Keşke

My grandfather, the esteemed Memli Seven, is infamous among those close to him for being difficult to please. I’d say that for his whole life, whenever the discussion turns to food he actually enjoys eating, he becomes extremely finicky. So maybe you can guess how huge a step it was for me, but in the quest to give life to Kurdish cuisine, I had to pass a most difficult test.

Two weeks ago, we gathered over a meal of that quintessential Kurdish dish, keşke. I had gotten the recipe first from my mother and then my aunt, adding a few of my own flourishes. Dede was also over that evening for dinner. He devoured the first bites without comment or expression--and also, without cease. Then he said, ‘I want this, too.’ In other words, I would be allowed to come to his house and prepare it for him! As almost an afterthought, he said ‘It’s delicious!’

I nearly fell out of my chair.

I repeated the recipe this afternoon, taking careful measurements to make sure of everything, and decided to put it up on my blog. So here it is, the apparently miracle-working recipe for keşke.  

Keşke (Keshke)

Ingredients (serves 3)

·         1 cup bulgur wheat (200 g)

·         2 cups slightly plain sour yoghurt (400 g)

·         3 cups water (600 ml)

·         2 tablespoons wheat flour (40 g)

·         1 teaspoon salt (10 g)

·         4 tablespoons butter (50 g)

1. Whisk well the yoghurt, water, salt and flour and pour the mixture into a deep pot.

2.    Add the bulgur wheat and turn on the heat. Cook half-covered over a high heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3.  After a while, the mixture will assume the consistency of a soup and start to boil. Reduce flame to medium and continue cooking for another 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Turn off the flame, cover, and let sit for 5 minutes.

4.     Pour the keşke into a wide, deep serving bowl and open a large hole in the middle. Melt the butter and pour it into the hole.  Eat with a spoon, scooping some of the butter together with the keşke..

Bulgur

Note 1: The yoghurt should be slightly sour to soften the effects of the butter. If you are cooking in the West, I would buy a high quality yoghurt from a Greek or Turkish grocery.

Bulgur

Note 2: Dishes made with flour and bulgur stick easily to the bottom of the pot.  Be careful!

Winter Rice Soup (Gêrmiya Şîr)

As everyone has noticed, winter is here early this year. For those of you who, after dragging yourselves home from a tiring days work, would like to be greeted with the aroma of a warm, homemade soup, I submit this recipe. 

Ingredients

•  2 cups milk (400 ml)
• 1/2 cup white rice (100g)
• 5 cups water (1litre)
• 1 level tsp salt

Preparation:

1. Wash and drain the rice.
2. Place the water in a deep pot, add the salt and rice, and cook on a high flame for 25 minutes. To prevent the pot from overflowing, leave the lid off or slightly ajar.
3. When the rice is cooked, add the milk and simmer another 10 minutes over a medium heat.
Bon Appetit! Noşi Can Be!

What's Cooking in Kurdish Cuisine?

Dear Readers,

Before I started sticking up recipes, I decided to go out into the street and see if people knew anything about Kurdish cuisine. I had quite an interesting experience. For example, a good number of people mentioned kebab, which is funny, because usually when Turkish people are explaining their own cuisine to foreigners, the first thing they say is kebab. Now here they were telling me kebabs were Kurdish. A lot of people answered ‘Beans and rice.’ These people, even though I asked in a very loud voice, always thought I said ‘Turkish food’. Basically, their brains were closed to the very idea of a ‘Kurdish’ food. The only people who could list any of the true Kurdish dishes (like meftune, keledosh, avsir, or braised lamb) were Kurds themselves. 

Let me emphasize, except for one man who said ‘The Kurds have their own food? Please!’ (and you can probably guess who this is in the video), I did not have any negative reactions to my question.  Quite the reverse, from the moment they heard my question, they started to ponder hard over a question that they probably had never thought about before.

The thing that impressed me most was the answer of the young man who appears at the very end and the very beginning of the video: ‘If we just talk, just like this, everything would be wonderful.’

Hello

         About ten thousand years ago, a people worn out from hunting and gathering settled down in Mesopatomia on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. My people. They tamed animals, they plowed fields, they invented tools and passed into a sedentary life. Today, you find the ruins of their first attempts at civilization in Göbeklitepe in Urfa,  and Çayönü in Diyarbakır. Those people are the ancestors of the

Kurds who now so desperately try to affirm their existence on this same land. Of course, they possess a cuisine that cannot be disentangled from these millienia of historical development.

          There is so little information out there about what is cooking in those kitchens and just where that delicious-smelling smoke is coming from pouring out of the chimneys.

        I am creating this blog so I can share everything I am discovering about our cuisine. I want to open the way for the new generation to learn these dishes, and by cooking, bring this culture to life and introduce it to the world. To that end, I am writing this blog in English, Kurdish, and Turkish. I hope to add other languages in the future, and eagerly await your comments, opinions, and recipes.

         Bon Appetit!

Lobiyên Çêkirî (Kurdish Stewed Beans)

Ingredients

• 1 kg (2 pounds) fresh green beans
• 6 cloves garlic
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 level tablespoon salt

1. Take the strings out of the beans and cut the ends off.  Wash them thoroughly in plenty of water and drain. Cut beans into two or three pieces. Place the beans in a wide, deep pot and fill with water until it just covers the beans. Boil for 35 to 40 minutes on medium heat. Drain the cooked beans. (I highly recommend reserving a bit of the water)
2. Crush the garlic and salt together thoroughly with a mortar and pestle. Add a few teaspoons of the reserved water from the beans and mix well.
3. Pour the oil into the pot.  When the oil is lightly heated, add the beans, then the garlic mixture. Stir gently, taking care not to break the beans.
4. Last, add the eggs and gently stir into the beans as they cook so that they are distributed evenly throughout.

Noşî can be (Bon Appetit)!