The delights of Turkish markets

When I'm travelling and arrive somewhere new, my first excursion is usually to check out the local food market, even if it means getting up unfeasibly early. I love a good market. I always think you can get under the skin of a place by seeing the fresh food on display, what's in season here, what breads do they have, what local cheeses? Abroad, even the most provincial market tends to put anything in the UK to shame. 

I was lucky enough to be in Turkey last week, in that in-between time when the last of the summer sun is still strong, but it can also pour down with rain. In Istanbul, the tourist crowds were still out in force in the Grand Bazaar and Spice Markets, drinking in the colours, sounds and sweet-spicy aromas from the produce on display.

The temptation to buy up bags of differently coloured spices, from coriander, cumin, Turkish saffron (dried marigold flowers), jasmine tea, or an aphrodisiac mixture - plenty of herb blends labelled 'viagra' - or to bring home a string of aubergine shells or dried okra was overwhelming.

We ate well in Istanbul, picnicking on mackerel sandwiches beside the Galata Bridge, where the fish are caught, filleted and grilled on the boats bobbing alongside the quay, before the fillets are stuffed into baps with salad for you. Trays of lemon juice, jars of pickles, and seasonings are brought round the tables to accompany this freshest of fast food snacks.

The best restaurant was easily the Lokanta Maya, just on the north side of the Galata Bridge, and serving modern Mediterranean/Aegean food, with an emphasis on fresh seasonal produce. Zucchini fritters, deep-fried anchovies, and smoked sea bream set exactly the right note, and dinner ended on a high note with the sublime chocolate and bergamot ice-cream.

At Lokanta Maya we also picked up a copy of Aegean Flavours, the cookbook by the restaurant's New York-trained chef Didem Şenol, which also concentrates on just-out-of-the-ground, or just-off-the-tree, produce, giving many recipes a modern Aegean twist. 

At the end of the summer season, a trip out to the provinces means you can browse happily through the local markets with room to move. The market at Yalikavak, on the Bodrum peninsula, has always been a delight – fresh seasonal produce piled high and beautifully presented. It’s not just me who thinks so: I was delighted to see that the market at Yalikavak gets its own chapter in Aegean Flavours.

By October, the Yalikavak market takes on an autumnal air, with apples, pears, pumpkins, alongside the courgette flowers. The sheer variety of produce is stunning, with aubergines, say, in pink, mauve, deep purple, short, round, or long. Or a stall devoted entirely to different kinds of grapes.

We were looking for bergamots, to recreate Didem Şenol’s chocolate and bergamot pairing. But while there were plenty of citrus, with lemons, limes, and mandalins [sic], bergamots won’t come until nearer the end of the year. 

We did come away with a good haul of fat aubergines, Turkish radishes, greens and local cheeses, ready to be mixed and dressed into mezes and salads.

Babaganoush

2 good-sized aubergines

1 clove garlic

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Tahini (optional)

Sit one of the aubergines on its bottom so that it fits snugly on a gas ring. Turn the gas on medium-high and let the aubergine skin char. It will turn papery and brown or back. Turn the aubergine carefully over the flame until it’s charred all over, then place in a bowl. Do the same for the second aubergine.

Once the aubergines are cool enough to handle, strip or rub off the burnt skin and discard, leaving just the flesh in the bowl. This is a messy business, so you might want to wear Marigolds.

Mash the aubergine flesh thoroughly with a fork.

Heat a little olive oil in a pan. Crush the garlic and add to the pan, keeping the heat very low so that the garlic doesn’t catch or brown. As soon as it starts a gentle sizzle, remove from the heat and add to the aubergine flesh. Mix in well, adding a little more olive oil to get a soft and silky texture. Add salt and pepper to taste, then you can also add a level tablespoonful of tahini. This will give the babaganoush a bit more depth and a softer flavour. Leave it out if you want the smoky notes of the aubergine to come through more strongly.

Pomegranate, melon and tulum peyniri

Half a pomegranate

Quarter melon

200g tulum peyniri (Turkish goat's cheese), or a reasonably hard goat's cheese, or feta

Olive oil

Pomegranate molasses

Mint leaves (optional)

Salt (maybe)

Pick out the seeds and juice from the pomegranate into a bowl. Cut both the melon and the cheese into 1cm cubes. Add to the pomegranate seeds, and toss together. Dress with the pomegranate molasses and olive oil, and taste to see if any salt is needed to bring out the flavours. The cheese may make it salty enough already. Garnish with mint leaves to serve.

Ready for picking: from the tree to the plate in approximately one minute.

Salad of Turkish radishes

Gherkin-sized cucumbers and beetroot-sized radishes.

I make this at home with my long purple winter radishes from the allotment, but it tastes perfectly summery with these crisp crimson Turkish radishes, so big they are doppelgangers for beetroot.

3 beetroot-sized radishes

Extra virgin olive oil

Pomegranate molasses

1 teasp coarse sea salt

A handful of fresh dill

Wash and scrub the radishes, and peel them if you'd rather. They look more attractive on the plate with the pink skin on, but it can be a bit tough. Slice the radishes as finely as possible into almost transparent discs and arrange on a large plate. Sprinkle with the salt, and leave for 5-10 minutes.

Drizzle with olive oil and pomegranate molasses. Just before serving, finely chop the dill leaves, discarding the stalks, and scatter over the radishes.

Chilli Sunday

If it’s the end of February half-term then it must be Sowing Sunday. This is the day which marks the start of the growing year for me, when the first chillies, aubergines, tomatoes and lemon grass are sown indoors. The chillies need to get off to an early start for what will hopefully be a nice long growing season this year. I’ve sown these in modules – two seeds per modules – and the trays are in a heated propagator right next to a bay window. The window is north-facing but gets lots of light. It’s a method that has always worked well although I always worry that this year nothing will germinate until I see the tiny green loops peep above the surface.

From left to right: Caldero, Cayenne chillies drying out, Black Hungarian

The chillies are a) Cayenne, because the plants are heavy croppers, and the fruit are not too hot. They dry well and can be used to pep up so many dishes; b) Hot Lemon, because the combination of citrus+fire is irresistible. These are amazing sliced wafer-thin in salads, or stirred into Asian style soups at the last-minute, or made into a hot and slippery chilli jelly; c) Fish Pepper, because they are such attractive plants, producing multi-coloured, very pungent fruit (and because I had to pick most of them green last year – I want to see what they will be like in a  good year); d) Black Hungarian for their gorgeous deep aubergine-purple colour and fruity flavour; e) Caldero, because they are mild and juicy and a beautiful eau-de-nil colour that slowly ripens to red like a tequila sunrise; f) Pimientos de Padron because I can fry them up and pretend I’m in a backstreet bar somewhere in Galicia; and g) Roberto’s, a Cuban chilli I’ve never grown before, but again, is meant to be flavoursome rather than merely fiery.

Some early tomatoes (Black Russian, Marmande, Razzleberry) went in at the same time and they are up already. Also just beginning to show are a few aubergines, the last remaining seeds from a batch bought two years ago, which I sowed into the spare modules once the tomatoes were done. Both tomatoes and aubergines have been moved, still under cover, but unheated, to a south-facing window to grow on. From now until May, every windowsill in the house will be commandeered by seed trays and pots until I can trust the night temperatures and start moving seedlings out into the patio greenhouse.

Next weekend I’ll start off a couple of pots of Genovese basil – too early really. I think basil needs stronger light levels. But in a month’s time, they will take off and I should be able to start picking by the end of April.

Aubergine mix – don’t do it

Aubergines have always grown reasonably well on my sheltered patio. I’m sure the yields would be greater if the sun shone more consistently, but we have enough to enjoy for around a month at the end of summer. This year, thinking I should expand my aubergine horizons, I tried a pack of mixed seeds from Mr Fothergill’s. I always like the lucky dip aspect of mixed packets – you get to sample a load of different varieties without wastage.

So, the plants all grew and I ended up keeping more than I would normally do because I was scared of giving away – or throwing out – a plant that might be the only example of its type. Anyway, we ended up with four different varieties cropping.

These ...

... were nice, if a bit dull. These ...

... had a really good, almost sweet (for an aubergine) flavour, and these fruits ...

... grew to a good size. 

And then there were these ...

  

I wasn’t even sure if these were aubergines. They looked more like mutant tomatoes - easy to see how the two plants are related. And so small: it hardly seemed worth getting the blender out to make baba ganoush with this little lot. Wondering how best to cook and eat them, I hit Google and identified them as (left) Solanum melongena, or Striped Toga aubergine (although that one in the foreground is definitely a mutant), and (right) Solanum aethiopicum.  And discovered that nearly everyone thinks they’re bitter to the point of inedibility - see Amishland Heritage Seeds, for example.