Modern Antakya cuisine

These are the first dishes that come to mind when talking about Antakya’s traditional foods. Let’s take oruk and kaytaz böreği and give them a modern twist: Oruk made with conger eel (there are many of them in the Orontes River), kaytaz made with vegetables and semirsek böreği (pastry made with ground meat) filled with Arsuz sea bream (sea bream is very popular in this coastal town). There is also lamb stuffed with delibekirli apricots and Samandağ peanuts served with pomegranate sauce on a layer of asparagus. These hard-to-imagine modern Antakya dishes have been developed by BTA Catering Kitchen Director Yıldırım Serim. These foods were served to guests at the gala dinner of the Geleneksel Lezzetler Şenliği (Traditional Tastes Festival) organized by the Anadolu Halk Mutfağı Derneği (Anatolia Folk Cuisines Foundation) in Antakya last week. Adnan Şahin, the head of the foundation, has been traveling to different regions and making a list of their traditional foods. This year he traveled to Antakya.

It is a known fact that many dishes in Anatolia are on the verge of being lost. These kinds of activities are necessary to preserve and maintain them, but these alone are not enough. There has been much debate and discussion on the need to add a modern touch to dishes in order to bring the Anatolian kitchen, which has a history that dates back several thousand years, to an international level. Even though some people from Antakya do not like Serim’s food show, we have to look at “modern Antakya foods” from this perspective. The importance of this is amplified when we take into consideration that the number of tourists in Antakya is increasing every day. Until a few years ago, there were only three tour guides in Antakya. Tourism increased in the area after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stayed at the Ottoman Hotel and a television program was filmed in the city. Halife Kilisli, who is both a philosophy teacher and a tour guide, says, “Now there are 30 guides, but that is still not enough to meet the demand.” The festival included dishes from Aleppo, Osmaniye and Kahramanmaraş as well. But since Antakya was the central area, most dishes were from that city. We didn’t forget to ask Serim for the recipes, but if you are ever in Antakya, don’t start your tour of the city before eating tepsi kebab offered in its traditional form in the Uzun Çarşı and künefe at the restaurant named Hatay Sultan Sofrası, owned by Metin Tansal. That is because you will need a great deal of energy while touring this historic city.

Almond and broad bean soup flavored with fennel seeds: Remove one kilogram of broad beans from their pods and boil them in water. In a separate pan, boil a handful of fennel seeds. Grind the boiled fennel seeds in the blender and add them to the boiling broad beans. Mix a soup bowl of salted yogurt, a tablespoon of flour, one egg yolk, the juice of one lemon and a spoonful of the boiled broad bean water together. Pass through a strainer and then mix into the broad bean soup. Add salt to taste. Chop some almonds and add them to the soup. Serve soup with sizzling red pepper oil.

Why Chef Yıldırım made this dish: The fertile lands between Çorum and Lebanon are where agriculture first emerged. Red wheat, chickpeas, peas and beans were grown here 10,000 years ago as well. In Antakya, there are many dishes that are made from fresh and dried beans, but no soup. So I decided to give it a try.

Lamb stuffed with delibekirli apricots served on a layer of asparagus: Sauté fresh asparagus in butter. Add salt. Purchase pounded leg of lamb from the butcher. Make a stuffing using ground beef, finely chopped delibekirli apricots, Samandağ peanuts, garlic, finely chopped thyme, salt and black pepper and wrap meat around stuffing. Cook in an oven heated to 180 degrees Celsius for 20-25 minutes.

Pomegranate sauce: Boil the bone from the leg of lamb in water. Strain the broth. Add the seeds from four fresh pomegranates. Add a tea cup of pomegranate syrup and a teaspoon of sugar and let boil. Mix a tea cup of cornstarch with water in another bowl and then mix into the sauce. Serve stuffed lamb with this sauce.

Why Chef Yıldırım made this dish: We know from mosaics that have survived to the recent day that during the Roman era people in Antakya cultivated and ate asparagus. I used the deliberkirli apricot, which is one of the varieties that belongs to this region, and the Samandağ peanut, which is a thin, narrow oily local nut that has a unique shape and smell that is grown in the sandy fields of Samandağ. I used this to illustrate the wealth of local items. I decorated the pomegranate syrup with pomegranate seeds because I wanted to recall the pomegranate seed decorations mentioned in the “Kitab-üt Tabih” written by Muhammad bin al-Hasan al-Baghdadi in the 13th century, which is known as the first recipe book in the Middle East.

Rose sorbet: Boil 500 grams of rose water with 250 grams of sugar. Mix in a blender with 500 grams of ice. Chill in the freezer for two hours and serve with six or seven fresh rose petals.

Why Chef Yıldırım made this dish: I actually wanted to make the slush from daffodils in this region. But I could not find any fresh ones. Rose petals are used in various stuffed grape leaf recipes in Antakya, and rose water is used to add flavor to various desserts (haytalı, belluriye). I thought presenting the dish with rose would be nice; the scent of the flower would smell nice, and the dish would taste good. I also thought it would show the importance of the rose in the Antakya kitchen.

Oruk made with conger: Conger filling: Dice two conger fillets. Dice one carrot, one zucchini, one potato and one onion. Saute these ingredients with four cloves of garlic, finely chopped parsley, a pinch of salt and a pinch of black pepper. Flavor with pomegranate syrup after it cools down.

Oruk: Knead together one shredded boiled potato, 300 grams of fine bulgur, the juice of one lemon, salt, 400 grams of ground beef, one tablespoon of red pepper paste and one egg yolk. Shape the mixture into a cone (oruk) about six or seven centimeters in length and add the stuffing. This can be fried or boiled.

Semirsek böreği made with Arsuz sea bream: The filling of the Arsuz sea bream semirsek böreği is the same as the oruk. The only difference is that you use sea bream instead of conger when making the filling. For the outside, place three layers of phyllo dough on top of each other, spreading melted butter in between the layers. Cut into squares. Place some of the filling in the middle, fold and fry.

Vegetable kaytaz: The filling of the vegetable kaytaz is prepared the same way, except replacing the fish with peas and some dill. Place this filling inside phyllo dough as described above.

Why Chef Yıldırım made these dishes: Semirsek is a pastry made by stuffing meat into layers of dough. I wanted to create a new taste using the sea bream without changing anything in the cooking method. I then added the conger-filled oruk next to it. There are 32 different kinds of oruk in the Antakya kitchen. Their filling is generally meat and sometimes tallow is used and sometimes tail fat is used. But I wanted to use conger. In the Roman Empire, the conger eel was always an important part of the cuisine, and fried conger eel with mulberry sauce was prepared during that time. Fried conger, grilled conger and stuffed conger are still made in the Antakya kitchen. I tried to give the message that people should use fish instead of meat, which the people of Antakya are accustomed to eating.

Samandağ’s May orange

We know that the orange is a fruit that grows in the winter, and once the summer comes, you can’t see it on trees. But the orange trees in Samandağ’s Hıdırbey village beg to differ. Hıdırbey is actually known for a 900-year-old sycamore tree that is located in the village center. It is believed that Prophet Moses and Hıdır met where this sycamore tree is located. Under the tree, someone sells fresh oranges picked that same morning. The orange tree orchards are at some distance. It’s very interesting to see oranges on branches in the middle of May. We slip out of the crowd enjoying the shade under the sycamore and find ourselves under the Kuş family’s orange tree. Nezvat Kuş was born and raised in this village. He is married and has two children. His grandfather came and settled in the village in 1936. He makes a living by selling spring oranges and apricots. He has 100 orange trees. He grows four or five tons of oranges a year. This citrus fruit is also known as the Valencia orange. It stays on the tree for one year. Even if you come a year later, you can still find the same orange on the tree. The cold weather does not affect the fruits. Besides, Samandağ does not have a very cold and snowy climate. But the fruits’ colors change from orange to green in the winter. It’s also disinfected once a year to repel the Mediterranean fruit fly. In the next garden, Yücel, his wife and his children are resting under a tree. They own an old Hatay home. The house has been taken under protection and is being restored. We ask Yücel what the difference is between the May orange and other oranges, and all he says is, “This is the last fruit tree.” He must mean it’s the final version. Yücel’s daughter picks a few of the May oranges and hands them to us. We touch the May oranges with surprise as if we are seeing oranges for the first time. They are so beautiful that a person wouldn’t want to eat them.