Southern Turkey

For nearly 10 years we’ve had the good fortune to spend time with friends on their gorgeous Turkish gulet, or wooden sailing vessel, cruising the aquamarine waters of Greece, Croatia and southern Turkey.

The markets are always the best part for me, they are so vibrant and the food is so fresh and flavoursome.

In Turkey the local flavour palette of tahini, yoghurt, pomegranate molasses, grape molasses, nuts, fresh herbs, sesame seeds, smoky chilli flakes and spices such as cinnamon, cumin and sumac provides cues for so many interesting combinations.

Tomatoes are a central ingredient.

Always peeled, they are served with creamy feta, cucumber, fresh mint, peppers and olive bread, or diced with cucumbers, peppers, spring onions and dill, sometimes with couscous or burghul mixed through.

A favourite salad we discovered combined finely diced tomatoes, green peppers, cucumber, mint and parsley

with chunky walnuts and pomegranate molasses.

The standard Turkish breakfast crosses the quadrant of flavour profiles: a tray or platter containing sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, cheeses, olives, honey, fresh and dried fruit and a hardboiled or fried egg. And then there is Turkey’s famous menemen, a dish of stewed onion, tomatoes and peppers mixed through with eggs until they form a soft creamy scramble.

But it’s the grilled seafood I always crave. You find these temporary beach restaurants set up each summer down in the Goeck archipelago, family affairs where momma cooks and poppa tends the fire, and the kids serve. Everything is cooked over the embers of a wood fire and flavoured with little more than salt, lemon, olive oil and perhaps a little wild oregano. It’s such a timeless, satisfying taste and so easy to create at home. ●Catch celebrity cook and food writer Annabel Langbein at The Food Show, July 25-28 at the ASB Showgrounds.