Cooking attempts

On my days off last week, I was in a cooking mood so I tried a few new things. I wanted to use the cookbook that was given to me so I tried a soup and a sort of sweet and sour chicken. Apparently in the Ottoman times the sweet and sour taste was common, although it isn't common at all now. I don't know if it was influence from other countries or what, but I'll try to read some more and find out. The soup wasn't exactly pretty looking so I think people had a hard time eating it. I cooked green lentils and then added some pieces of homemade dough (way too thick), onions, and some odd things like vinegar, butter, and honey. It actually didn't taste that bad, but I'm not a huge fan of lentils. Then I made some sort of fried chicken (egg and flour coating) and then a "sauce" of butter, onions, vinegar, honey, and cinnamon. Again, kind of odd. But fun! To have something normal, I made kisir which I think is one of my favorite Turkish foods. It's better for a summer salad - add boiling water, tomato, and pepper paste to bulgur, then add onions, spring onions, parsley, pomegranate sauce, and lemon sauce. So good!



The pieces of dough I later added to the soup



It's supposed to be a soup but as you can see it's not very soup-like...



Chicken



Kisir

The next day I felt like doing something even Turkish women don't do...making manti! Manti is like a tortellini or a dumpling. Dough is rolled out and cut into little squares and then a meat mixture (ground beef, or whatever you want, with grated onions and salt and pepper) is put onto each little square. Then you have to seal each little square. I had two problems. First, my dough was too sticky and it was a DISASTER. I can't even describe it. The dough was sticking to the table then ripping apart because it stretched but it wouldn't hold the meat in...Anyway, I added more flour and it got better. The second problem was that I only had a small water glass to roll the dough out, so it was very very thick and doughy tasting. But, the end problem you coat with garlicy yogurt and an olive oil and red pepper sauce so you don't notice it that much.



This is the first batch, I think I made two.



Little little bits of meat.



I didn't take a picture of them being rolled up because mine were not good examples of what it should look like! But here is the final product. Mmm it was quite good if I can say so myself.



A feast!