Salads and Pickles

Bean salad

Ingredients: Soakthe beans in water overnight. Boild beans in fresh water till they are tender. After they are cooked, leave the beans to stand in water until it cools down. Then, strain the beans and put them in a bowl. Pour 3/4 glass of vinegar and put some salt onto the beans and let them stand in vinegar for 3 hours. Remove beans from the vinegar, drain them and place the beans in another bowl. Slice the onion in crescent shapes; put some salt on the slices and rub and press them by hand. Wash the oinions. Chop the parsley, then add the onion slices and chopped parsley to the beans and mix well. Slice the tomatoes into thin slices. Put the tomato slices and olives decoratively on top of the beans, at the sides of the bowl. Cut each hard boiled egg into four and slice the green pepperones. placethe egg and green pepperone slices in the center of the bowl decoratively. Put 1 teaspoon salt, the rest of the vineagr and 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a separate bowl. Blend well together. Pour the dressing onto the beans according to taste.

Beetroot salad

Ingredients: Sort and cut the leaves off red beetroots. Put them in a saucepan with enough water to cover them. Add the vinegar and boild the beetroots over down; cut them into small pieces and place decorativelyin a salad bowl. Add a half teaspoon of salt and crushed garlic with approximately 1 galss of vinegar to the beetroots. Let stand for a few hours. This may be served alone or with lettuce.

Tarator salad

Ingredients: Put the shelled walnuts (cleaned and peeled), 2 complete heads of garlic (cleaned) and the salt into a mortar and pound well. Watch creafully to see that walnut oil is not secreted.

Mix the sesame oil and lemon juice well in a bowl. Add the walnuts and the garlic to the bowl and continue blending. Chop the parsley and add it to the bowl. Your tarator is now ready for serving. Serve in a deep dish. (If tarator is going to be served as a garnish, the amount of parsley may be reduced to half a bunch or omitted altogether.)

Shepherd's salad

Ingredients: Peel, wash and slice the onion. Press the onion slices by hand with some salt so that the onion becomes less bitter. Rinse the onion under cold water and place in a salad bowl. Wash and chop the tomatoes and put them on top of the onion slices. Wash, peel and dice the cucumbers. Slice the green pepperones. Add the cucumbers and green pepperones to the salad. Chop the parsley leaves and put into the salad. Add the salt to salad and mix well. Serve with olive oil and lemon juice dressing

Yoghurt and cucumber salad

Ingredients: Peel and dice the cucumbers. Put the cucumners in a bowl. Pound the garlic cloves in a mortar with 1 teaspoon of salt. While whipping the yoghurt with a fork or whisk, pour in 1/2 glass of water gradually and mix with yoghurt. Add the cucumbers and garlic to the yoghurt abd mix again. Put the olive oil, vinegar and ice cubes into the bowl. Decorate the salad with chopped fresh mint leaves or dried mint.

Eggplant salad with yogurt dressing

Ingredients: Grill the eggplants under a hit grill. Turn them occasionally making sure that they are thoroughly cooked. Peel the cooked eggplants with a knife, then place into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, yoghurt, 1 teaspoon of salt and the olive oil to the eggplants. Mix and blend all ingredients well and set the bowl aside.

Grill the green pepperones. Peel them and put five into a mortar with garlic cloves. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and pound well. Add the pepperones and garlic to the eggplants and mix well together. The salad is now ready for serving. Put the salad into a bowl and place the remaining green pepperones on top.

Chick pea salad

Ingredients: Soak chick peas in warm water overnight. Boil chick peas in a saucepan with a lot of water. Strain the chick peas and puree them. Blend the sesame oil with the puree of chick peas. Add lemon juice to the mixture until its taste becomes sour. Add the red pepper and salt. Mix the salad well so that it is liked mashed potatoes. Put the salad into a serving dish and add a dressing of olive oil and red pepper before serving.

Eggplant salad

Ingredients: Garnish: Grill the eggplants (preferrably fat ones) under a hot grill until their skins are grilled. Peel the eggplants and place them in a bowl containing 3/4 galss olive oil. Pour a mixture of salt and the juice of 1/2 lemon into the bowl. Mix well and set aside for a while. Pour vinegar into the bowl containing eggplants and pound well with a fork. When the eggplants become pasty place the mixture onto a plate. Garnish the salad with slice tomatoes and onions and green peppers after scooping out their seeds, and then cut like fingers. Place olives decoratively on top. And your salad is now ready to serve.

Fish roe salad

Ingredients: Pu the fish roes into a large bowl. While gradually pouring the olive oil over them, pound the fish roes with a wooden spoon. To allow fish roes to absorb the oil well, the pouring and pounding should take 15-25 minutes. In some cases the fish roes might be hard to pound, then the time should be increased accordingly. After the fish roes thoroghly absorb the olive oil, add the lemon juice in the same way. When your tarama becomes a white paste with the fish roes looking red spots, it is ready fir serving. Put tarama into a serving dish and serve.

If you soak two slices of white bread in milk and pound them with tarama, the salad will serve more people and will be lighter. If you add two teaspoons of onion juice to the tarama, it will have a slightly diffrenet taste.

Cabbage pickles

Ingredients: Wah the cabbage. Make a hole in the middle of cabbage with a pointed knife. Put some salt in the hole and boil cabbage in a little water until it becomes tender. Remove from water and separate the leaves. Slice the leaves and put them into jars. Add the garlic to the jars between the cabbage leaves. Pour vinegar into the jars so as to cover the cabbage. Add 10 grams of salt for 1 liter of vinegar. in 10-15 days your pickels will be ready to serve.

Eggplant pickles

Ingredients: Wash the eggplants. Carefully make a lengthways cut down the middle of each eggplant so that they do not split in two. Boil water with the juice of half a lemon. Put eggplants in boiling water and cook them until they become tender. Put the eggplants into a strainer and place a weight on them to drain away the water. Chop the carrots, fresh red peppers and cabbage, peel the garlic. Put them into a bowl and add enough vinegar to cover the chopped vegetables. Add 10 grams of salt for 1 liter of vinegar to the bowl and press with the hand. Fill the eggplants with the vegetable and vinegar mixture. Tie the eggplants with celery. Pack the eggplants tightly into jars. Decorate the jars by putting carrot and lemon slices between eggplant fillings. Pour vinegar and salt mixture so as to cover the eggplants fillings. Place a weight on the eggplants and close the jars. Your pickels will be ready to server in 25-30 days.

Kisir

Ingredients: Cover the bulgur with boiling water, set it aside. The water and the bulgur should be at the same level. While you're busy with chopping all the veggies the bulgur absorbs the water. Mix the paste and the spices thoroghly. After that just add the veggies. You can use lemon and vegetable/olive oil as dressing.