HYDERABAD: Chef Osman Cavus from Turkey is back in Hyderabad almost after a year with another Turkish food festival, at Sheraton Hyderabad.
Other than Pastramo, leg O’ Mutton in slices, we really loved the dessert Kemal Pasha named after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as ‘Father of the Turks’.
It’s a dish made of milk, sugar, cheese, flour and eggs which appears like a mound of ice cream sitting atop a sweetmeat at the first look.
The chef is also a lecturer of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Abant Izzet Baysal University, Turkey. He has brought dried bell peppers in green, red and yellow along with eggplants for the Kuru Patlican and Zeytinyaglı Biber Dolmasi.
The legend has it that these used to be the favourite dishes of sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The vegetables are sun-dried for several weeks. They lose their original colours and before cooking they are soaked in hot water then stuffed either with qeema or a mixture of rice and other vegetables followed by chopped parsley.
Turkish platter has influences of cuisines from Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, and Greece. The ingredients used and the methods are often similar though the names of the dishes tend to vary. I liked Içli Köfte, (pronounced eechli).
They are the starters prepared with cracked-wheat, semolina, eggs, pepper etc which are kneaded as a dough a later filled with a mix of minced meat, parsley, thyme, and pepper. They can be fried or steamed and with Tahini or thick yogurt.
It was quite disappointing not to see Shish Kebab and other kebabs that Turkish cuisine is known for. Explains chef Osman, “I don’t find the lamb juicy here. Hence, the dish becomes sticky and chewy. If the animal isn’t fed well, you can never expect the meat to be good.”
Other interesting fact he shared is that baklava is never prepared dry, it drips with syrup. Another dessert we loved named Sutlac was much like kheer/payesam given rice is staple in Turkey.
When: The festival is on till October 5.
Charges: Rs 1,899