"IN THE KITCHEN WITH SELIN"

HOME COOKING IN A REAL TURKISH HOME BY A NATIVE HOME CHEF!

We say "Make yourselves at home" and we mean it!

Today Turkey's culinary legacy is a tapestry of tastes and pleasure,seasoned with Ottoman indulgence and refreshed by Anatolian inspiration.

Learn the secrets of a cuisine relished within all corners of Turkey but rarely experienced by outsiders. Join Selin in the building where she was born -- an authentic 1930’s home, in one of Istanbul's classiest neighborhoods -- where she will teach you how to make a traditional home-cooked Turkish meal.

For lunch, you will savor a 7 course menu you have cooked accompanied with Turkish wines.

Recipes vary according to the season, utilizing only the freshest ingredients available and providing you with a deeply individual Turkish experience . As a member of Slow Food, Selin's focus is on healthy locally sourced, fresh, artisan, and sustainable food. Dishes are approachable and easy to replicate in your home country.

Vegetarian and gluten free Turkish food is not a challenging option for us – it's easy being green and creating exciting Turkish vegetarian and gluten free recipes at Turkish Flavours.

Upon request Turkish - Sephardic dishes can also be included to the menu from Selin's family recipes.

The best part is the conclusion: Tasting your creations!

Classes are organized in Selin’s Home Studio Kitchen. Instruction is in English or French.
Recipes are geared to the home cook. Detailed recipe booklets are offered to take away and try recipes once back at home.

Selin shops daily for her groceries so the ingredients are seasonal and fresh.

A sample menu might include:

• Crispy cheese and herb filled pastry rolls or Flaky Turkish Borek with feta and herb filling or Zucchini flan with feta cheese and herbs
• Bulgur wheat salad- Kısır or Carrots with a garlic infused in yogurt and tahini dressing or Cacik
• Leeks ,green beans or artichokes in olive oil
• Purslane salad with mint and yoghurt or Green Olive Salad with sumac and pomegranate molasses
• Spicy bulgur pilaf or Tomato rice pilaf or pilaf with Orzo
• Split Belly Eggplant stuffed with meat – Karniyarik or Aromatic Rice Stuffed Bell Peppers with Olive Oil or Zucchini stuffed with meat, rice and herbs in a tomato sauce or Baked Sea Bass with shrimp and vegetables or Eggplant in Earthenware casserole with lamb or Swiss Chard rolls
• Apricots stuffed with Kaymak ( clotted cream) or Roasted Figs infused in honey with bay leaves or Revani - Turkish Semolina sponge cake

DETAILS

Please do not have a big breakfast prior your cooking class!

10:30 am -14:30 pm- 4-hour cooking course with a 6 to 7 course lunch with Turkish wine in a private home in Nisantası.

Afternoon classes with dinner can also be organized upon request.

At home with Turkish Flavours by Anita Breland

For most of us, the food memories we hold most dear, began with the cooking of our mothers, grandmothers and their places of origin. I travel the globe with this in mind, with food as my way into the cultural traditions of the places I visit. Whenever possible, I seek out an opportunity to learn, from the mothers and grandmothers I meet, what a destination’s food culture has to offer. My first day in Istanbul, I spent a half-day in the kitchen with Selin Rozanes of Turkish Flavours.

Selin offers cookery classes in an elegant apartment in Istanbul’s upscale Nişantaşi district. Here, in the house where she was born, she provides a gentle introduction to Turkish home cooking, with a Sephardic flair. Our small group savored the spices and dishes of Turkey’s “city” cuisine, prepared in an intimate, informal setting. The morning began with introductions over a glass of sour cherry juice in a living room lined with overflowing bookshelves. Selin’s family stories, shared with her guests in a tschotke-rich apartment, transported us to an earlier, slower-paced era.

Fresh, seasonal, locally sourced ingredients

We prepared a full menu: soup, salads, meze, a main course and dessert. “I don’t use a lot of spices, because fresh ingredients are the most important component in our cooking,” said Selin. “Spices are there to enhance the flavors.” Sure enough, fresh, seasonal produce figured through the menu, from a salad of tomatoes and walnuts dressed with pomegranate molasses to the richly hued leaves for spinach börek.

Turkish cuisine is an amalgam of historical and immigrant influences. It also varies by region within the country, according to the terrain for food production—olive-oil dishes in the west, greater use of dairy products in the east. As we chopped and stirred, Selin brought out cookbooks to show us the cultural influences of the food we were preparing and talking about: Ottoman, Persian, even Afghani. A map of Turkey on the wall beside the stove was a frequent reference point through the morning.

Hands-on, stove-to-table

My favorite dish of the day was split-belly eggplant. We learned to strip the skins just so, before Selin’s assistant shallow-fried them. While preparing a stuffing of seasoned ground beef, we tasted such staples of Turkish cooking as janissary spice and puree of sun-dried tomatoes and peppers. Selin showed us how to make a “surgical incision” on each eggplant, and stuff them just so. Before putting the dish into the oven to bake, we topped the eggplants with tomato slices and pepper spears, and poured lemon-infused tomato juice around our masterpieces. Served with spicy bulgur pilav and a glass of wine, split-belly eggplant was a fine prelude to a dessert of sweetened, juicy butternut squash.

Turkish Flavours beyond the kitchen

The class may be in the style of home cooking, but Selin manages preparation of the meal with the precision of a restaurant chef. I was impressed with her organization, layout of the teaching kitchen (a converted dining room), and the grace with which the finished meal was served. While preparing our luncheon, we nibbled on olives stuffed with orange peel and bites of cheese from Turkey’s dairy-centric east. The most interesting of these were a smoked Circassian and tulum, a sheep’s milk cheese aged in an entire goatskin. The latter is slightly sour, its flavor imbued by the skin during fermentation—who knew?

If understanding its food is a way into a culture, home cooking is its mantra. Cookery classes enlighten, awaken the senses to new flavors, textures and food environments. Selin Rozanes, a former travel agency manager, understands and welcomes the curiosity of travelers. For me, Turkish Flavours provided an ideal entrée to the explosion of taste sensations I would experience in Istanbul.

IN THE KITCHEN WITH YOUR KIDS - TURKISH COOKING CLASS WITH KIDS

Why not take your kid to join you in your culinary experience. To encourage your budding gourmet, a Turkish cooking class in Istanbul offers ample opportunities for culinary exploration for kids and parents alike. While having fun, kids will be experimenting with flavour combinations and exploring the Turkish food culture. Available for min. 6 year olds.