A small fish with a big reputation: Hamsi

While these low prices dip to as low as TL 2 in the Black Sea region, in Istanbul they are a bit higher, but not much. In fact, recently the Üsküdar Municipality in İstanbul has gone as far as distributing one free kilogram of hamsi per family. A full 50 percent of the fish caught in Turkish waters are hamsi. According to data provided by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), around 260,000 tons of hamsi have been caught per year in Turkish waters on average over the past 20 years. Of this, around 235,000 tons was from the Black Sea.

Surprisingly, though, Turkey is not one of the top hamsi-consuming countries in the world. In fact, on the hamsi front, Japan, the US, England, France, Italy and Spain are all ahead of us.

As far as Trabzon fish expert Fevzi Çimit is concerned, though, if we could count per capita rates of consumption of hamsi, there is no doubt Trabzon would come in first place.

Actually, hamsi is a kind of fish present in many waters around the world, but there seems little doubt that no one loves them quite as much as Black Sea residents. In fact, the Black Sea region residents of Turkey appear to have formed a sort of emotional tie to the little hamsi. Yes, you read that correctly: People from the Black Sea region have an emotional connection to hamsi. It is, for them, a much more special fish than all the other fish out there. Did you know, for example, that Black Sea region residents don't refer to the hamsi as a "fish," and that they don't approve of it when others do? No, they warn you (if they hear you calling it a fish), "its name is ‘hamsi,' it's not a fish." Hamsi are easily cleaned, they represent bounty and they are cheaper than other kinds of fish. They are a kind of quick snack for Black Sea women. They don't require lots of work to prepare, and can be tossed straight into the pan. For this reason, then, they are an indispensable item in Black Sea kitchens and cooking, which is also why there are so many recipes for hamsi.

Our recipe source, Fevzi Hoca, has collected many ideas for cooking with hamsi over the years into a book called "Fevzi Hoca'dan Balıklarımız ve Doğal Tatları" (Our Fish and Natural Tastes from Fevzi Hoca). People who head to Trabzon and want to taste good fish always make a point of stopping at his place, because his fame in cooking has spread all over the region, well beyond Trabzon. Even Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, despite the fact that he himself is originally from Rize, doesn't head on to his home city before catching a bite from Fevzi Hoca. So here's an idea: If you are a devoted fish fan, recommend this week to friends and family as "hamsi week," and hold a special hamsi party featuring different recipes every day of the coming week. 

Hamsi crackle 

Clean and wash the hamsi. Line them in a good heat-resistant pan. Place olive oil, water, parsley and salt on them. Put over a low flame, with the top over the dish. Cook for 10 minutes. Squeeze lemon over them as soon as you take them off the flame and serve up hot.

Hamsi goulash

After you have washed 1 kilogram of hamsi, make sure their bones are removed, and wash them again. Lightly salt them, and then put them in a dish, waiting for the fish to soak up all the salt. Line them up in a goulash pot, with their tails facing inside. After you have done this, add sliced lemon, finely chopped parsley and one glass of water to the mixture, and then stick the whole thing in the oven. Bake for around 20 minutes, add a bit of oil and then bake for another 10 minutes. 

Hamsi pilav with chard

Finely chop up one medium-sized onion and sauté it until it turns lightly pink and translucent in a pan, with one cup of oil. Wash some finely chopped parsley, mint, fresh onion and chard, mixing this lightly with salt to wilt it a bit. Add about a half kilogram of hamsi to the sautéed onion and mix this together. Place this mixture into a cooking pan. After evening out this mixture of onions and hamsi in the pan, place one glass of rice in a little hole you make in the onion-hamsi mixture. Over this, place the chard mixture. Add one glass of water, cook over a low flame, and then serve hot when the water is absorbed and everything cooked. 

Hamsi ‘birds’ or köfte

Use your hands to rip about one kilogram of hamsi -- bones removed -- into tiny pieces. Add two eggs, mint, corn flour and salt to the pile of hamsi bits and then let it all sit for around half an hour. Use your hands to shape this mixture into tiny köfte-sized balls of hamsi. Cook these hamsi köfte in a hot frying pan with oil. 

Hamsi omelet

Clean and wash around 300 grams of hamsi. Rip them into little pieces after making sure their bones are removed. Add one water glass of flour to about half-a-liter of water, along with a little chopped parsley and a spoonful of salt. Throw the prepared hamsi into this mixture. Add four eggs to the mixture and, without mixing this all up too much, place it in a pan with the help of a large spoon, spreading it evenly.  Place a top on the pan, and cook over a low flame. Flip it over when one side is done and then serve hot.