Saturday Night’s ‘Sultan’s Favorite’ Dinner Party

This weekend’s special was Turkish cuisine for a dinner party of six at Lazy Cooks’. We were excited again to take out our oldest and the best Turkish cook book ‘Ekrem Yegen’ from the shelf and start cooking Hunkar Begendi Kebabi (Sultan’s Favorite Kebab with mashed eggplant) and Zeytinyagli Fasulye (green beans cooked in olive oil) after a brief beach session followed by a supermarket run on a not so hot Saturday morning.

our Ekrem Yegen book

We bought around 1.2 kg of cubed lamb for the kebab; three big size eggplants, shredded mozzarella cheese, plain flour and milk for the eggplant mash; and 1 kg Lebanese green beans that you can find in Waitrose (not the long, thin ones) which are very close to our 'Ayse kadin fasulye'.

First we fried one onion in a big pot with 50 gr butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil (this is much less than what Ekrem uses) and added the cubed three medium size tomatoes. We added the meat with one glass of boiled water and started to cook which lasted for about two hours. But here the trick is adding a glass of boiled water every time the water is reduced in the pot to keep the meat tender and soft and juicy. So don’t forget to check it every 10 minutes like we did! (At the end of 1.5 hours we saved the lamb just before it was burned and had to transfer to another pot and continue cooking for a little bit more. I think here it lost a little bit of its tomato juice!). We added oregano to the lamb while it was cooking.

In the mean time, we started to char the eggplants over the stove and prepare the mash. For this we put 3 tablespoon flour and some butter to a medium sized pot and stir them at low heat for 2 minutes until the mixture turned into a golden color (and left aside). We added the charred and mashed eggplants to this mixture while vigorously stirring and returned the pot to the heat with 2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 liter warm milk. The milk should be added really slowly. Later, 100 gr shredded mozzarella and some parmesan cheese were added to the mash.

stirring the eggplant mash

After taking out the sides and the edges, we organized the green beans inside the pressure cooker on top of two onion halves. And added two whole gloves of garlic, 2 medium sized tomatoes (shredded), ½ cup water and ½ cup olive oil, salt and pepper. This way the beans are cooked in about 15-20 minutes. We transferred them to the serving plate and left for cooling.

green beans in the pressure cooker

green beans cooked

The most suitable side dish to the kebab would of course be plain white rice. With an advice from Ayse Aksit, we added roasted pine nuts (frying the pine nuts with a knob of butter) on top of the rice for decoration.

Sultan's Favorite with rice

We had another lovely dinner with Martins and Jabours (see our Lebanese dinner with them). A bottle of very nice Lebanese red wine went very well with our Sultan’s Favorite and towards the end of the night with the coffees we had tel kadayif (a dessert made with pistachios and shredded dough) with pistachio ice cream from Mado* and ‘koeksisters’ (a very delicious sweets of South African origin).

* Mado

Spinach and "never had it like this" Steak

Couple of days ago during the office hours, suddenly I craved for spinach (but not the raw spinach salad). They say, if you crave for something, your body generally needs it. So we went ahead with the urge and for our small dinner party on Saturday night we cooked spinach as a side dish to the grilled ribeye/sirloin steaks with two different sauces. Peanut sauce at the bottom and salsa sauce on the top of the medium rare grilled steaks.

peanut & spices are toasted for the peanut sauce

salsa verde

The sauces (the recipe from Jamie Oliver) were prepared an hour ahead. As you see, there are lots of ingredients, especially lots of spices. We were a bit doubtful at this stage about this fiesta of different tastes but no need to worry as they all workout wonderful together.

The spinach leaves first washed 17 times as it came with mud, and then are fried on a large pan with couple of tablespoons of olive oil while stirring them with a fork holding a clove of garlic. In about 5-7 minutes they were cooked and seasoned with salt and pepper.

And we decided to cook the potato-pea mash (see the recipe) as another side dish to add a bit of carbohydrate to the picture..

Just before sitting on the table, we grilled the steaks on our good old heavy griddle pan; 2 minutes each side for medium-rare (or 3 for medium). And after grilling, we rubbed the steaks with the cut side of the garlic clove and whipped it with rosemary for more flavors (tip from Jamie).

The steaks are served sliced on top of peanut sauce and the salsa sauce comes on top as you like it.

Delicioso! The salsa sauce adds a freshness and lightness to the steaks on top of the intense flavor of the peanut sauce. And it made us feel we are having a supper in the backyard on a breezy summer afternoon. And yes my craving for spinach was fulfilled..

'1 steak 2 sauces' from Jamie Oliver

A happy comforting breakfast

We woke up on this hot Saturday morning hungry and thought about going out for a breakfast as a change. But then considering our options for breakfast places we like (not many), we decided to scan our 'Comfort' book and spend this shiny happy morning in our kitchen. The bacon-potato frittata cooked in muffin cups was the most tempting to all of us and Alp was quickly engaged in the making of it while the rest of us were still in pj's walking around the house aimlessly.

All you need for the frittata are eggs, potatoes, some pieces of bacon and crème fraiche (no butter, no oil). For 12 frittatas, you need 3 potatoes peeled and cut into cubes boiled until tender, 6 eggs, 200 gr of creme fraiche and 30 grams of grated parmesan cheese for the mixture. Now, first potatoes go into the muffin cups, after that the bacon pieces (as much as you like). Then the egg mixture is divided on top and they go into the 180 degree heated oven for 20 - 25 minutes. They are easy to cook, light and so tasty.. 

Definitely, no need to struggle for a breakfast table in an ordinary Dubai café where you can’t even sit outside as the humidity in here has not stopped yet!

Comfort by Tina Bester (Queen of Tarts)

Seafood Pasta Extravaganza

After many discussions, it’s decided that this Thursday night’s special at LazyCooks’ kitchen will be rigatoni with shrimp, calamari and basil from Bon Appétit. For the shopping, we went to our favorite supermarket (Waitrose) to buy 250 gr large shrimps, 200 gr cleaned calamari, leeks, fresh basil and pecorino cheese. We love the fish/seafood sections in the markets. Even if we’re not buying we must have a look and funnily our 4 year old daughter as well.

After reserving half of the shrimps and calamari, we chopped the other halves and put them in the processor. We’ve never cooked calamari before so we’re a bit excited.

Shrimp and calamari mixture is sautéed along with the vegetables.. The sauce unfortunately is cooked without the clam juice but fish stock with some white wine was a perfect substitute (we think!).

The reserved shrimps and calamari sizzling…and thrown in to the pasta with the cheese and basil to be tossed….

And thank you Bon Appétit. This seafood pasta was probably the best we've ever cooked..

Rigatoni with Shrimp, Calamari and Basil - Bon Appetit

Rivington Grill rocks...

Last year as a family tradition we were going to Rivington Grill almost every Saturday for lunch. Sometimes only three of us, sometimes with friends. I had a thing with their warm salmon & potato salad and pinot blanc and Alp loves their meat dishes and interesting beers and Asli's favorite is kids’ fish&chips. I don’t know why we stopped but Rivington is one of our favorite restaurants in Dubai.

So last night we went there for dinner happily. We sat inside and actually we prefer the atmosphere inside even when the weather is nice and the fantastic fountain show is on every half an hour (this is another story). We even like sitting at the bar for dinner (when we are two) watching the dynamic kitchen. It was packed on a weekday night so I guess Rivington became one of the ‘in’ restaurants in Dubai with its food and atmosphere.

The menu was a little bit changed. There were some interesting additions. We had an interesting sweetbread and mushroom dish (which was among the specials of the day) and a leek&pea soup which came with a divine hot scone besides. I was a bit suspicious about the soup by its appearance but it was really tasty (we generally share a starter and have main for each but I guess we were really hungry this time).

The mains (lamb chop and another special of the day – chicken with some strangely called mushrooms) were just great.

Of course no place left for their famous sticky toffee pudding but everyone should try this at least once. It is soo good..

http://www.rivingtongrill.ae/

Roasted Salmon for Hotel LaLaLa'a Special Guest

I don’t know if you’ve heard about virtual L. Gaga visiting the funkiest boutique hotel in the blogosphere recently – Hotel LaLaLa. Well if you haven’t, we urge you to check http://hotellalala.blogspot.com immediately. We as lazy cooks were flattered when the hotel manager (Asli) asked us to cook a special seafood dish for Gaga. We decided to go for roasted salmon as it seemed to us she likes fish looking at her gorgeous dress in LaLaLa! 

We went to our usual organic supermarket to get a fresh, good quality salmon fillet, creme fraiche, a fennel bulb and some fresh herbs for roasting. For this, we seasoned the salmon with salt and pepper, squeezed in some sliced fennels within the fish, spread some crème fraiche over it (not too much) and finally sprinkled some fresh herbs on top (parsley, mint, basil in our case, thyme would be great but it was out of stock). The fish will be cooked in generally 15-20 minutes until the center is translucent (cut the thickest part of the fillet to see) as an overcooked salmon is just a waste. 

This very simple-to-prepare dish is actually very tasty so we hope Miss Gaga enjoys her fish with a potato and pea mash on the side. For this we peeled and sliced the potatoes, boiled them in salty water. When they are cooked, we put them in a pan along with 1.5 glasses of milk, a knob of butter and some frozen peas to simmer for couple of minutes and to be mashed together. But not with a food processor as it should be coarse and of course seasoned with salt and pepper.

Bon appetite Miss Gaga!

We love you Eren Spaghetti Bolognese

Today is a very special day to lazy cooks. And on such a special day instead of crying ‘why we are not with Eren on his 30th birthday as there are thousand miles between us’, we decided to cook one of his favorite foods (and lazy cooks’ as well) and celebrate his 30th with a huge Spaghetti Bolognese and a very good bottle of red wine.

This special dish is a classic for the lazy cook kitchen especially for the Saturday evenings when the weekend is over and we invite over couple of friends and start to cook early as the sauce needs to be cooked for at least two hours for all the ingredients to be blended and so you cannot distinguish while you’re eating where the bacon is or the mushroom or the celery within the sauce. I cannot remember which recipe we were using in the beginning. I think with each bolognese recipe we saw, we added a new feature. 

So we fried pancetta in melted butter for 5-6 min, then added onions, garlic and continued frying for a few more minutes. Added chopped carrot and celery; tucked in the bay leaves and cooked for another five minutes. Then we put in the beef and broke with a fork; fried for a few more minutes, then added the tomatoes, stock, wine and spices. This is cooked on low heat (barely bubbling) for an hour. Then we added the cream and cooked for another half hour. And the pasta was cooked al dente and ta-daaa... Ah, of course lots of grated cheese.

Happy birthday Eren. 30s are the best (seriously). We love you and looking forward to building our voltran again ‘iki su bir misir (or iki misir!)’ very very soon.

Ingredients for 4

- 70 gr of cubed pancetta

- 1 carrot

- 2 sticks of celery

- 1 medium onion

- 2 cloves of garlic

- 1 good quality canned tomato

- 500 gr minced beef or lamb (or combination)

- grated nutmeg

- few bay leaves

- some oregano

- 200 ml red wine

- 200 ml vegetable stock (cubes are fine)

- 100 gr mushrooms

- 150 ml of cooking cream

- 50 gr butter

- grated pecorino or Parmesan