Kisir

Here is another Turkish recipe from me :) My family is so fond of Turkish cuisine that it has almost become a usual thing to prepare Turkish meals atleast twice a week. Not only that, the Turkish friends we have and the mosque we attend to serve different varieties of this cuisine at special occasions, that sometime we feel that we live in Turkey ! A good thing about this cuisine is, it doesnt require many spices and the natural taste of the main ingredients are preserved.
Kisir is a traditional Turkish Salad/Starter/Snack made from bulgur, parsley and tomato paste. For kisir, a finely grounded bulgur is used, unlike the coarse bulgur used for Bulgur pilav, couscous is sometimes used instead.Well, here goes the recipe....

Ingredients
Fine bulgur - 90 gms
Spring onions - 2
Long green pepper - 1
Garlic pods - 4
Tomato mark - 2 tbsp
Olive oil - 2 tbsp
Parsley - 2 tbsp
Mint leaves - 3 tbsp
Salt -1/2 tsp
Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Lettuce leaves (optional)
Pomegranate juice - 1/2 tsp (optional)

Method
1. Wash the bulgur well. Drain the water.

 2. Soak it in boiled water for about 1 hour.

 3. The fine bulgur granules after absorbing water would have swollen now.

 4. Drain and squeeze out the water from the bulgur using a spoon. This is an important process. The end result depends on how well you squeeze out the water and how dry the bulgur is !

5. Alternatively, you could squeeze it out using a clean muslin cloth. This method works the best !

 6. The resulting bulgur has to be absolutely dry.

  6.  Chop the spring onions, parsley, mint leaves, green chilli, garlic pods.

 7. Add all the chopped vegetables, herbs, tomato mark, olive oil, pomegranate juice, salt, pepper powder to the bulgur and mix well with your hand.

8. The final product gets its beautiful red color from the tomato mark.

9. Shape it in ovals or round forms and serve the Kisir together with lettuce leaves.

Tips :
1. You could as well chop the lettuce leaves and mix it with the kisir.
2. This could also be used as a filling for Burger sandwiches. Cut open a bread, stuff the filling, add sliced onions, tomatoes, cucumber and ketchup /mayonnaise. An ideal Snack for picnics !

This Salad goes to the event Visual Treat by Creative Sanyukta.

Cucumber Salad with Mint

Salads are my favourites and the meal becomes somehow incomplete without them. If you don't have many vegetables in your fridge, then this cucumber salad would be a right choice ! Its very simple and easy to make, gives a rich aromatic flavour of the mint together with its different dressing.

Ingredients
Cucumbers(small) - 5
Fresh mint leaves(very finely chopped) - 1/4 cup
Lemon juice - 1 tbsp
sunflower or any vegetable oil - 80 ml
Orange blossom water - 1 tsp
Pepper powder - 1/4 tsp

Preparation
1. Cut the cucumber into thin slices and mix it with the chopped mint.
2. For the dressing, in a separate small bowl, mix together lemon juice, oil, orange blossom water and pepper.
3. Pour the dressing over the cucumber-mint and mix thoroughly.

4. Serve !

Tips: 
1. You can also use dried mint leaves and large cucumber. But before making the salad, soak the cucumber slices in salt water for half an hour to remove the bitterness.
2. If you do not have orange blossom water, mix 2 or 3 drops of orange essence in 2 tablespoons of water and then use it.




This recipe goes to the event "Souper Sundays" hosted by Debinhawaii
Its my pleasure to add this wonderful Souper Sundays logo :)

This recipe also goes to the Taste of Pearl City, of Umm Mymoonah,who is running a wonderful "Iftar Moments" event for Ramadhan. For more details about her event, click here.

Carrot Salad with a Moroccan flavor

This carrot salad with its wonderful dressing containing different spices like Cinnamon, Pepper, Ginger with raisins and honey gives it the typical and the characteristic Moroccan flavor.  Since my husband loves this sweet-sour combination very much, this salad got a big applause :)
Carrot lovers could give it a try......

Ingredients

Carrots (big, scaled and grated) - 5
Cucumber (cut in small pieces) - 1
Raisins - 50 gms
Lemon juice - 1/2 tbsp
Ginger powder - 1/4 tsp
Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
Honey - 1/2 tbsp
Olive oil - 50 ml
Pepper - 1/2 tsp

Preparation
1. Mix the grated carrots, cucumber and raisins in a bowl.
2. For preparing the dressing, in a separate small bowl, mix together lemon juice, ginger powder, cinnamon, honey, olive oil and pepper.
3. Now add this dressing into the carrots mixture and mix well.
Serve with rice or breads.

Tip : The raisins look good when you soak them in water for 10 minutes before adding into the carrots.

This recipe goes to the event "Healing Foods - Carrots" hosted by Suma of Veggieplatter, which was started by Siri. Thank you both !

This recipe also goes to the event Vegetable Marathon started by Shilpa and hosted this month with carrots as the theme by PJ. Thank you PJ and Shilpa !

This Salad also goes to the event  No Croutons Required hosted by Jacqueline