Hünkar Beğendi - Turkish lamb on eggplant mash

I love lamb overall and this particular way to cook it just became my absolute first choice. I first tried the dish couple of months ago at Hünkar restaurant in Istanbul. Simple and intense melt in your mouth lamb stew with smoky and creamy eggplant mash made a truly perfect combination. I started researching and it turned out that Hünkar Beğendi was a well known dish. There were many recipes around, but none really resembled the version I had at Hünkar. It took quite some time to replicate it, but finally it worked. Now it seems that at home it comes out even better.

Turkish eggplant salad #1002

In Istanbul they told me many times: we are experts in one thousand and one way to cook eggplant. And indeed they are. Eggplant salad on a menu can stand for a dozen different things. One of our dinners included two eggplant starters plus one eggplant side dish and so different all these were that nobody felt overwhelmed by eggplant. However there is much beyond the classics. My favorite eggplant starter in Istanbul was a chef's special at Meze by Lemon Tree restaurant - spicy fried eggplant with sweet tomato sauce and creamy yogurt topping. I couldn't trace it in google, but I still found a way to make it. Trial and error method always works if you go on with it long enough.

Roast duck with quince

My body just knows that winter is around the corner and it won't let the calendar fool it. After around two years when I didn't want any meat or fish at all, I came to eating almost just those. And given the cold, the greasier they are the more I want them. So I've been in serious relationship with salmon and duck during the last two months. I kept roasting duck for Christmas for many years and it looks like this year it will also happen. There is something extremely family uniting in sharing one good bird for a Christmas dinner. And nothing goes better with it for me than sweet spices and sour fruit.

Palak paneer (Indian spinach and cheese)

That day I woke up thinking about palak paneer, because, please don't laugh, I dreamed about it at night. Of course I had no spinach in my freezer, so I went out almost in my slippers to get some at a store nearby. Guess what, they didn't have it either. But I wanted it badly, so that didn't stop me.

Favorite caponata

You might well tell me that it is not the classic caponata and perhaps you will be right. It happened so that I tried caponata in different interpretations here and there and there was one I liked by far the most. It was at l'Osteria (tiny Italian restaurant of Toni Vianello in Paris). Since then I was dreaming to recreate it and finally it worked.

Potato zrazy with mushrooms

These potato zrazy are another take from my grand grandmother's collection. I make them really rarely, because it is time consuming. Something has to force me and this time it was a Russian / Ukrainian cooking class I was preparing to give to a group of German ladies. My granny stuffed the zrazy with minced meat, but I prefer mushrooms especially given that it is Lent now.

Thai green curry from scratch

While I was living in Singapore and Thailand my favorite thai food was always green curry, not tom yam or phad thai. There were whole weeks when I kept eating it day after day, craving for it, hunting and traveling for it. The best green curry I had in Bangkok - at a little thai restaurant across the street from Holiday Inn. We came there by chance, a happy one (I know now) because we missed our flight from Cambodia to Singapore.

Homemade Italian dinner with Leo and Natalia: pasta fagioli, spinach lasagna and peperonata

Leo is an Australian, living in Moscow for several years. We've been friends for a while but only recently I found that he loves cooking. I'm still wondering how I deserved such a present, but last week Leo and his lovely wife Natalia invited me for a home made dinner. It turned out that Leo's grandmother was Italian from Naples region and she taught him many Italian recipes.

Slow cooked vegetable tagine

I got used to eating tagine in Fontainebleau. The town though small has two or more Moroccan restaurants, one of which was almost next door to our house. We frequented that tiny hospitable place with dark red walls and always well made food. I loved the tagine there, but once I made it at home I realized it can be even better when you can afford to cook it really slowly.

Quinoa with smoky eggplant and roast pepper

I finally got some quinoa. I tried this grain twice before - at Terresa's class in Paris and in Corner Burger in Moscow. Both times I found it completely amazing so I cooked it at home to share the finding with my family. Yes, they did indeed like it. But as soon as I set down and started eating I realized I was making it just for myself.

Broccoli and Brie cheese gratin

This broccoli and Brie cheese gratin came to mind spontaneously last weekend. Unlike many "on the go" simple foods I make for myself this I don't want to go unnoticed. It made a beautiful, simple and delicious dinner. Together with a glass of cider it even made me nostalgic about France. You just need to like both broccoli and cheese to enjoy as much as I did.

Roasted vegetables out of the oven

I was almost set to go to my first dancing class yesterday night. It's been 2 or 3 years that I stopped to dance and I felt like something has been missing since then. I came back from INSEAD determined to start again. My friend referred me to Gala dance school and here I am. Something happened though and I didn't go. I'll go on Saturday. I really will. So I stayed at home doing guess what.