Almost Turkish Recipes

Showing posts with label dough/pasta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dough/pasta. Show all posts

Ground Meat Bread Rolls (Kıymalı Rulo)






A yeasty dough rolled with ground meat and walnuts and a dash of cinnamon is what we all need for afternoon tea.  It takes a while to make regarding the yeast and the wait for the rise, but it is easy and delicious. You should definitely try this one!

for the dough
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
2-2 1/2 cup flour (or more)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup oil (olive oil, sun flower, whichever you feel comfortable with)
1 tsp salt
yolk of one egg (we'll use the to brush the dough, you can add the white into the dough)
black nigella seeds or sesame seeds

the stuffing
3 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped, ~1,5 cup
1/2 pound ground meat
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2-1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt


-Mix yeast, sugar, and water with a spoon in a bowl and let it dissolve for 15-20 minutes. Yeast will start to expand and bubble.
-In a pot on medium heat cook ground meat stirring constantly until it soaks its juice.
-Add 3 tbsp oil and onions to ground meat and stir until onion is cooked. Turn it off and add walnut, cumin, cinnamon, black pepper.
-Sift flour into the bowl of yeast. Add milk, oil, and salt. Add flour as necessary to make dough easy to handle. Dough should not stick to your hands.
-Let the dough sit in the bowl covered with a kitchen towel or whatever you use in a warmer place to rise twice its size, depending on the season and the warmth if your house this might take from 40 minutes to 2 hours.
-After it rises, divide the dough into two.
-With a little bit of oil and your hands make each piece into a 15 X 15 cm circle or a squarish circle. Don't worry it doesn't need to be a perfect shape.
-Place the half of the stuffing on your first circle-ish dough. Roll the dough like a cigarette without squeezing it too hard. Do the same for the second dough.
-Brush egg yolk on each roll and sprinkle black n'gella or sesame seeds or don't sprinkle anything.
-Bake at 375 F in a preheated oven for ~25 minutes or until golden brown like a loaf of bread.
-Let cool down for 10 minutes. MAke tea while waiting and dig in. Bon appetit!

Turkish Egg Noodle (Erişte)




























Making Turkish egg noodles, erişte--originally a Persian term meaning strips--is usually or was a good reason for gathering for the neighborhood women. A group of women would come together at someone's house. Some would make the dough, some would knead it, and some would roll it into rounds, while others would cut the noodles, lay them on tables, or mix them. And other would make tea and serve the working group with food or just keep company. Noodles are usually made late summer or early fall so that they would dry easily, but nothing's written in stone as long as you can dry them you can make them anytime.


























makes ~ 2 pounds of Turkish egg noodles

5 eggs
1/2 liter milk
1 kilo / 2.2 lb flour
1 cup semolina
1 tsp salt



























-Beat eggs well.
-Add milk and salt and beat again.
-Put the flour, semolina, and salt in a big bowl. Make a pool in the middle by pushing flour to the sides. Pour egg and milk mixture into this pool.
-Start bringing flour to eggy mixture and kneading. Knead until you have a firm enough that it wouldn't stick to your hands yet soft enough so that you can roll it.
-Divide the dough into 5-6 equal parts. Cover them with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for half an hour.




























-Sprinkle flour on the counter or your work space.
-With a rolling pin roll each dough out into circles, about 22-23 inch / 55-60 cm in diameter and 0.1 inch / 2 mm thick.



























-Lay these dough sheets on a clean table cloth in a room away from direct sunlight and let dry.



























-They should be dry enough so that when you cut it with a knife it wouldn't stick yet not too dry so that it would break. ~8 to 12 hours.



























-First cut each circle into 1.5 icnhes / 3-4 cm wide strips.



























-As you can see they don't have to be perfect.




























-Now stack 3 or 4 of those strips, and cut them horizontally into matchstick forms.




























-Lay noodles back on table cloth to really dry for another day or two. Make sure they don't stick to each other. Separate them with your hands.



























-After cutting matchstick shape noodles, you will have odd shape leftover noodles at the ends of the strips. Save them and dry them as well to use in soups.





























Now, how to make Turkish egg noodles. Simple. The ratio of noodles to water is 1 to 2, similar to rice.

serves 2 people

2 cups of egg noodles
4 cups of water
1 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp butter ( my personal preference) or olive oil
crumbled Turkish or Bulgarian white cheese or Greek feta
ground walnuts

-Boil 4 cups of water with salt and butter/oil.
-Once it boils, add noodles and cook on low-medium with the lid slightly ajar until noodles soak all the water.
-In my family, noodles are served with crumbled white cheese and ground walnut on top, but you can certainly be creative.
Bon appetit!