Recipes:
From the Åžile Villages
What's Cooking?
Villages of Åžile Group
Facilitated by Jodie and Yeşim and in collaboration with Fatma Deniz and her team at Ovacık Deneyim Atolyesi.
These are some of the delicious foods that were prepared especially and eaten together.
These recipes are shared in the way that the women shared with us, some are more explanatory than others. Please remember that many recipes were passed down (often from mother to daughter) and no written records exist between them. The women instinctively know the cooking times, how to make pastry or when to add which ingredients and it is so natural to them that they expect us all to know too!
The way of showing and making together is a beautiful way, those of us from a written word culture are sometimes inclined to see a lack of written records as inferior but we invite ourselves to see that the oral and participatory culture is a vast richness in human experience and times spent sharing the pleasure of cooking together is both precious and informative. It is also the gift of our cultural heritage through participation.
If you find a recipe that you are curious about is lacking in essential information, please contact us and we will do our best to provide clarity.
Neriman
Åžile Group
Ovacık Village Meetings
She lives in Yeniköy and runs a Restaurant business.
Bringing Bosnian
flavours to our kitchen
Bosnian Meat & Dough
Potoplika
Ingredients
For Dough:
Flour
Water
Liquid oil
For the above:
Meat (can be boiled chicken)
Onion
Oil
Tomato paste
Salt
Method
Dough material is kneaded, opened and oiled.
Each dough ball is opened with a roller, add more oil and placed on top of it with 3 layers of thickness.
The dough is cooked on a metal plate on a fire or hob. Rip up into bits, place on wide deep plate or tray
The cooked meat and sauce of onions, oil, tomato paste and salt is poured on top.
Rııbtsa Mantı
Ingredients
For the dough:
Flour
Water
Salt
Oil
For the inside:
Raw ground beef
Onion (grated)
Black pepper
Salt
On Top:
Yogurt and Oil sauce
Method
The dough is kneaded, rolled out and oiled.
Inner material is put inside.
It is shaped and placed on the baking tray. It is baked in the oven. Serve with Yogurt and oil infusion sauce.
Buryan Meat Pilaf
​
Ingredients
Diced meats
Rice
Thyme
Salt
Method
The meat is boiled and cooked like a stew.
Rice is roasted with thyme, add meat and cooked like normal rice. (Turkish style)
Nettle Borek Pie
Ingredients and Preparation
As explained by Neriman's sister in law Zeliha:
Passed down from our Grandmothers:
(Using a fine homemade filo pastry)
Stinging Nettle borek.
Seasons in March
We collect the nettles, wash them beautifully. Chop it up, if you want it, by hand or using a knife.
We mix spinach, rub in with salt, raw eggs, milk, and cream with white or corn flour.
We layer my tray with half of the rolled out dough, then we spread on the nettle mix. We cover with the remaining dough.
It will be baked in the oven.
"I don't know when I learned it. My mother used to roll it out sitting on the floor,
we would sit down across from her, we'd struggle, we liked it, we would never get bored ....."
(About making dough) - Neriman
Remziye Abla
Åžile Group
Ovacık Village Meetings
Ethnic Manav Turkish Recipes
Tarhana soup
Ingredients and Method
Materials and Preparation
You're soaking 5 tbsp tarhana half an hour in advance
You put oil in the pot
You add optional tomato paste
Gradually you mix the tarhana that you soaked and pour it into the pot.
If you want a thick or watery texture, you add more water.
Salt
Black pepper
Mint
You pour the chili pepper and stir it and serve.
Bulgur Börek
Ingredients and Preparation
For the inside:
Optional onion and you roast it until it turns pink with light oil
1 cup bulgur with boiled water you leave to soak and swell in a bowl
Then you pour that bulgur into the onion and mix it
Salt
red pepper flakes
For the dough:
1 egg
Half a cup of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of vinegar
As much flour as it gets (it will be a little soft from the consistency of the earlobe) (as they say in Turkey!)
You wait for the dough to rest for 2 hours
You make small balls of the dough, you wrap in a cloth and wait another half an hour.
Then you can roll out and fill with bulgur and bake in oven.
​
Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients and Preparation
Dough will be kneaded like Bulgur Börek dough (previous recipe)
For the inside:
You can grate the pumpkins as much as you want and put the optional sugar in it.
Some oil
Lay out each layers of the rolled dough, add pumpkin mix, roll each one up and then twist into a spiral and put it on the tray.
Bake in the oven.
Stuffed Creamy Cabbage leaves
Ingredients
For the inside:
Chop the onion, eyeball how much.
You roast until it turns pink
Put 2 cups of rice and roast
Parsley
Black pepper
Mint
red pepper flakes
Method
Blanch the cabbage leaves in advance
Wrap the stuffing in each leaf
Put cream on top while cooking
Add oil
"We had modesty, guests would come and we wouldn't sit at the table, we'd let the guests sit and after they got up, then we would sit at the table "
Remziye Abla
Saniye Abla
Åžile Group
Ovacık Village Meetings
Ethnic Manav Turkish flavours brought to our kitchens
Stuffed Eggs
Ingredients
6 eggs
1 egg yolk
Parsley (diced)
Thyme (a teaspoon)
Black pepper (with the tip of the teaspoon)
Cheese (very little)
Less salt
Liquid oil for frying
Methods
Let's boil the eggs, cut them in half.
Let's put the yolk in a bowl, put a little parsley, thyme, black pepper, a little salt and a little cheese, mix it.
Let's fill it into whites.
Let's put it in the whipped egg yolk and fry.
Dried Fruit Soup
Ingredients
Saniye used prunes in this recipe
For the dough:
Flour
Water
To Boil:
Su
Dried Fruit (prune)
On Top:
Onion (finely chopped)
Liquid oil
Tomato paste (or ground red pepper)
Mint
Salt
Method
Mix the flour with water and make into small dough balls. Let's boil the water in the pot.
Let's throw the prunes into it, let's throw the dough after boiling a little.
Let it boil up once.
Let's chop the onions and fry them in oil, tomato paste (or powdered red pepper).
After roasting, pour the sauce over the soup.
Tahanalı Bread
Tarhana is a dried mix of yogurt and tomatoes or tomato paste and herbs and is used to make soup normally.
Materials and Preparation
Tarhanalı Bread Recipe Explained by Saniye:
I sifted flour, I heated milk around half a kilo. I warmed 1 plate of yogurt, I soaked tarhana, added in flour, egg, salt… yeast (as much as hazelnut) and yogurt. I let it rise on the tray then I baked. We only make it when we have fresh Tarhana.
Ulviye
Åžile Group
Ovacık Village Meetings
She lives in Çayırbaşı Village
Bringing Thessaloniki and Black Sea
flavors to our kitchens
Leek Corn Bread
Ingredients
4 cups - Corn flour
2 cups - Wheat flour
3 - Potatoes (boiled)
Half bunch of- Parsley
1 water glass measure of oil
1 packet of baking powder
1 spoon - Salt
1 spoon - chili peppers
1 spoon - Black pepper
Method
mix and bake
Fried Pickled
Green Beans
Ingredients
1 kilo - Green bean pickles
3 Onions
1 teacup of oil
2 spoons - chili pepper flakes
Method
Fry and serve
Stuffed Vine leaves
Ingredients
2 cups of rice
1 large onion
Half a bunch of parsley
5 sprigs of mint
Half bunch of dill
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Half a cup of oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 kilo of pickled vine leaves
Method
After assembling
Cook slowly on low heat and pour oil over it.
Stuffed Black Cabbage
Ingredients
3 bunches - Dark cabbage leaves
3 cups - Bulgur
2 - Onions
1 vineyard - Parsley
1 spoon - Tomato Paste
1 teacup of oil
1 spoon - Salt
1 spoon - Black pepper
1 spoon - Mint
Method
"Cooking together adds love, adds
conversation"
Ulviye
Zeliha
Åžile Group
Ovacık Village Meetings
She lives in Yeniköy and is Neriman's sister in law,
together they bring Bosnian
flavours to our kitchen
Crusader Bosnian Dessert
Ingredients
For the dough:
2 - Eggs
1 glass of sugar
2 tablespoons - Yogurt
1 water glass measure of oil
1 packet of baking powder
As much as possible - Flour
For Sherbet:
5 cups - Sugar
6 cups - Water
Methods
The dough material is mixed, it will not be too hard. It will be shaped into a ball.
The oven will also be heated.
Sherbet is boiled and hot? cold ?? and poured over the cooked dough balls.
Bosnian Cookie
Ingredients
1 glass of sugar
2 eggs
1 cup - Yogurt
1 water glass measure of oil
2 packages - Baking powder
As far as earlobe consistency - Flour
Method
The dough is mixed, until the earlobe becomes thick. It will be shaped into a ball.
Bake in the oven until cooked.
Helva
Ingredients
Flour
Oil
Sherbet - Sugar and water
Method
Flour is roasted with oil, and it is cooked by putting sherbet in it.
False Ashura
Ingredients and Preparation
Zeliha's recipe in her own words:
Anytime Ashura (No Wheat in this recipe and as Ashura is served traditionally at certain times, this is a version that can be made any time)
​
Dried figs, apricots cooked as you would for a compote, cook with sugar and adjust the sugar for yourself.
According to the pot size, you will dissolve flour in a bowl. After the fruit is cooked, you will pour the flour mix into it like you do a flour soup.
It cooks for half an hour.
After that, you will serve in normal small bowls, with walnuts.
"My father used to say
"Let's eat in silence to appreciate the meaning of the food !""
Zeliha Abla
