Turkish

İzmir Köfte - Turkish One Pan Meatballs with Crispy Oven Potatoes

İzmir Köfte is one of my favourite Turkish comfort food dishes: oval lamb meatballs and crispy oven baked potatoes nestled into a rich tomato sauce and finished in the oven with sivri biber chillies. This one pan version skips frying the potatoes and instead roasts them until golden and crisp while the sauce and meatballs are prepared. A deeply comforting family meal that is perfect served with bread, rice or a simple salad.

Kalamar Tava with Tarator

TasteAtlas recently named kalamar tava as Turkey’s best-rated dish, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. This recipe recreates the crisp, golden fried calamari that still reminds me of a memorable meal in Akyaka on Turkey’s southwest coast. Fresh squid, a quick beer soak and a bowl of creamy almond tarator make this surprisingly easy to prepare at home and every bit as delicious as the meyhane versions I remember.

Broad Beans, Pods and All

It took us four years to grow these broad beans. Every year before this, they were taken over by blackfly, but this time, with kale and broccoli flowering nearby, the bees arrived and everything changed. I cooked them the way I grew up eating them in Turkey, young and whole, pods and all. They took much longer than expected to soften, but the flavour was worth the wait, simple, lemony and finished with dill.