How to make gozleme

In Istanbul, a lot of restaurants attract tourists by having ladies demonstrate the traditional way to cook gozleme.  We ordered a yellow cheese and spinach version and this is how she made it:

First, she rolled out the ball of dough with a thin wooden rolling pin.

Next, she added spinach to half of the oval.

 

Cheese was put on top of the spinach.

 

After that, she folded the dough over and patted out the air bubbles, and crimped the edges closed.

  

Next, the pancake was placed on the domed griddle plate

 

And turned when browned.

Finally, the cooked pancake was cut into rough squares, ready to eat.

Sweet treats in Istanbul

If you have a sweet tooth, Istanbul is the place for you.  You can buy all sorts of sweet treats at the Spice Market, but most restaurants and cafes have a sweet collection, or you can go to a shop dedicated to sweet treats.  Generally, the sweet treats are divided into baklava and sweet breads or biscuits:

 

 

 

and Turkish delight ( which seems much less sweet and more marshmallowy than what I have had in Melbourne).  These seem to come in an infinite range of flavours - even saffron!

 

and desserts, which can be ice cream,milk custard, rice pudding, a sort of fruit and nut pudding, or, my favourite, soaked dried figs and apricots, with walnuts and ice cream.  Yum!

 

The food and drink of Istanbul

I've been asked to let you know what the food is like in Istanbul.  In a word, it is great!

Breakfasts in our hotel tend to be what we would consider meze or antipasto in Australia.  On offer are breads, olives, cold meats, boiled eggs, halve, cheeses, sauted vegetables, apricots, figs, cucumber, tomato, jams.  we can also get scrambled eggs, omelettes, natural yoghurt with fruit conserves, fruit and jams.  a variety of mainly fruit or herbal teas, Turkish tea or coffee and juices are also on offer.

 Appetisers are dips (hommus or capsicum) with Turkish breads, fried calamari, stuffed vine leaves, black olives and grilled vegetables

Main courses vary enormously.  At lunch time, most Turkish office workers seem to like to eat food which is kept warm in a bain marie.  From there, they pick a serve or serves of meat, vegetable and rice dishes. 

So far, we have tried grilled bass, gozleme filled with spinach and meat:
 

grilled lamb chops with a baked vegetable casserole

 

grilled lamb chops

a mixed grill of lamb, chicken, beef, chevappe type rolls and sort of hamburgers ( the capsicum sauce is yummy, as are the non-hot chillies)

and vegetable casserole

 For drinks, most places serve fresh orange, lemon and pomegranate juice in season, but they also serve a lot of artificial fruit drinks.

I tried and liked the slightly salty yoghurt drink

 Bob found the local coffee very good,  but we both generally order Turkish tea, which I have discovered is lovely with local honey and a lemon slice.