Elisabeth Luard

Turkish Gozleme

2010-04-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Turkish Gozleme
Pancakes with parsley, onion and cheese

A speciality of Turkish village women - this is not a bread you’re likely to find in a bakery, although you might find a lady preparing them to order in the corner of the market square. Although it looks like a large pancake, the method brings it closer to an Indian chapatti. Easy to make, even if few of us can achieve the sleight of hand with the broom handle which seems to the birthright of every Turkish cook.
Makes about 8

100g (4oz) strong bread flour
1/2 tspn salt
1 tblspn olive oil or melted butter
About 5 tblspns warm water
The filling
4-5 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, skinned and finely chopped
A big handful (about 200g) fresh spinach, shredded
1/2 tspn Turkish mild chilli flakes (kirmizi biber), or paprika with a little cayenne
About 100g (4 oz) fresh white cheese, crumbled (could be cottage cheese)
Optional extras for sprinkling:
hard cheese (mature feta-type) grated
parsley, chopped

Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl. Work in the water and oil until you have a nice smooth dough. Knead it some more. Divide into 4 and work each piece into a ball. Cover with a cloth and leave for 20 minutes or so, to rest.
On a floured board with a thin, well floured rolling pin (a broomhandle is the preferred instrument in Turkey) roll each piece out into a very thin disk 12-15cm (5-6”) in diameter.
Heat and lightly grease a heavy frying pan or griddle and slap on one of the disks. Use your fingers to move it about so it blisters and browns. Brush the top with more oil or butter and flip it over.
Sprinkle the cooked side with a quarter of the filling while the underside is cooking. When the underside is done, lift the gozleme onto a piece of greaseproof paper and roll it up into a cone. Continue with the other three, and eat hot, straight from the griddle.

Jodphur

2009-11-14T03:32:00.000-08:00

Camels, draft-buffalo, sacred cows and hairy-backed pigs wander the streets of the regional capital, Jodphur. The city is blue though the towering fort which commands the high ground is the colour of blood on sand. The houses of the old town are painted varying shades of cobalt, a pigment which serves as a mosquito-deterent, an advantage in malaria-territory. The markets are astonishingly colourful since Rajistan’s women dress in deep scarlet and yellow, reflecting the sun.

Rajisthan

2009-11-06T01:23:00.000-08:00

Rajasthan, the region to the west of Delhi which runs up to the borders of Pakistan, is one of the hottest places on the planet - take it from me, I’ve just got back. How the human race copes with heat is of increasing interest to us northerners who, as the icecap melts and the planet warms up, are likely to find our island kingdom, well, camel-country.
One can get used to camels, particularly when attempting to cross the sandy bits of the earth. Camels are, as it happens, a speciality of the desert kingdoms of Rajistan, of which the really empty part is known as the Marwar, the land of death, a reputation which keeps the population low and the ratio of people to camels unusually high. As you might imagine, there’s not much to eat and still less to drink. For the villagers of the Marwar, mostly vegetarian Hindus, everything depends on the monsoon rains. When the rains come, crops flourish and everyone eats. When they fail, the government provides famine-rations and one person in every family has to go out to work on the roads.

Chapattis

2009-10-31T04:21:00.001-07:00

The domestic cooking of Rajistan is a communal affair. Most things, with the exception of a few complicated sweets made with milk-curds, are prepared in-house. Vegetarian dishes - dals and curries - are made daily in advance by the women of the household under the supervision of the senior matron.
At mealtimes, small bowls of the prepared dishes are set on the table while one of the women rolls and cooks the flatbreads, the only freshly-prepared element of the meal.
Flatbreads - rotis, chappatis, puris - can be made of a variety of milled grains worked into a dough, broken into egg-sized pieces and rolled on a small round board with a rolling pin into thin rounds. After a prelimary gentle baking on the griddle, these are set in an open flame to puff and blister. A new batch is provided for those at table as soon as the previous batch has been eaten.
Women don't usually sit with the men. In the villages when food is limited, this can mean the women go hungry.