Izmir Tower Clock | Zurna

The iconic clock tower of Izmir was depicted on the reverse of Turkish 500 Lira banknotes back in the eighties. The clock was a gift from German Kaiser Wilhelm II to Abdülhamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire… The tower however was designed by Raymond Charles Père, a Levantine French architect and constructed in 1901 to commemorate the silver jubilee anniversary of the Sultan’s accession to the throne.

The decorations are primarily Elaborate Ottoman architecture. The skeleton of the tower is lead and iron stands at 82ft and features 4 fountains or şadırvan around the base in a circle. The columns are inspired by Moorish themes.

In the former Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in present-day Serbian, Bosnian and Montenegrin towns such as Belgrade, Prijepolje, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Gradačac and Stara Varoš, similar Ottoman era clock towers still exist and are called Sahat Kula (derived from the Turkish words Saat Kulesi, meaning Clock Tower.

About Izmir, Victor Hugo in Les Orientales says:
‘İzmir is a princess with her most beautiful hat.’

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Turkish Cay | Restaurants in Jumeirah - Zurna

The famous Black tea is referred to as çay… pronounced as chai… just like the Indians refer to their favourite beverage. It’s taken without the addition on milk and is produced on the eastern Black Sea coast.
This produce needs mild climate, high precipitation and fertile soil. Tea is cultivated in the Rize Province on the Black Sea coast.

This produce needs mild climate, high precipitation and fertile soil. Tea is cultivated in the Rize Province on the Black Sea coast.

cay is brewed in a caydanlik… a typical double stacked kettle.

Turkey produced close to 200,000 tonnes of tea which makes up about 6.4% of the total tea production, making it one of the largest tea producing nations. As a nation it consumes at least 120000 tonnes of tea and the rest is set for export. Turkey had the highest per capita tea consumption in the world at 2.5kg per person in 2004 beating the UK at 2.1kg per person.

Water is brought to a boil in the larger lower kettle and then some of the water is used to fill the smaller kettle on top and steep (brew) several spoons of loose tea leaves, producing a very strong tea. While serving, the remaining water is used to dilute the tea on an individual basis, giving each consumer the choice between strong: Koyu literally “Dark”, Tavsan Kani meaning rabbit’s blood a weak deep brownish red referred to as açik or light. Its drunk from small glasses, enjoyed hot showing its color with cubes of beet sugar or kesme şeker.

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Turkish Restaurants in Dubai - Pastirma! Part II

Istanbul and Adana are the provinces with the largest consumption. The meat undergoes a series of processes lasting about a month. The freshly slaughtered meat rests at room temperature for 4-8 hours before being divided into joints suitable for pastirma making. These are slashed and salted on one side, stacked, and left for around 24 hours. They are then salted on the other side, stacked and left for a further 24 hours. Then the joints are rinsed in plenty of water to remove the excess salt, and dried in the open air for a period varying between three and ten days, depending on the weather. After some further processing, the meat is hung up to dry again, this time in the shade and spaced out so that the joints do not a touch one another. After 3-6 days, they are covered with a paste of ground spices known as çemen, and left to cure for 10-24 hours in hot weather, and 1-2 days in cold weather.

 Yemen is composed of crushed classical fenugreek seeds, garlic and chilli pepper mixed to a paste with a little water. Çemen paste is also sold separately as a savoury paste for spreading on bread. When buying pastirma, note that the redder the colour, the fresher the pastirma. Over time it takes on a browner tone, and becomes firmer in texture. Good quality pastirma, whether fresh or mature, is delicious, and it is only a matter of taste which you prefer. Gourmets do not approve of pastirma sliced by machine but insist on the thin slices being cut by hand with a sharp meat knife. They also reject ready cut slices of pastirma as sold packaged in some delicatessens and supermarkets. Pastirma is delicious with fresh crusty bread, grilled lightly over charcoal, fried in butter with eggs or in layered pastry börek. Bean stew with pieces of pastirma is another popular dish in Turkey. 

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Pastirma! Part 1 | Dubai Turkish Restaurant Zurna

The Turkish horsemen of Central Asia used to preserve meat by placing slabs of it in pockets on the sides of their saddles, where it would be pressed by their legs as they rode. This pressed meat was the forerunner of today’s pastirma, a term which literally means ‘being pressed’ in Turkish, and is the origin of the Italian pastrami. Pastirma is a kind of cured beef, the most famous being that made in the town of Kayseri in central Turkey.

The 17th century Turkish writer Evliya Çelebi praised the spiced beef pastirma of Kayseri in his Book of Travels, and Kayseri pastirma is still regarded as the finest of all. Good quality pastirma is a delicacy with a wonderful flavour, which may be served in slices as a cold hors d’oeuvre or cooked with eggs, tomatoes and so on.
 
The different cuts of meat produce different types of pastirma, 19 varieties from a medium-sized animal and 26 from a large. Extra fine qualities are those made from the fillet and contre-fillet, fine qualities are made from cuts like the shank, leg, tranche and shoulder, and second quality from the leg, brisket, flank, neck and similar cuts. The many tons of pastirma produced in Kayseri is almost all sold for domestic consumption all over Turkey.

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Dolmas - Zurna

To ‘be stuffed’ or not ‘to be stuffed’?

Turkish verb Dolmak “means to be stuffed” that transforms to the verbal noun ‘Dolma’… basically meaning stuffed thing. Its eaten either as a Mezze or a main dish, and can be cooked as a veggie or a meat dish. The meat version is usually served hot with yogurt and spices like oregano and red peppers with oil. Dolmas have a highly regarded spot in Turkish Cuisine.

The kind made with vine leaves stuffed with a rice-spice mixture and cooked with olive oil is called Zeytinyağlı dolma. These don’t contain meat and are sometimes referred to as ‘Sarma’, meaning ‘wrapping’ in Turkish. They are usually served cold. Meatless dolmas are referred to as ‘yalancı’, which means ‘fake’ dolma. Zeytinyağlı dolma from the Ottoman cuisine is usually sweeten by adding dried fruit like figs, cherries and cinnamon to the mixture. Vine leaves or yaprak filled with meat and rice are called etli yaprak sarma, usually served hot with yogurt. There are also some dessert sarma, like fistik sarma (wrapped pistachios).

Melon dolma along with quince or apple dolma was one of the palace’s specialties. Raw melon stuffed with minced meat, onion, rice, almonds and cooked in an oven. Contemporary dolma recipes constitute mainly of courgette (“kabak”), aubergine (“patlıcan”), tomato (“domates”), pumpkin (“balkabağı”), pepper (“biber”), cabbage (“lahana”) (black or white cabbage), chard (“pazı”) and mussel (“midye”). Palace cuisines have now started replacing dried cherries with currants that now constitute the fillings of dolmas cooked in olive oil. A different type of dolma is mumbar dolması, for which the membrane of intestines of sheep is filled up with a spicy rice-nut mixture.

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Kitchen of the Imperial Palace - Zurna

The importance of culinary art for the Ottoman Sultans is evident to every visitor of Topkapi Palace. The huge kitchens were housed in several buildings under ten domes. By the 17th century, some thirteen hundred kitchen staff were housed in the Palace. Hundreds of cooks, specializing in different categories of dishes such as soups, pilafs, turkish kebaps, vegetables, fish, breads, pastries, candy and helva, syrup and jams and beverages, fed as much as ten thousand people a day, and in addition, sent trays of food to others in the City as a royal favor.

The importance of food has been also evident in the structure of the Ottoman military elite, the Janissaries. The commanders of the main divisions were known as the Soupmen, other high ranking officers were the Chief Cook, Scullion, Baker, and Pancake Maker, though their function had little to do with these titles. The huge cauldron used to make pilaf had a special symbolic significance for the Janissaries, as the central focus of each division. The kitchen was also the centre of politics, for whenever the Janissaries demanded a change in the Sultan’s Cabinet, or the head of a grand vizier, they would overturn their pilaf cauldron. “Overturning the cauldron,” is an expression still used today to indicate a rebellion in the ranks.

It was in this environment that hundreds of the Sultans’ chefs, who dedicated their lives to their profession, developed and perfected the dishes of the Turkish Cuisine, which was then adopted by the kitchens of the provinces ranging from the Balkans to Southern Russia, reaching Northern Africa. Istanbul was the capital of the world and had all the prestige, so that its ways were imitated. At the same time, it was supported by an enormous organization and infrastructure which enabled all the treasures of the world to flow into it. The provinces of the vast Empire were integrated by a system of trade routes with refreshing caravanserais for the weary merchants and security forces. The Spice Road, the most important factor in culinary history, was under the full control of the Sultan. Only the best ingredients were allowed to be traded under the strict standards established by the courts.

Following the example of the Palace, all of the grand Ottoman houses boasted elaborate kitchens and competed in preparing feasts for each other as well as the general public. In fact, in each neighborhood, at least one household would open its doors to anyone who happened to stop by for dinner during the holy month of Ramadan, or during other festive occasions. And this is how the traditional Cuisine evolved and spread, even to the most modest corners of the country.