Tuesday 18 November 2008

"Hunkar Begendi" for David


He said he would take "requests" for our occasional Wednesday night post-yoga din-dins. So here I go!

Hunkar Begendi is a very typical Turkish dish. It takes time to prepare, so when it's cooked it's almost a special occasion. (at least in my family where every women works)

The name means "The sultan loved it", by chicken translation. Indeed the name comes from "Begendi", which is a mixture of béchamel sauce and aubergine purée. (also served as a "Meze" along strong drinks)

SERVES 4 NON-DAMIAN PEOPLE.

The base

What:
- 4 aubergines
- 3 tbsp flour
- 4 tbsp butter (half a tablet, I guess)
- 2 glasses of milk
- 2 tsp salt

How:
- Roast the aubergines in the oven. You can wrap them with foil. Try not to pierce them, since we don't want to lose the juice. Don't cook very much so they are dry or burnt. And don't cook so little so they still have the sponge touch. They should be very soft and juicy. After cooked, peel the black skin off and smash the aubergines to have aubergine purée.
- In a pan, melt the butter and add the flour. Slowly pour the milk, and the salt after that. After the béchamel is ready, stir the purée in.

The meat sauté

What:
- 1 kg of lamb meat
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1 tbsp tomato purée
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- salt and pepper (amount up to you)

How:
- Cook the meat in olive oil, in low heat
- Add the flour and keep stirring
- Add the smashed garlic cloves and tomato purée
- Add salt and pepper
- Keep stirring until garlic and tomato purée are cooked.

How to serve
First, put the aubergine base onto the plate, and add meat sauté in the middle. You can also serve with rice, but it's mostly eaten with normal-bread in Turkey. Ciabatta or 'cross-cut bread' from tesco will do.

For drink
"Ayran" will go perfect with it. It's basicly shaked yoghurt, cold water and salt. 1 unit yoghurt to 1 units water. Tesco's light yoghurt has the same sour flavour like the yoghurt in turkey.

Enjoy!

4 comments:

Kaya Oğuz said...

Not about the food, but I believe the term "chicken translation" is of Turkish origin.

The story, which is a true one, is about translating "tavuk çevirme" in a wrong way, which is about roasting chickens on a skewer while it spins slowly.

http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/3051/pilic7hr1mi.jpg

Anyway, I really like "Hünkar Beğendi" (like the Sultan does) and I suggest "Karnıyarık" for the next recipe :)

Görkem PAÇACI said...

Yes, actually it was a turkish chicken translate. :D I really thought it was English-originated.

So the real English one (french based, indeed) would be mot-au-mot translation :)

David said...

The normal English phrase is a "literal translation" or one could also say "word by word", which is now a "mot au mot" translation of the French. :-)

Görkem PAÇACI said...

Right, the correct one is 'word by word', then.

I've got information from a trustful resource.