Broad Beans in Olive Oil: a Meze

Zeytinyağlı bakla in Turkish.

This dish reminds me why I am a Seasonal Cook as these beans  - fava in the US - are available for such a very short time.

Since Uzbekistan I have a tremendous urge for fresh, clean tastes and definitely no pilav. Where better to be than in our village house overlooking the sparkling blue Aegean with Ayvacık market beckoning? We are here for Easter. To my great surprise I can’t say that spring has arrived here; the garden is holding back and it is chilly by day and downright cold at night. We have the fire burning and indoors is warm and toasty.

apart from irises and wisteria,the garden is still bare

Yesterday we ventured forth to market and it was a joyous sight with piles of fresh green produce everywhere and a bustling happy crowd. 



 the little side approach to ayvacık market at noon



 This zeytinyağlı dish is hardly original but it is what Turkish home cooks everywhere are putting on their tables right now.

Broad beans should be podded unless they are very young and tender as they are right now.  Keep away from limp, discoloured pods; smaller is better.  In this recipe they are cooked whole; later you can pod them  and pod them again.  They keep well in the fridge for 2-3 days. 1kg yields approximately 350g shelled beans.

LOCAL bakla, fresh, firm and green: this is what I bought

knobbly and arthritic- looking: what not to buy

I checked out quite a few recipes and saw that they are all pretty similar. The one I used is from Binnur’s Turkish Cookbook. I didn’t find the recipe all that precise but I realised that it doesn’t really matter as nothing too drastic can happen.

Ingredients for Zeytinyağlı Bakla

400g broad beans in the pod/ bakla

2 cups water with 2 tbsp lemon juice

1 small onion, chopped

75 ml olive oil (half for cooking, half for later)

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp flour

¼ cup fresh dill/dereotu (half for cooking, half for later)

Salt

they don't do things by halves around here: dill

Method

·         Wash the beans. Trim both ends and shave along the sides with a knife. Cut into 2-3 pieces.

the prepared bakla in lemon water

·         Place in the 2 cups water with the lemon juice so that the colour of the beans won’t darken later.

·         Sauté the onions with ½ the olive oil in a medium-sized pot. Add the beans with 1 cup of lemon water and the remaining ingredients.  If needed, add the second cup of lemon water.*

·         Cook for about 20-25 minutes on medium-low heat, half-covered with the lid.  Check for doneness and season with salt.

2 stages of cooking

·         Place on a serving dish and drizzle over the remaining olive oil. Garnish with the remaining fresh dill.

·         Serve at room temperature with garlic yogurt.

zeytinyağlı bakla

Tips

1.       *I  found that I definitely needed the extra lemon water. Also I cooked the beans for an extra 10 mins.

2.       The amount of fresh dill can be adjusted to taste. It is so decorative that more is good!

As the beans were cooking, TT sniffed approvingly and said ‘It smells like the real thing!’ With encouragement like that, I  certainly recommend giving this meze a try! Afiyet olsun!

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

my ancient assos mortars and pestles

Sunday Reflection

Have a blest Easter Sunday

Palm Sunday

Grown Up Spaghetti

This looks like just a pile of spaghetti. Any old pile of spaghetti. The kind I've been eating since I was a kid. I must have been 1o or 11 years old when I started "cooking" for myself. I boiled water and made spaghetti with salt, butter, and parmesan cheese. I made grilled cheese sandwiches. I mixed flour and milk and butter and made misshapen biscuits. I loved my hot dogs with mustard and cheese. Cooking for myself as a kid meant I didn't have to eat vegetables and other weird things my parents made me eat when they were home.

These days I still make all those childhood favorites, but they've matured a bit. Grilled cheese is no longer made with American cheese and white bread, but instead a variety of cheddar, brie, goat, or mozarella on challah, wheat, or homemade Italian loaf. Hot dogs are topped with homemade ketchup, hot peppers, and olive tapenade. I make rosemary biscuits or bacon biscuits with real bacon fat. And just recently I discovered an all new grown up way to eat my spaghetti.

That plain looking pile of spaghetti is actually covered with a luscious sauce, an anchovy carbonara. It has the flavor of a seafood pasta or a linguine and clam sauce. The anchovies and garlic are cooked in plenty of olive oil, then spiced up with lemon zest, red pepper flakes, oregano and parsley. The flavored oil is tossed together with hot pasta, and then the final touch is to stir beaten egg yolks into the hot pasta to create a creamy finish. I could lick the plate, it's so good.

I love it when I eat something that reminds me of childhood and that special feeling of cooking something good, all by myself, all for myself.

Spaghetti with Anchovy Carbonara (Food and Wine)

Ingredients:
12 ounces spaghetti
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
One 2-ounce can flat anchovies, drained and chopped
Pinch of Aleppo pepper or crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon chopped oregano
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 large egg yolks
Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the spaghetti until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water.

In a large, deep skillet, heat the oil with the garlic and anchovies and cook over moderately high heat until the anchovies have dissolved, about 2 minutes. Add the red pepper, zest, oregano and parsley, then add the pasta and toss to coat. Remove from the heat.

In a small bowl, whisk the yolks with the reserved cooking water and add to the pasta. Cook over low heat, tossing until the pasta is coated in a creamy sauce, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

A New Sport for the Olympics: Rabbit Jumping!

No, really! Rabbit jumping. You don't ride them or jump over them yourself, instead, what you do is ... oh bother. Let's have Der Spiegel explain it.

Rabbits, as most are aware, like to hop. But it turns out that they also enjoy doing so competitively. Kaninhop, a hobby from Scandinavia, involves setting up mini-jumps and other barriers for pet bunnies to clear in competitions across Europe ...

Competition is, while not exactly fierce, certainly spirited. The more jumps a bunny clears, the better its score. There is also a time element, though rules tend to vary country-by-country.

"As long as you train them, they really like to do it," Fehlen, who has several rabbits involved in Kaninhop, says. "You have to teach them to jump over the hurdles, but at some point they get it."

Can we see some of these bounding buns in action? Why, of course! YouTube to the rescue!