the butternut squash.

3. Heat the oven to about 200 c then put the butternut squash halves onto a tray, leave for about 15 minutes. Check them with a fork if they are not soft enough, leave more.

4. Once they are softened, take the tray out, with the help of a knife, scoop out the flesh of the squash then mash it with feta. After that, add the mixture inside the butternut squash skin.