Cooking (and survival) in the Istanbul summer heat
Cooking (and survival) in the Istanbul summer heat
Plus five (nearly) no-cook recipes to try out.
Istanbul summers can be brutal. It’s not just the relentless heat or the high humidity. With little green space to speak of, there are few places to hide except inside, near an aircon unit. For most of July and August, life revolves around managing the heat. (Luckily, I was able to escape to Norway for a couple of weeks).
Energy levels are certainly lower than usual. Even the cat didn’t budge from the bed for days as the summer heat set in. She was so sedate we even asked the vet about it at a routine visit for something else. Was she perhaps having a reaction to the medication she was given a week earlier?
—No, they’re all like this at the moment, the vet replied.
And sure enough, as we walked back to the car, it was there in plain sight in front of me. Every single street cat was flat out, resting or sleeping in positions that spread their limbs as far from one another as possible, presumably to lose as much heat as possible. Not one of them was on the move.
My summer kitchen in Istanbul
The summer heat drastically impacts my kitchen activities, too. I don’t have an aircon in the kitchen, nor a thermometer, but I’d venture temperatures routinely reach 30°C (86°F), even without cooking. I therefore live with a few kitchen restrictions during the summer months.
I only turn the oven on for baking bread. I’ve tried shop-bought bread, even considered taking my loaves to one of the local bakeries for baking, but have decided this is a worth the extra heat that comes with turning the oven on for a couple of hours once or twice a week.
I also limit the use of the stove top, especially for frying. My kitchen fan’s terrible, so I need to open the balcony door every time I fry something – immediately inviting all that heat and humidity into the kitchen.
Perhaps most importantly, however, the weather changes my appetite. I want to eat less, lighter and with even less effort than in winter. Cold or room temperature foods are excellent. Preparations should be minimal.
Bizarrely, limitations are great for creativity. With only a handful of ingredients and techniques available, more ideas spring to mind than when you can make anything in the world.
What I eat in summer
I know I keep raving about them, but there’s a reason why olive oil braised vegetables are a staple of Turkish summer kitchens. Light yet filling, and best enjoyed at room temperature, they’re just what you want on a hot day. I eat them with rice or toasted bread.
All sorts of legume based salads are also on repeat. Cannellini beans, chickpeas or lentils mixed with fresh vegetables from the market, a simple dressing and lots of herbs. A little feta cheese never goes amiss, either. I always keep cooked chickpeas and beans in the freezer, so they’re instantly available (you could always use canned, too, if so inclined).
Lately, I find myself eating a lot of cold pasta, i.e. pasta salads. I didn’t used to like them, but since my partner for various reasons can’t eat legumes this summer and I don’t want to eat hot pasta, I’ve had to find ways to make them enjoyable. The key, I find, is a dressing so punchy it counters the blandness of cold pasta, as well as some substantial vegetables. A few citrus-y spices like coriander or sumac don’t go amiss either.
There’s also my old friend the potato tortilla, of which I’ll never tire and which has made a comeback on my regular rotation since a trip to Madrid last year. Quite frankly, there’s nothing quite like wondering what to have for lunch only to be greeted by last night’s potato tortilla as you open the fridge door. I almost always overcook them (getting the timing right is so difficult), but with plenty of good quality extra virgin olive oil and excellent smoked paprika in the mix, the flavour never disappoints anyway.
And then there’s salad. Always salad, with every meal. Usually centred around tomatoes, cucumbers – or both. After buying a bunch of purple basil a few days ago, I’m currently surviving on tomato, purple basil, spring onions and olive oil with a generous sprinkling of salt. Can’t get enough! With a simple fried piece of meat alongside, my summer tummy is happy. Now the purple basil is finished, I’m looking forward to cacık, the Turkish version of tzatziki, alongside dinner tonight. And there’s always shepherd’s salad at least once a day.
For more tomato tips, see last week’s newsletter with four ways to peel tomatoes and five recipes in which to use them:
I’d love to give you every recipe, but for now you’ll have to settle for a few essentially no-cook recipes that are already up on my blog. Hope you enjoy!
Kısır (Turkish bulgur salad)
Since you only need to soak the bulgur, this is as close to a no cook grain salad you’ll get. And what a salad it is. Bursting with flavour from tomato paste, pomegranate molasses and herbs, it’s brilliant alongside your summer meats or as part of a vegetable spread.
Cacık (Turkish tzatziki)
I’m not going to get into a debate about Greek tzatziki vs Turkish cacık, but I make my cucumber yoghurt dips closer to the latter for two reasons. One, the cucumbers are chopped rather than grated (less work and more texture). Two, dried mint. If you haven’t tried it with yoghurt and cucumber, you must. For best results, use the short Middle Eastern style cucumbers – they are more robust and a lot more flavourful than the long ones more common in most of Europe and the US.
Fattoush
A chunky salad that’s popular all across the Middle East for very good reason. The authentic versions use fried pita bread, but since half the point of this salad is to use up stale bread, I use whatever bread I have lying around. Feel free to do the same.
Cannellini bean salad with tomato & avocado
A summer favourite of mine. This was one of the first recipes I shared in this newsletter, and I’ve now posted it on the blog, too, so it’s easier to look up when you want to make it.
🔜 Coming Friday: Pasta salad with courgette, peppers & preserved lemons
With lots of herbs, griddled courgette (zucchini), a dressing that punches flavour and a pasta that lets the other flavours shine, this is the salad that converted me into pasta salad lover.
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With all best wishes from my kitchen in Istanbul,
Vidar