There are several meatball recipes in Turkish cuisine, and the most common one is this Classic Meatballs. Kadinbudu kofte has a significant place among all other meatballs with its unique recipe since it contains cooked rice and its cooking method is different from others. It’s first coated with flour then with beaten egg and fried, resulting in a golden color.

Kadinbudu kofte has a golden and a bit crunchy crust and it is tender inside. Rice inside gives a very nice texture and its flavor is so compatible with ground beef. It is generally served with french fries and Ayran is the best drink to have with the combination of these two!

It is served either cold or warm, so it is the only meatball in our cuisine which can be served cold. It is also considered as a kind of mezze to pair with Turkish raki, and you can find it at delicatessen sections of markets. I personally prefer having it warm first and then make cold sandwiches from leftovers for a later meal. These meatballs are scrumptious in both ways!

Since they are still so good when cold, these meatballs make a perfect picnic food too! You can prepare sandwiches with kadinbudu kofte and enjoy it at a park along a river! That would be a real treat!

The post Turkish Kadinbudu Kofte appeared first on Give Recipe.

Puff pastry is called milfoy hamuru in Turkish and sold in square shapes in packages at markets. So it’s almost ready to be baked! What you need to do is just preparing the filling and sealing them. They are ready just in less than half an hour! It’s quite easy to make anything with puff pastry.

It’s always a great treat for unexpected guests too, so having some extra puff pastry squares in freezer always works!

Puff pastry borek is quite fluffy and I think it’s better when hot! Since it’s so easy to make, I recommend you to make it right before eating.

I prepared a filling with feta and pastirma, which is a kind of Turkish spicy dried beef. If you can’t find pastirma in your area, chopped sausages work fine too! If you don’t want any meat in your borek, then just skip it. You can combine cheese with herbs too! Or you can just create your own filling with your favorite ingredients.

If you don’t have square shape puff pastry in your area, you can just cut it into squares or use it as is.

I love the combined flavors of cheese and pastirma! My husband thinks that 2 slices are not enough, he is a big fan of this spicy dried meat.

Seal it very well with your fingers so that no filling will ooze out!

You will have to wait just for 20 minutes to enjoy these puff pastry pockets!

The post Puff Pastry Pockets appeared first on Give Recipe.

You can see doner restaurants everywhere around the country and it has varieties. Some make it with veggies, some make it plain. Some roast it over wood fire, some use coal fire. Some make it with a mixture of ground beef and lamb, some use just lamb, which is our favorite! Among all these kinds of doner, you might think that it is hard to choose one. I recommend you to taste each every time you’re hungry! 

Well, I do love to make things at home, but doner is an exception. It is so good at restaurants and I’m afraid I can’t reach their greatness at home!

We have a small doner restaurant 2 streets away from our home and their doner is just addictive! When we work hard on cooking something for GiveRecipe and taking its pictures, we might forget to cook our lunch! I think we sometimes do it deliberately since we know where to have good lunch!

This doner restaurant is not a very famous one and it is not a chain restaurant, just a small local one, which makes it so special! It has its own fans though and you should be prepared to wait in line during lunch time.

Their service is so simple, a generous amount of roasted lamb on a plate is accompanied with a plate of simply chopped onion and tomato and parsley sprigs, which are not even chopped. No special dressing! No salt, no olive oil, no lemon, nothing on it! Believe me it’s so tasty though! Could it be because of lamb? They don’t serve it in lavash or half bread unlike other restaurants. They serve pita with it, but we love to dig in that roasted and sliced lamb pieces with fork! You can pair these with your favorite drinks; my choice is always ayran, the best yogurt drink and Yusuf’s is hot salgam, a kind of turnip juice.

We just clean our plates every time we eat there, we can’t waste even the smallest piece of this doner kebab, would you?

The post Our Favorite Doner Kebab appeared first on Give Recipe.

When summer days are around the corner and when you start craving for refreshing sweets, a light semolina pudding is absolutely a better choice! You don’t need many ingredients for a classic semolina pudding; milk, sugar and semolina will be enough. Just mix them in a pot and boil until thickens. However, I wanted to make a twist on this simple pudding.

I added orange juice and zest to give it a more freshness! You can definitely top it with some pistachio powder or nuts as in most Turkish desserts, but I topped it with chocolate sauce to give it a nicer look. Also, I love the combination of orange and chocolate flavors, they are perfect together! If you are watching your weight and want it lighter, skip the chocolate sauce. It’s still fresh and so delightful!

It becomes a super looking Orange Semolina Pudding with Chocolate that can be served to guests on special occasions!
You can serve this pudding in small bowls, but I wanted to give them some nice shape. So rather than sharing the pudding in bowls, I chilled it in my muffin molds and serve them upside down. Don’t they look better this way? You just need to wet the molds a little before pouring the pudding into them.

It’s better to make this semolina pudding overnight since you don’t wait impatiently and it’s ready when you wake up the next day!

Cikolatalı Portakallı İrmik Tatlisi

The post Orange Semolina Pudding with Chocolate appeared first on Give Recipe.

Don’t you think this mulberry and chocolate tart is even a perfect treat to celebrate Mother’s Day? If you haven’t decided what to do or buy for your mom yet, you can make this chocolate tart for her and serve with her favorite drink. Mother’s Day doesn’t mean buying very pricy gifts, right? I think making something yourself is always more valuable than very expensive jewelry. I’m sure all moms will agree with this!

You know what? I went to hospital this morning and my doctor told me that birth was very close. He is expecting the birth next week! I’m already on my 38th week of my pregnancy! I can’t believe how time flows so fast! There are just days now to count down! I will become a mom a few days after Mother’s Day! We will become a family with three members within some days, so exciting!

Don’t you think chocolate tart is a great treat to celebrate this mind-blowing news too?

Since it’s getting hotter here, I suggest chilling the tart in refrigerator before serving. You can even serve it with a dollop of vanilla ice cream if you like a more refreshing dessert.

I love to dip berries into the chocolate topping, so I prefer serving it with some extra berries.

Do you remember my Strawberry Pie with Vanilla Pudding? I used the same dough for this tart. To learn the rest of the recipe, please visit yummly and see my guest post, Sweet Mulberry and Chocolate Tarts there!

The post Sweet Mulberry and Chocolate Tart appeared first on Give Recipe.

Ezme as a word can be translated as mashed, so this is a kind of mashed salad. However, the method of its preperation is very significant for this salad. Genuine kebab restaurants make it with a big cleaver or with a special double handled knife. It’s absolutely easier to chop vegetables with a blender, but there is a remarkable difference between the flavors of ezme made by cleaver or double handled knife and the one made by blender or any other electrical device. It must be chopped by hand, otherwise it gets too juicy.

Besides tomatoes, onion, garlic and parsley, another must have ingredients in an ezme salad is pomegranate molasses. It gives a very nice sweet-sourish flavor and a darker color to the salad. If you can’t find pomegranate molasses in your area, you can increase the amount of lemon juice a little. As for the spices, hot chili powder is the main one. Another spice I personally love in ezme salad is sumac, which increases its sourness. You can add dried mint to add a little refreshment and to balance the sour and hot flavor of the salad.

The best bread to serve with ezme is Turkish lavash, which is similar to tortilla or Turkish pide. Kebabs are generally served with these two breads, so you can dip them into ezme as a bonus! And Ayran, which is a fabulous cold yogurt drink, is undoubtedly the best drink with these irresistible foods!

Since it’s a refreshing salad, ezme is a perfect choice to accompany any dish in summer! You know what? I can even have it at breakfast! Its spiciness helps me wake up and whets my appetite to eat more.

The post Turkish Spicy Ezme Salad appeared first on Give Recipe.

The size of these pizzas make them cute and more appealing. You can absolutely make it bigger or at regular pizza size using the same ingredients, but I prefer this bite size version. I must warn you about something though, these mini pizzas are as fluffy as this pogaca and you can’t feel satisfied with a few of these! You will want to eat more right after you get your first bite!

You know the crust is the significant part of a pizza. If it’s how you like, topping options are limitless. I topped my mini pizzas with cheese, green pepper, tomatoes, and sujuk, a kind of Turkish sausage. I used just dried oregano as a spice and it makes a scrumptious combination with other ingredients. You can definitely add chili or black pepper as well. These are the main toppings most Turkish women prefer and you can find similar mini pizzas with this topping at some Turkish pastry shops too!

If you can’t find sujuk in your area, you can replace it with sausage, bacon or salami. Just skip these if you want to make a vegetarian version.

I love them when they are still warm since I think the flavors stand out more, but they are still so tasty when cold. As it’s already picnic season here, I’m planning to put some of these mini pizzas into basket next time we arrange a picnic.

This recipe goes to one of my favorite bloggers Roxana’s bakedwithlove event! Go visit her blog to see more scrumptious foods baked this month!

The post Mini Pizzas for Breakfast appeared first on Give Recipe.

I’ve never seen unripe peaches at markets in my city, som y surprise was doubled when I saw their pickled version. I thought they were fresh almonds at first, but mom said they were unripe peaches.

They are like baby peaches, and it’s really hard to differentiate them from fresh almonds or unripe apricots. They are equally sour, which I love much. They don’t have any bitterness although they are unripe.

You can imagine how crunchy these are! And if you love sourish flavors as much as I do, you will definitely love them! If you have a chance of finding unripe peaches or apricots or fresh almonds, you must definitely give this a try.

Do you remember Turkish Bulgur Salad I posted a few days ago? We love to pair it with a kind of pickles and this time we paired it with these very special pickled peaches. I don’t want to finish them fast, so I’m planning to have these just with my favorite dishes. A jar is never enough for such a delicacy! Mom promised to make more next year!

The post Pickled Unripe Peaches appeared first on Give Recipe.

The first thing I need to learn was the difference between muffins and cupcakes. It wasn’t so easy to find it when I googled it. They looked so much alike! After reading some articles and recipes, I figured it out! Cupcakes are actually muffins filled or topped with a kind of frosting. Then I saw a quote on facebook saying: “Once you lick the frosting off a cupcake, it becomes a muffin. And muffins are healthy.” A great quote explaining the difference! There is still a question in my mind though. Is it a must to fill muffins with frosting or is it enough to spread it just on their top to make them cupcakes?

My first trial had to be on chocolate cupcakes! Chocolate cheers people up, right? Chocolate muffins which turn into chocolate cupcakes with a frosting must definitely have a more powerful effect on people! And I wasn’t wrong! These chocolate cupcakes disappeared in a few minutes accompanied by “nom nom nom…” sounds! Our friends loved them, and they encouraged me to try different versions of cupcakes.

Since it was my first experience making chocolate cupcakes, I preferred to use an easy way of frosting. I made it with plain whipped cream. And I just put it on top of cupcakes. I didn’t want the cream on the top to look plain, so I used some sprinkles on it.

These chocolate cupcakes were so fluffy and they have a strong flavor of cocoa. You first feel the fluffy cream on the top when you bite and then you reach the fluffy chocolatey muffin underneath. If you are a complete chocolate lover, these chocolate cupcakes are perfect for you!

The post Simple Chocolate Cupcakes appeared first on Give Recipe.

You don’t need a special reason to make bulgur salad, just make it when you crave for. I sometimes have a very strong craving for it even at nights, and I never feel lazy to make it. Well, maybe because it’s very easy to prepare. It requires no cooking, just soak bulgur with hot water, chop all other ingredients and mix. It’s ready within some minutes! Sometimes, I make it for lunch or dinner in large amounts so that some of it is left for my cravings later that day or the following day.

There are two ways of making Turkish bulgur salad. In the first method, chopped onion is sauted in olive oil as in this Kisir, which I posted in the first year of my blogging. Sorry for the photos, I didn’t know many things about food photography then! In the second method, all ingredients in the salad are raw. I will share this second one with you today, I’ve been making it this way since I learnt it from a friend. It tastes more like a salad and flavors are more distinctive this way.

There are some veggies you must add into Turkish bulgur salad. These are tomato, cucumber, parsley, green onion and onion; all finely chopped. Besides these, you are free to add anything you like. You can add chopped lettuce, fresh dill, garlic, gherkins or even red cabbage. So it’s up to your creativity and taste!

The most common way of serving bulgur salad in Turkey is with fresh lettuce leaves, but I want to share a different serving option this time. That’s how we sometimes serve it in my hometown, Tarsus, Mersin. We use fresh grape leaves instead of lettuce when they are in season. When I saw fresh grape leaves at the market today, I immediately bought some without thinking twice! The first dish in my mind was not stuffed grape leaves, but bulgur salad! Fresh grape leaves are traditionally soaked in hot water for 1-2 minutes before serving, but I love them as they are.

Just put a spoon of bulgur salad in the center of leaves, wrap and eat! There could be nothing better for a light lunch on these warmer days! Do I need to mention how healthy this salad is?

The post Turkish Bulgur Salad Kisir appeared first on Give Recipe.