• katelaurel on December 20, 2021

  This cookbook covers a wealth of regional and ethnic Turkish food that it's quite difficult to find recipes for elsewhere (or eat anywhere but in less-traveled parts of Turkey or in the author's Istanbul restaurant), but unfortunately it has a number of translation and editing issues -- some ingredients are mistranslated or translated strangely (e.g. 'sour cherries' for the fruit of the cherry laurel, or 'poppy seeds' for white/yellow poppy seeds, both of which are critical to the dish and hard to find in the west, though substitutable), ingredients are sometimes unspecified (e.g. '200g lamb' with no specification of cut or treatment), or specified inconsistently (e.g. "peppers", "chillies", "chiles", "sweet chiles", "hot chiles", and "hot peppers" all used inconsistently, leading to some confusion about sweet or hot peppers for a dish); there are also a few typo errors (e.g. swapping tomato and pepper pastes). If you read Turkish & can compare recipes, this is fine; otherwise be wary!

Notes about Recipes in this book

• Spiced lamb with aubergine and yogurt (Ali nazik)

  • JLDuck on December 25, 2020

    I just used a piece of lamb shoulder and coursely minced it. It worked. A spicy dish and delicious.

• Aubergine casserole (Patlican silkme)

  • JLDuck on August 08, 2020

    Delicious. Depending on the size of the lamb pieces may require a slightly longer cook.

• Shepherd’s salad (Çoban salatasi)

  • metacritic on June 16, 2024

    As good as one's ingredients. Lovely and simple, barely a recipe as much as an assembly of vegetables.

• Baked lamb with plums (Erik tavasi)

  • metacritic on May 31, 2021

    This is a satisfying lamb dish. I used chicken broth, rather than lamb stock, given what I had on hand. Peeling and pitting those green plums is a LOT of work. I probably won't repeat that effort. Of course, this cookbook is more a set of ingredients with some skeletal steps, so how to use the green plums was unclear. I googled this ingredient and think I did the right thing in peeling them, but who really knows?

  • ExploringTheTurkishKitchen on July 18, 2020

    A totally new taste discovery for me, I’ve been wanting to try this for a good while but my husband wasn’t keen on the idea, it's so tasty, although seeds and skins of the little green plums make for hard work (If you’ve ever had Erik hosafi you know what I mean) but that flavour wow. Spicy, sweet, sour yum!

• Spiced meat-topped flatbread (Lahmacun 1 [gaziantep])

  • mjes on August 27, 2021

    I skipped the baked aubergines as I was searching for a base recipe similar to that taught by a Kurdish-Turkish cooking instructor. This is very similar. I used Allepo pepper for the red chilli flakes and ajvar for the red bell pepper paste. I was not terribly successful at expanding the dough after applying the toppings so the base as a little thicker than I prefer. An excellent recipe.

• Bulgur wheat soup (Bulgur aşi çorbasi)

  • Indio32 on March 16, 2022

    Had a large work lunch and am home alone tonight. This soup is a real go to for a light, quick and tasty meal. Super easy to make. What's not to like?

• Fried tomatoes (Domates tavasi)

  • ExploringTheTurkishKitchen on August 25, 2020

    Absolutely wonderful dish. Lovely spicy background and bursting with flavour. I imagine this could be so disappointing with out of season tomatoes - but they're in their prime now and what a wonderful treat this turned out to be.

• Veiled rice pilaf (Perde pilavi)

  • ExploringTheTurkishKitchen on January 23, 2020

    The least favourite of the recipes I've made from this book so far. I substituted chicken for the partridge and didn't have almonds but the yufka dough wouldn't come together and I had to increase the flour. The mahlep was overpowering. A shame as I have eaten some wonderful perde pilavis previously. C

• Sour lentil soup (Ekşili malhuta çorba)

  • jenburkholder on February 22, 2021

    I enjoyed this, although I'll admit I took liberties with the recipe. Subbed chard for spinach, and added significantly more of it. Added more bulgur and slightly less dried mint. I also cooked it a lot less - almost a full hour for red lentils is ridiculously unnecessary. The tart lemon and dried mint flavour is one of my favorite combinations.

• İzmir-style meatballs (İzmir köftesi)

  • Stephenn31 on January 16, 2023

    Turned out OK. Meatballs were nice and juicy. Not as much flavour as I had hoped and the tomato sauce was a bit thin

• Eat Your Books by Jenny Hartin

  A brilliant tome that captures the traditions and recipes of Turkish cuisine.

  Full review