Can anyone recommend a good greek/turkish cookbook?

[ambuletz]

My friends mum is a great cook. Lately she's really been into making turkish and greek food. particularly kofte, and red onion dish cooked in pomegranite sauce/molsasses and breads. I think she got this frrom a recipe book that came with a guardian paper. some dishes might've been frrom yottam ottolenghi.

any recommendations?

a large part of me wants to get her something turkish (or greek to a slightly lesser extent). and a very small part of me wants to get her one of ottolenghi's books too... but my concern is getting her a book that asks for ingredients that are expensive or not easy to find (which is just off putting). yes its east london.. but still.

Edited by ambuletz on Sunday 28th June 21:40

[21TonyK]

I've recently bought a few but more aimed at the Arabic side of stuff. Will dig through in the am.

[ambuletz]

21TonyK said:

I've recently bought a few but more aimed at the Arabic side of stuff. Will dig through in the am.

yottam's books seem to lean towards this side. but i don't really know fully much about him. I don't think me or her or my friend have had much exposure of it.. whilst i get that some of it is quite similar...im not so sure about it.

but frrom watching food vloggers their rice and lamb dishes look amazing.

[21TonyK]

Got several nice looking Greek dishes but over half a dozen or so books, i suspect reddit or youtube might be the best bet or a pile of cheap used books off Amazon.

^^^ dunno what I'm on about, replied without reading properly again!

NOPI is the only Ottolenghi book I have and in hardback its a nice book and a good read but the recipes are definately "restaurant recipes". B ut its down to £20 on Amazon.

My next one will be Falastin which looks like a decent read but not very Greek or Turkish!

Edited by 21TonyK on Monday 29th June 11:27

[dapprman]

Check out Claudia Roden - she's been producing very good Greek/Turkish/Mediterranean cook books since before the kebab became a post drinking thing. I still refer back to a small book she produced for Sainsbury's in the 1980s and which I used as a student.

[K77 CTR]

I've got the following

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1912031949/ref=cm_sw_r...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1911632728/ref=cm_sw_r...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1742706010/ref=cm_sw_r...

I've made recipes from all 3 and there are normally suggestions for alternative ingredients if hard to find. Istanbul and anatolia are both lovely books for the shelf but ozlems is probably more adapated to English as she lives in UK and does some cooking sessions.

[guillemot]

There are so many to choose from - I find the Sabrina Ghayour books are great. I love her flavours and her recipes are very approachable. She shares lots on her social media channels, too, so might be worth checking those out to see if you like her stuff.

Ottolenghi and Meera Sodha as mentioned - but also Saliha Mahmood Ahmed (former masterchef winner) has Khazana, which I adore. The Honey&Co. books are great (Food from the Middle East is the one I’m thinking of here).

I’ve not yet got Falastin (it’s on my birthday list for later this month so fingers crossed) but on the Ottolenghi page Sami shares lots of recipes which are all fabulous. He also cooked lots of the book on his Instagram channel when it was first released so that would be worth a look, too!

Ingredients are so much easier to find now, too. We live in an area that really doesn’t do that sort of food properly, nor do we have the sort of shops locally but you can still find lots of things online. Spices are readily available, and Sous Chef is great, too.

ETA K77 your book suggestions all look fabulous, thanks for those! The list is growing...

Edited by guillemot on Monday 29th June 21:47

Edited by guillemot on Monday 29th June 21:48

[CardinalBlue]

I love Greek food. This is probably the most used cook book in my house throughout lockdown

https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Georgina-Hayden/Tav...