Kısır (Kuh-suhr) = a little Turkish on the side
Food Junta’s Turkish correspondent is back with a fourth installment of a la Turk.
I noticed my previous Turkish posts (Karnıyarık, Tava hamsi, and Çerkes Tavuğu) were misleading: a Turkish meal is never a one-pot deal. Kısır is a common (and delicious) starchy Turkish side dish that can go with anything from fish to stuffed eggplant to kebabs. It might take a few rounds to get right, mostly because I just can’t give too many exact measures here. It doesn’t matter. Just get the ingredients in there in approximately the right order, and enjoy. FYI it’s also vegetarian.
Ingredients
2 cups fine-grain bulgar
hot water
salçası (spicy roasted red paper paste) OR
tomato paste (prepared, see below)
olive oil
1-3 cloves garlic, diced
hot pepper flakes
salt
1 big red onion, diced
few green onions, chopped
1 bunch parsely, finely chopped
3-5 tomatoes, flavorful and chopped
½ – 1 cup crushed walnuts
nar ekşisi (pomogranate syrup) OR
some kind of sweet, sour, tart syrup
Prepare
Put bulgar in large bowl or plastic Tupperware thing. (You will be mixing by hand later…). Add 2 cups hot water and cover. Continue to add hot water intermittently until it’s “al dente.” Dice onions and chop tomatoes and parsley.
IF you don’t have salçası
Heat 4 Tablespoons olive oil in pan. Add red paper flakes and garlic, and cook on low 1 minute. Add 2-3 heaping spoonfuls of tomato paste and stir, cooling on low 3-10 minutes (longer the better). If it’s too dry, add more olive oil. Let cool somewhat.
Mixing
Add salçası or tomato paste mixture to bulgar. Knead and mix by hand. Channel the Turkish grandmother and get into it. The exact amount of tomato-ness is up to you. You can add more raw tomato paste if necessary. In this order, add diced red onions, green onions, any extra garlic, walnuts, parsley. Mix more. Add olive oil if it’s too dry. Lastly, add nar ekşisi or syrup to taste. There should be a good olive-oil-to-syrup balance. Sprinkle parsely leaves on top.
Serve, or cool and serve for summer.
