Yes, summer is well and truly here in Turkey and it’s not only feelin’ good but lookin’ good in terms of colours in the markets.
this is what I made this evening using purslane with an onion, a tomato and a sweet red pepper: semizotu yemeği |
And it’s green everywhere, lingering springtime shades verging into deeper, more vibrant darker ones inviting you to daring culinary experiments!
beautiful vibrant purslane or semizotu |
Semizotu or purslane is a recurring theme in my blog and that’s because it’s so seasonal! This is summer so here we are again with the green and the purslane. I do realize that this is not a very common vegetable in many other places but here, it is so wonderfully ubiquitous. The larger-leafed variety is the cultivated sort while the smaller one is garden-grown. There is a little wild variety that grows wherever it can, including in-between the cracks of the stones of our garden path in Assos! All of them are edible.
personally, I like to remove the thick stems leaving just some of the thinner ones behind |
One of the joys of semizotu is that it can be served either hot or cold. Either as a yemek meaning meal or dish, with optional ground beef, rice or bulgur – just a little, though, – or as a salad or indeed, meze too.
purslane with onion, tomato, sweet red pepper and a little rice/semizotu yemeği |
- Cut off and discard the roots of the purslane, wash several times in cold water, and chop.chop
- Peel and dice the tomato. Chop the onion into crescent shapes. Chop the red pepper into small pieces.
- In a pan, place the purslane, onion, red pepper, tomato, olive oil, seasoned salt and washed rice or bulgur and mix.
- DON’T ADD WATER. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 45 minutes. Leave the pan uncovered for the last 15 mins of cooking.
- Serve with plain yogurt sprinkled with a few red pepper flakes.
and finally, purslane with yogurt sprinkled with flaked red pepper |
Had to share that I stumbled across your purslane recipes after a heavy day of weeding my garden plot here in the Rocky Mountain region & made this. It was absolutely delicious! I didn’t have regular yoghurt for the top, instead using honey-flavored. It worked really well, giving a sweetness to balance the heat. My husband (who was not so keen to be eating “weeds” as they are here) went for a second helping. I’m going to use the leftovers with a fried egg today.
What terrific news. Perhaps you can start eating through all the garden!! There’s so much there that we throw out unnecessarily.