In winter, one of the most popular desserts is “kabak tatlysy”, pumpkin sweets. At the festive New Year's table they must be present. Turkish folklore says: that the first thing in the New Year is to eat a piece of sweet pumpkin, then the coming year will be successful and abundant.
Walking around Istanbul on New Year's Eve and looking into the windows of cozy cafes and pastry shops, we met this heroine of the Turkish New Year more than once.
I tried pumpkin sweets several times in Alanya and Istanbul, but was not impressed. The pumpkin pieces were not very sweet and were also too soft for my taste. It is usually prepared like this: the pumpkin pulp, cut into large pieces, is placed in a large saucepan, sprinkled granulated sugar, pour in some water and cook for an hour or two. No, this kind of pumpkin is not for me.
One winter, shortly before the New Year, I saw on TV a New Year's report about pumpkin, in which they gave a recipe for making a dessert from it. The recipe also sounded very simple, but still attracted my attention to such an extent that on the next market day I bought a pumpkin (Kabak). More precisely, it is called “honey pumpkin” - bal kabağı. By the way, from the same news program I learned that pumpkin reduces the risk of cancer (especially lung cancer) and reduces the risk of paralysis. Surely, she has many other useful qualities.
Places where pumpkins are sold can be seen from afar - no matter what colorful vegetables and fruits are sold from the stalls, the “acid” orange-green color scheme of pumpkins is the brightest at the bazaar. Whole pumpkins are very large, so buy them in parts. It is not possible to cut a pumpkin with a knife - the huge fruits are cut with saws! Sellers deftly cut off the hard peel with special knives for peeling vegetables.
To prepare sweets, you should choose the brightest colored pumpkin with a wide layer of pulp. Take slices from only one pumpkin. After all, the density of the fruits is different. Then, during heat treatment, the pieces will have different consistencies - some are ready, others are either too hard or too soft, like porridge. They will cut off 2-3 kilos from any pumpkin half you like, cut it into narrow crescents, and then peel it in a couple of minutes. And you will receive a pumpkin ready to use. If you want, bake it in the oven, or if you want, follow my recipe and prepare some sweets.
Ingredients
2 kg peeled pumpkin
1 kg granulated sugar
for serving
chopped walnuts
thick fresh cream
So let's get started
Cut the pumpkin, peeled and seeded, into pieces approximately the size of a matchbox, place in layers in a wide flat pan, covering each layer with granulated sugar.
Turkish housewives very often use pumpkin in cooking. various dishes. In one Turkish family I was treated to an unusual pumpkin dish. The taste was so unexpected that I didn’t immediately realize that it was made from an ordinary pumpkin. And the presentation surprised me. On a huge platter lay translucent orange pieces of pumpkin, drizzled with white tahini sauce and sprinkled with greenish pistachios. Such a riot of colors and tastes. I took the recipe for this dish as a basis and cook this dish quite often, giving up tahini and nuts. What is called - a simpler option. And when I treat guests to this dish, I sometimes replace tahini and nuts with a mixture of lemon juice and honey. It turns out no less beautiful and tasty.
Let's prepare the pumpkin. Peel it and remove seeds and cut it into pieces.
Place the chopped pumpkin in the pan in which we will cook it later, and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Place on a plate and let it cool. As I already said, you can sprinkle the pumpkin with nuts and pour tahini on it, or replace the tahini with a mixture of honey and lemon juice, or you can eat it just like that, without any sauces. Believe me, it's very tasty!
Baked pumpkin - Zingata (winter).
Baked pumpkin according to a Turkish recipe from Aegean cuisine. This pumpkin is good served with yogurt-garlic sauce. Baked pumpkin is an excellent side dish for poultry and fish.
By the way, I already brought summer zucchini Zyngata. I served this pumpkin as a side dish with chicken thighs.
What do you need:
Pumpkin (peeled) - 1 kg.,
Onions - 3 pcs.,
Garlic - 5-6 cloves,
Chili pepper flakes - to taste
Ground black pepper - to taste,
Flour - 1-2 tbsp.,
Tomato paste - 1 tbsp,
Water - 150 ml.,
Salt - to taste
Butter - 100 gr.
How to cook:
Peel the pumpkin, cut into slices, place in a baking dish.
Cut the onion into half rings, finely chop the garlic and place everything between the pumpkin slices and on top.
Sprinkle the pumpkin with black pepper, chili flakes and sprinkle with flour.
Place in a small bowl tomato paste, add water, add salt - mix everything with a fork. Tomato sauce pour pumpkin on top.
Place pieces of butter on top of the pumpkin.
Place the form with the pumpkin in a preheated oven at 180 degrees, bake for 1 hour, and at the end put under the grill for 5 minutes to get a beautiful golden brown crust.
Serve baked pumpkin with garlic-yogurt sauce.
Grate a little garlic into thick Greek yogurt (for piquancy), add salt to taste and stir.
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Grilled chicken thighs “in Italian marinade”
Juicy chicken thighs, marinated in “Italian flavors”, cook quickly and are eaten even faster!) An ideal lunch/dinner for weekdays, since you will need a minimum of time to prepare this delicious food. The only thing is that you will need to marinate the meat in advance, preferably a day before, in extreme cases - 6-12 hours. I marinate the night before and cook it the next day. You need to fry on a grill pan for 4-5 minutes on each side. While the thighs are roasting, you can bake vegetables for a side dish in the oven.
It’s best to immediately buy cut thighs - without bones and skin, they are a little more expensive in price, but considering that you will need to remove the bone, remove the skin and the time spent on this, it essentially works out that way.
What do you need:
Chicken thighs (skinless and boneless) - 6 pcs.,
Olive oil (vegetable) - 1 tbsp.,
Dijon mustard - 1 tbsp.,
Lemon juice - 3 tbsp,
Sugar - 1.5 tsp,
Salt - 1 tsp,
Black pepper - to taste
Dried chili flakes - 0.5 tsp,
A mixture of Italian dried herbs (or replace with a mixture of parsley, oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary) - 2 tsp.
How to cook:
Wash the chicken thighs, dry them, and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle with chili flakes and Italian dried herbs and stir.
For the marinade, in a small bowl, mix with a fork until emulsified - olive oil, Dijon mustard (it is not as spicy and vigorous as our “Russian” one), lemon juice, salt, sugar.
Pour the marinade over the chicken thighs, mix well, massaging the meat.
Cover the marinated meat with a lid and put it in the refrigerator for a day, or at least 6-12 hours.
An hour and a half before cooking, you need to remove the meat from the refrigerator so that it comes to room temperature.
Heat the grill pan well and grease it vegetable oil and fry the chicken thighs on both sides for 4-5 minutes.
Serve immediately!
Kabak tatlisi is a traditional Turkish dessert that consists of four basic ingredients: pumpkin, sugar, lemon and walnuts.
To prepare the dish, boil the pumpkin pieces in their own juice with the addition of zest, lemon juice and sugar, and when serving, sprinkle with finely chopped walnuts. Sounds very simple, don’t you agree?! But don’t let the modest composition fool you – the dessert turns out incredibly tasty. With the combination of juiciness, sweetness of pumpkin and delicious pieces of nuts, the dessert evokes associations with baklava, but the tender pieces of pumpkin themselves, melting in your mouth, thanks to the addition of lemon, taste closer to candied fruits.
Now, in the fall, when the pumpkin is at its ripest and most delicious, is the time to prepare this delicious dessert. Don’t put it off and be sure to pamper yourself and your loved ones with this simple and delicious treat! Let's get started?!
Prepare your ingredients.
According to the classic recipe, lemon is not an essential component of the dish, but it softens the natural taste of pumpkin (which not everyone likes) and gives it an appetizing spicy note that evokes associations with candied fruits. The same applies to cream added when serving dessert. It is desirable, but not at all necessary.
Peel and cut the pumpkin into large pieces and place some of the pieces in one layer in a deep saucepan.
When cutting a pumpkin, be guided by the size standard box matches - pieces bigger size You can and should cut it, but it’s not worth less. However, the size and shape of the pumpkin pieces only matter when serving, for visual perception dishes. Therefore, strive to ensure that the pieces are approximately the same size and shape, but the remaining, irregular pieces can also be added to the pan.
Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar over the pumpkin layer. The traditional proportion of pumpkin and sugar is 1 to 2, i.e. 1 kilogram of sugar per 2 kilograms of peeled pumpkin. I add a little less sugar - 1 kg per 2.5 kg of pumpkin, it turns out no less tasty and quite sweet.
Repeat layers until you run out of pumpkin. The final layer should be a layer of sugar. Add the juice and lemon peel (remaining after you squeeze the lemon) into the pan.
The amount of pumpkin at this stage may seem quite impressive, but during the cooking process the pumpkin will boil down and its volume will decrease by more than half.
Cover the pan with a lid and let the pumpkin sit until room temperature at least 3 hours for it to release juice. You can leave the pumpkin to steep overnight.
When the pumpkin releases its juice, place the pan on the heat and bring the mixture to a boil.
When the syrup boils, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and cook the pumpkin for 1 hour. If the pumpkin pieces are very large, they can be cooked for 90 minutes so that they are better saturated with syrup.
If you want the pumpkin flavor of the dessert to be more pronounced, remove the lemon peel before cooking. If you prefer to soften the taste of pumpkin and add spicy notes to it, leave it.
After 60 minutes, remove the lid from the pan and cook the pumpkin for another 30 minutes. Then turn off the heat and remove the lemon peel from the pan.
Cover the pan loosely so that steam can escape from the pan as it cools, and allow the squash to cool completely before serving.
To serve, place the cooled pumpkin pieces on a plate, sprinkle with finely chopped walnuts, add a little cream if desired, and serve the dessert.
Turkish pumpkin dessert “Kabak tatlisi” is ready. Bon appetit!
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