It seems that you don’t need to have visited Turkey to be familiar with Turkish street food. I first grew to know Turkish food in Germany, where döner can be found on almost every street corner. But döner is essentially the Turkish version of yiros- and that’s been done! I instead decided to whip up a Turkish street snack I’ve started to see becoming more and more common in Australia; gözleme.

Gözleme

Gözleme is essentially a stuffed pastry, usually filled with spinach and feta. I’ve noticed these hand-held morsels beginning to spring up at markets around the place. I first tried them from a stall at the Gilles St vintage market back home in Adelaide, and I’ve more recently seen them sold at the weekly Gorman House markets here in Canberra. There’s nothing like a convenient, tasty slice of Istanbul while poring over used books and homewares.

I followed a basic recipe I found online; a simple yeasted dough, rolled out, filled and folded over, then brushed with olive oil and fried on each side. Easy. The exciting part was in the filling. The original recipe calls for feta, but that wasn’t going to happen- once again, it was time to turn to World Vegan Feast. Bryanna’s recipe for feta is a variation of the cheese curd recipe. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this necessarily tastes like feta, but the lemon juice used gives it some similar qualities that make it a more than acceptable replacement.

My gözleme dough was a bit thicker than it should have been, but it was tasty nonetheless. Sure, not as authentic as those found on the streets of Turkey or even the market stalls of Canberra, but not a bad effort from my kitchen.

Having some extra time this evening (a novelty!), I couldn’t resist making a dessert. I’ve never been a fan of Turkish delight, so there only seemed to be one other natural choice.

Rose-scented baklava

There’s debate around the true origins of baklava, but it can’t be denied that Gaziantep, Turkey, is famous for the stuff. The recipe also comes from World Vegan Feast, and is notable for the use of rosewater, which lent these a certain ‘fancy’ quality. This was my first time making baklava- and Chadwiko’s first time eating it- and we were both very pleased with the outcome. These aren’t at all difficult to make, they just require some patience. Or a distraction- I recommend Australia’s Next Top Model on the TV. Regardless, I can’t see this being the last time I make this recipe.

Turkey, you’re alright. Why couldn’t you have just played along and decided not to freeze over for winter, so that we could pay you a visit later this year?