Bull Terrier

I'm getting a bit confused here - the sauce for Iskender kebab is just with tomato (with perhaps some garlic)? Or else it's a mixture of tomato sauce and pepper paste?

I just made a fairly simple tomato sauce, which I must admit wasn't 100% satisfactory. I brought a pot of water to the boil, threw in a load of small and sweet cherry tomatoes. After a minute or so when the skin started to come off, I drained the lot and then manually skinned them. I then heated up some olive oil, fried some finely chopped onion with a little garlic and chilli pepper, and then put in the tomatoes. I cooked them probably around 30 minutes. The sauce was ok, but somewhat acidic. So what do they use in Istanbul? Is it a mixture of tomato sauce and hot pepper sauce? I'd be very curious to know, if perhaps you can help out.

I am no expert but what I can see from a similar recipe called yogurtlu kebap (The sultan's kitchen, ozcan ozan), is first pita, then meat, tomato sauce, yogurt and butter. Your recipe sounds delicious! Is sumaq always used in iskender kebab? ← I don't know if sumaq is always used but I sprinkle over a bit. I'd venture to say that it isn't essential, but it does add a nice touch.

I attempted to make an Iskender-style kebab, albeit with chicken and I was extremely satisfied with the results. I started by marinating chunks of chicken breast in olive oil infused with garlic, some cumin powder, salt, plenty of paprika powder and freshly ground black pepper. I grilled the chicken on skewers and then assembled the kebab. I cut into pieces home-made bread (slightly leavened, but otherwise similar to pitta bread) which I placed at the bottom. I then placed over some tomato sauce, some yogurt and then the meat. I put over some melted butter and sumaq and then it was ready to eat. My question is this - is this the correct order for assembling the kebab? Or should the tomato sauce be put over the meat before the melted butter?

Not quite sure what patties you ate exactly but perhaps they were shami kebabs. Here's how I make them: 300g minced mutton (or lamb if you can't find mutton) 60g chana dal (soaked in water for around 12 hours) 2 green cardamoms, 4 peppercorns, 2 cloves, 1 piece of cinnamon stick, 1 piece of star anise 2 cloves of garlic Grated fresh ginger Salt Cook the above ingredients in little water for roughly 30 minutes or until the chana dal is cooked but not mushy. At the end of cooking the consistency should be almost dry. Grind to a fine paste and then mix in the following ingredients: Finely chopped fresh mint Finely chopped onion Fresh finely chopped chilli pepper (deseeded if preferred) A little ajwan Beaten egg (roughly ½ egg) Mix well, form into golf-ball sized balls, press to form patties and then coat in gram flour. Set aside and place in fridge until required. Fry in oil until well browned and serve immediately.

Coconut Burfi (8 portions) 1 coconut (as fresh as possible), weighing around 650g 1 litre of full-fat milk Lump of butter 2/3 cup of sugar (or to taste) ½ tsp elaichi powder Blanched almonds, cut into slivers Open the coconut, and remove the brown part using a sturdy potato peeler. Finely grate the coconut. The finer it is grated the better in order to facilitate cooking. I strongly stress the freshness of the coconut because it will strongly determine the success of the recipe. Put the coconut, sugar and about half of the milk into a heavy bottomed pan and cook on a slow boil for around 2 hours until reduced to a thick fudge. Don’t try to boil away the milk too quickly because the coconut requires long slow cooking. Add the milk gradually as it boils away. If you find that it reduces too quickly then you can either add more milk or else cover the pan, perhaps just temporarily. However at the end of cooking the consistency is very important – it mustn’t be too liquid, but rather very thick. Be careful not to burn it however, particularly at the end! Stir frequently throughout cooking, and very frequently towards the end. The almonds are best if fresh in shell. To blanch the almonds throw them into boiling water for 1 minute, before rinsing in cold water. The skin will just peel away easily. Cut into slivers. Once reduced to a thick fudge add a large lump of butter and cook for several more minutes before then adding the elaichi powder. Stir thoroughly and remove from heat. Leave to cool slightly and then put into a rectangular dish whilst still warm. Garnish with the slivers of blanched almonds and cut into squares. Chill thoroughly before serving. Personally I like to eat coconut burfi with a nice sweet dessert wine such as Passito di Pantelleria (if you manage to find it).

I live very close (10 km) to Lecce and I know most of the restaurants quite well. In my opinion one of the best pizzerie in Lecce is "Lussy" which is outside of the old quarters. The antipasti are truly outstanding and service is overall excellent. My favourite however is "Torre di Merlino / Bella Notte" (both are next to each other and the food is the same). The pizza here is more like Naples-style pizza. Prices are higher, but the pizza is the best in Lecce. If you go outside of Lecce, a superb (and truly massive) pizzeria is "Amadeus". It is on the road to Cavallino, just a few km outside of Lecce. As far as restaurants go, my favourite places in Lecce are "Caffè Retrò", which is outside of the old quarters, "L'Osteria degli Spiriti", e "Il Giardino", the latter two being very close to the old quarters. Outside of Lecce there is an absolutely superb restaurant in a place called Veglie (about 20km from Lecce) called "Conte Cavour", where the speciality is sea-food. I highly recommend the skewers with mozzarella cheese and prawns, as well as all of the antipasti. If you want a nice ice-cream (gelato) after your dinner then the very best two places are "Natale", which is probably the most famous, or else the new-comer which I actually prefer "Cuor di Gelato". The general tendency in restaurants in Lecce is for very abundant antipasti, and then most people choose either a dish of pasta or rice, or else a second dish (meat or fish) possibly with a vegetable side dish or salad. Most restaurants tend to serve local dishes, without too many restaurants specialising in cuisine from other parts of Italy or else foreign restaurants, and the few foreign restaurants which do exist are normally shockingly bad.

I was talking about shish kebab. As far as I know seekh kebab is made with minced lamb meat and not with chicken.

I'm sorry to say that I don't have the recipe for Punjabi-style chicken shish kebab, and judging by the lack of replies it would appear that other posters don't have recipes either. However I do have a very good recipe for chicken shish kebab which you could try. I think that you'll be pleased with the results. Put large pieces of carefully trimmed boneless chicken breast into the following marinade for at least 24 hours: Vegetable oil infused with garlic Salt Freshly ground black pepper Turmeric Cumin Monosodium glutamate The oil is infused by gently frying a whole clove of garlic cut in half lengthwise for a few minutes. The garlic is then disposed of and the oil left to cool. The monosodium glutamate may seem like an odd ingredient, but it really enhances the flavour. It can often be found in Chinese stores under the name of Chinese Salt. Do not exaggerate with the quantities of the turmeric and cumin as they should not dominate. Cook the marinated chicken on a charcoal barbecue. The coals should be grey and there should be no flames. It is important that the temperature isn’t too high otherwise the meat will get burned on the outside whilst remaining raw on the inside. If the flame appears too hot then simply move the pieces of chicken to the side. Turn over the chicken occasionally. Once nearly cooked, cut the larger pieces in half to thoroughly cook the inside. Very nice to eat inside pitta pockets with fresh salad and perhaps some chilli sauce. I know that it's not quite the recipe you were looking for, but it is definitely worth trying!

Rasmalai is possibly my favourite Indian dessert and I've experimented several recipes but I still haven't got it quite right and I wanted to ask the more knowledgeable people on this forum to help me out a little bit here.. Anyway, I obtained 2 litres of fresh, unpasteurized, full-fat milk directly from a farm. I heated it up to boiling point at which I removed the heat and added yogurt to "cut" it. I stirred it gently and then threw in a few ice cubes to cool it down a little so as the cooking of the paneer didn't continue and thus the paneer wouldn't harden any more. I then strained it, placed it in a clean towel and pressed it under a medium weight for 15 minutes. I then kneaded it a little with some flour and formed it into balls (a total of 6). I brought to the boil a fairly thin syrup and then added the balls. I cooked them for 15 minutes on a gentle boil with the saucepan partially covered. In the meantime I mixed some cream with sugar and a little powdered green cardamom . Once the balls were ready I added them to the cream and put a drop of rose water on each ball. I realise that it is more traditional to put the balls in reduced milk but always use cream because I like them this way. I refrigerated the lot for a few hours before serving them. Although they came out nice, I still found the balls to be of the wrong texture, in other words a little too hard. They certainly didn't come out "squidgy" when you bite into them, as good rasmalai balls should be. Why not? Where did I go wrong?

I tried cooking this yesterday evening and I must say that it came out really excellent. The only thing which I would ask is if it would be better to first half-cook the potatoes before adding the cauliflower? I think that the cooking time for potatoes is longer. Of course this depends to some part on the variety of potatoes which one uses but usually it is the case I think.

There are some very good local wines in Jesi also. The most famous white wine is Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi. A superb (and also very ancient) red wine is Lacrima di Moro D'Alba. I strongly recommend trying both of these wines. There is an absolutely superb enoteca regionale in the old quarters in Jesi. It is a little tricky to find but it is unbelievably well stocked with very friendly and helpful staff. As well as wines there are also other local products such as olive oil, preserves, and local specialities (such as saba). Next time I'm down I'll have to check out Gatto Matto - thanks for the tip Hathor!

I go to Jesi often for work and whilst you're there I highly recommend checking out the restaurant Chichibio. There are very few restaurants in Jesi considering the size of the town, most are in the outskirts and hard to find if you don’t know your way around. However you hardly need them with Chichibio! The menu varies often according to the season. The grilled meats are particularly good, as is the fish. The wine list is extremely comprehensive and includes lots of local wines as well as national and international wines. Desserts are extremely well presented and absolutely delicious!

I'm not sure about Ramzan biryani but I can give you my recipe for biryani which does come out very nice! It should be good for 3 portions, but you can easily adjust the quantities accordingly. Marinade overnight in the fridge around 300g of chopped meat (lamb, goat or perhaps even chicken), in yogurt, corn oil, salt and some spices (paprika, ground cumin, ground coriander, turmeric, garam masala). Do not exaggerate with the quantities of the spices because a delicate flavour is required for this dish. Fry 1 finely chopped onion in vegetable oil or ghee. Fry it for around 15 minutes or so until it becomes very soft, and then add some finely chopped garlic and fresh grated ginger. Fry for another few minutes before adding the marinated meat and some concentrated tomato paste. Cook until half cooked, adjusting as necessary for salt. In the meantime prepare and then set aside the following ingredients which are also required for the recipe: • 1 sliced onion, fried in ghee until soft and caramelised • Sliced almonds and chopped pistachios, and optionally also pine nuts and sultanas • Finely chopped fresh coriander and mint Prepare the layers in an oven dish. The bottom layer is the meat, together with any juices. Above the meat you can optionally put some fresh sliced tomatoes. Add the coriander and mint, and then the nuts. Finally add the fried onions. The top layer will be half-cooked rice. It is best to prepare the other layers before adding the rice and then cook the rice at the end. Wash around 300g of basmati rice in several changes of cold water and then set aside. Measure out roughly double the volume of water, mixed with roughly 20% fresh whole milk. Bring the liquid up to the boil whilst heating some ghee in a saucepan and adding the following spices: • 2 green cardamoms • 1 black cardamom • 1-2 cloves • 1 inch of cinnamon stick • ¼ tsp of fennel seed • 1 bay leaf Fry gently for a few minutes and then add the rice with some salt (around 2 tsp). Stir carefully to coat all of the rice in the ghee and spices and then add the boiling liquid. Cover the saucepan and cook on low for around 4-5 minutes, or until half cooked. After 4-5 minutes add the partially cooked rice together with any liquid to the oven dish as the final layer. Cover the oven dish tightly and bake in a preheated oven for around 15-20 minutes at 200°C. A good dish to accompany the biryani would be a nice cucumber or tomato raita. I hope this is of help to you! PS - I'm new to the eGullet Society and I'm pleased to be able to (finally) contribute to the forums!