TAMEK Hot Pepper Paste 550g

Pastırma is a form of Turkish cured meat with exceptional flavor, a delicate texture, and a lingering taste. The predecessor to the Italian pastrami, this delicacy originated before the Byzantine times, in the East of Turkey in the town of Kayseri where it is still produced today. The story of its invention has to do with meat being pressed, bastırmak in Turkish, by the legs of horsemen as they rode with sides of meat hanging from their saddles. Today, shanks of beef are cut from domestically grown beef, and dry cured in the fresh air for a couple days. Next, the meat is covered in a paste called çemen, which is made from garlic, fenugreek seeds, and red peppers, and left to cure for another couple days. Connoisseurs will tell you that if your pastirma is cut with a machine, as opposed to a hand knife, it is inferior. Believe what you will.

A steaming bowl of Turkish soup or "çorba", accompanied by fresh, crusty bread is like a warm hug from mom. You wouldn't be able to think of better comfort food, especially during the cold, rainy days of winter. In Turkey, soup is served as the first course at both lunch and dinner and is also a common choice for breakfast in many Anatolian homes. During the holy month of Ramadan, the daily fast is always broken with soup, fresh bread, olives, and cheese—light fare that is easy on the stomach after a day of fasting.

Simit is generally served plain, or for breakfast with tea, fruit preserves, or cheese or ayran. Drinking tea with simit is traditional. full with Grape molasses and Ankara style (gevrek) Simit are a popular Turkish street food. Instead of being boiled like a bagel, the twisted circles of dough get a quick dip in diluted grape molasses before dredging in sesame seeds. The result is a crisp exterior and a light, delicate, and tender interior. It is the best breakfast in this world when accompanied by cheese, tomatoes, cucumber and a cup of tea. Although it's one of the best street foods in the country, it's possible to make it at home too.

Yufka is a round and very thin sheets of unleavened flour dough. It is used to make Turkish flatbread and pastries, and has been considered as one of the most important food items in the Turkish as well as in the Balkan and Middle Eastern cuisines. Some say that yufka may have been the earlier form of phyllo/filo dough. More specifically, Turkish yufka is usually made from wheat flour mixed with a little salt and water to form a dough. To make yufka, the dough should be made to rest for just about half an hour or so after it is kneaded and rolled into large paper-thin round sheets (very similar to lavas) by using an oklava, a long roller used to make yufka. After the large thin sheets of dough are done, they should be heated or baked on both sides for just about 2-3 minutes on a hot saç until they get a slightly brown color. The saç is a round shaped hot iron plate commonly used in Turkey for making yufka and flatbread.