Pide, Charlotte Street

I was looking for lunch around Charlotte Street one Sunday when I happened upon the simple little joint that is Pide. When I say simple, I mean there’s a menu on the wall, a little seating in the front, and an oven in the back. And, yes, they sell pide and lahmacun, all freshly made and freshly baked when you order it. Apart from those, there are ready made salads and dips and sides of kofte, falafel, halloumi and chicken wings. Everything on the menu is well-priced and if you order lahmacun (or multiples of lahmacun), as I did, you can get the salads and dips at a discount.

A small order of Shepherds salad was lovely and refreshing – tomato, cucumber, onion, Turkish peppers, all with a little sumac on top.

I got a dip as well – quite a generous little tub of cacik, the classic garlicky, minty cucumber and yoghurt dip.

That dip was indeed perfect for my lamb lahmacun, fresh out of the oven served on a large sheet of paper. This was excellent stuff, all warm and lamby and intensely savoury and with a dab of the yoghurt, gosh. Gosh, it was good.

I ordered chicken wings too! These were grilled (I guess in the oven?) and then tossed with a spicy sauce. They weren’t the most exciting things but they hit the spot.

All of this plus a Turkish tea at the end came to less than a tenner – a total bargain by my books. And with a bit of this and a bit of that, I think I put together a relatively healthy and balanced meal, no?

I’m keen to try their pides and the rest of the lahmacun toppings. And their kofte too!

Pide
45 Charlotte Street
London W1T 1RU

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A Turkish Tomato and Lemon Fish Stew

Did you watch the most recent Rick Stein series – From Venice to Istanbul? There was one episode somewhere in Turkey where Mr Stein watched a tomato and lemon fish stew being cooked by a woman. I think perhaps the recipe was so simple that no one even bothered to write down the recipe as it’s not on the BBC website. A similar recipe is provided, cooked by a fisherman (in another episode, I think) but I wanted *that one*.

I had my doubts whether the recipe as presented would even work. All the ingredients, including a whole fish, are dumped into a large saute pan, it’s covered and then set onto the heat. But somehow it did work as various juices were exuded from the tomatoes, lemon and fish and this all mingled together and created a delectable fish stew. It’s stupidly easy and I highly recommend it! I reckon there are plenty of fishy combinations that will work when cooked in this way.

Turkish Tomato and Lemon Fish Stew
serves 2.

Two sea bass (I used small individual serving sized ones), cleaned
1 large onion
3 large tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 lemons
salt
extra virgin olive oil

Peel and slice the onion and spread the rings in the bottom of a large saute pan (that has a lid). Sit the fish on top of the onions. Peel and dice the tomatoes (pour boiling water over the tomatoes in a heatproof bowl, leave for a minute, and the skins should just slip off) and scatter them over the fish. Peel the garlic and cut into large chunks and also add this to the pan along with the chopped parsley.

Take one lemon and slice off the peel. Slice the now naked lemon into slices and dot the top of your fish mixture. Take half of the second lemon and squeeze the juice over. Season with salt and drizzle over a very generous amount of extra virgin olive oil.

Cover the pan and set it over medium heat. In about 40 minutes, the fish should be cooked through and everything else should have cooked down, leaving you with a lovely fish stew. Serve with lots of bread for mopping it all up.

 

Turkish Red Lentil Soup

Is it an Indian summer now? It’s certainly sunnier and warmer than I would have expected it to be, seeing how cold and wet September entered. But thanks to the cold at night and a general unwillingness to turn on the central heating any more than we already are (we’re in a bit of denial that summer’s over), I’ve been making a lot of soup. I mean, look, second soup recipe in a row!

This Turkish red lentil soup, mercimek çorbasi, is currently one of our favourites, it being super easy to put together in very little time. While it’s simmering away (and an extra 10-15 minutes doesn’t hurt), you can go off and do something else. And the flavour! By itself the soup is fine but it’s when you add the lemon and mint that things pick up. And the chilli butter! If you’re looking to keep preparation all down to only one pot, dusting the top of the soup with a little Turkish dried chilli flakes (pul biber) is delicious too.

Turkish Red Lentil Soup
serves 2 as a light meal or 4 as a starter.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small or 1/2 large onion, finely diced
1 carrot, finely diced
1 cup of split red lentils, washed
5 cups of water/vegetable stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt

1 tbsp butter
dried Turkish chilli pepper flakes
fresh mint, chiffonade
lemon wedges

Heat a medium sized saucepan over medium heat and add the olive oil and onion. Cook until soft and translucent. Add the carrot and stir for another minute. Add the lentils, water/stock, tomato paste and cumin and stir through. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and let simmer until the lentils and carrots are soft – this is usually 20-30 minutes. Blend the soup (I use a handheld blender) until smooth. Salt to taste and dilute too if it’s looking too thick. Keep hot.

In a small pan, melt the butter and add about a tsp of dried chilli flakes. Keep over a low-medium heat until the butter turns a beautiful reddish colour.

Serve the soup in bowls, drizzled with a little of the chilli butter and topped with fresh mint and serve with lemon wedges.

 

Şömine in Dalston

It was back to Dalston a couple weekends ago to try more Turkish food in that hood. It was snowing that day and we hustled our way up Kingsland High Street and I eventually pulled Blai into Şömine. I’d been wanting to try some of their homestyle food for a while though the waiter who greeted us first warned that we couldn’t get kebabs there! They must get that request a lot.

While still choosing between the five or six dishes on the steam table by the window, my attention was drawn to the back of the restaurant where I noticed two women folding pasta. Turkish manti! It was decided – an order of manti had to be part of our lunch as well as a dish from the steam table that came highly recommended by our waiter.

A huge basket of bread and a generously filled pickle plate came immediately to our table which I nibbled on while I watched the women make manti. Roll out the dough, slice it up into little squares, a dab of seasoned lamb mince on each and then press press press to form the unique little star shaped dumplings.

Their homemade manti came slathered with garlic yoghurt and chili butter and was fantastic. The bread came in very handy to mop up the butter and yoghurt and the pickles gave a welcome refreshing acidity to counter the rich yoghurt.

From the steam tray came the highly recommended vegetarian dolma. Peppers and courgettes had been stuffed full of seasoned rice – delicious but a little bit of minced lamb wouldn’t have gone amiss. Perhaps we’ll try one of their lamb dishes next time.

Our bill for this fine lunch came to £13. I hear that this can be brought even lower if we had stuck to their soups (I saw a man at the next table slurp up a delicious looking lentil soup) which still come with all the bread and pickles. And if you’re lucky enough to live nearby, they’re open 24 hours!

Şömine Restaurant
131 Kingsland High Street
London E8 2PB

 

An Evin Cafe Brunch in Dalston

Hooray! The Richmond-Stratford overground line is running on Sundays again! We celebrated this last Sunday by hopping a train to Dalston; we were in search of Turkish food for brunch. I already had a place in mind – Evin Cafe, where fresh gözleme could be found, a Turkish filled flatbread I’d been wanting to try. It’s difficult to miss on Kingsland High Street – we found this sight in their window.

We entered the restaurant and were surpised to find quite a large space with lots of seating. After making ourselves comfortable at a table at the back, we ordered a range of the Turkish dishes that were listed on the breakfast menu and all turned out to be winners in my book! As you can imagine, a gözleme was part of the order.

First up was a sucuklu menemen (£5.75), a mixture of green pepper, onion, tomato, special garlic sausage (the sucuk) all bound together with scrambled egg. It may not look like much but it was fresh and delicious all scooped up with the basket of sesame-studded Turkish bread that came with our food. The sucuk tasted quite like a Spanish chorizo.

The günün çorbasi (soup of the day – £3.50) was lentil that Sunday and I had to have it, having heard great things about Turkish lentil soups. A big bowl was set in front of me and I dipped my spoon in: it was quite homogenous in colour save for the occasional speckle of green and red. It was thinner than I expected but this in no way was a bad thing. In fact, this was the loveliest, full of flavour red lentil soup we’d had in a while and I cannot wait to try to recreate it at home.

Last to arrive from the front of the restaurant was our cheese and spinach gözleme (£2.50); it was bigger than we both expected with its ends falling off the plate. This was just gorgeous – a soft, freshly made flatbread sandwiching crumbled mild feta cheese and lightly cooked fresh spinach.

Look at the fresh spinach in there!

I can’t wait to try one with potato – the last filling that’s offered (Josh of Cooking the Books says it’s a spicy and minty potato mix).

With a freshly squeezed orange juice and a can of Coke, our bill came to £15. You lucky, lucky people of Dalston; I wish I had a local place like this (but really, now I can get here in half an hour!). Service was good and you’re never put under pressure to vacate your table – I saw a couple people set up their laptops. It’s definitely worth a trip out here – we spent the afternoon exploring the local shops too and went home with quite a lovely box of baklava (including a fabulous chocolate and pistachio one).

Evin Cafe
115 Kingsland High St
London E8 2PB