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Books : Vegetarian Turkish Cooking
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Rating: 
- Hardly scratched the surface
I am vegetarian (but not a great cook and in need of some more recipes) and my husband is Turkish (missing the cuisine but does not know or remember how to cook the dishes) so this book must be perfect for us - or so I thought!
In fact the first third of the book consists of extracts from the author's travel journal around Turkey setting the scene for the recipes in the remaining two thirds. Although no dates are given as to when these adventures took place, I found them interestingly written with an easy flow. However, my reason for buying this book was actually for the recipes. I know that Turkish cooking is not particularly vegetarian but I was extremely disappointed to find that all of the main course recipes are meat dishes with a meat substitute of either soya or tofu as the essential main ingredient. For me at least, this is not what I consider to be vegetarian cookery. If I wanted to cook like this I would just buy a general Turkish cuisine cookery book and adapt the recipes myself. The author also suggests using non-meat beef or chicken stock which I believe to be completely unnecessary. To be fair there are some nice side dishes, salads and rice recipes but I was expecting to find a lot more variety using beans (which the author states on several occasions, are used frequently in Turkish cooking) potatoes, mushrooms, eggs etc. all of which are hardly mentioned, if at all but are all important ingredients in Turkish cuisine.
I conclude that perhaps these recipes are taken from restaurants in Turkey rather than from what the Turks actually cook in their homes and I feel that the author has only just scratched the surface of what could be considered real vegetarian Turkish cooking.
- Hardly scratched the surfaceI am vegetarian (but not a great cook and in need of some more recipes) and my husband is Turkish (missing the cuisine but does not know or remember how to cook the dishes) so this book must be perfect for us - or so I thought!
In fact the first third of the book consists of extracts from the author's travel journal around Turkey setting the scene for the recipes in the remaining two thirds. Although no dates are given as to when these adventures took place, I found them interestingly written with an easy flow. However, my reason for buying this book was actually for the recipes. I know that Turkish cooking is not particularly vegetarian but I was extremely disappointed to find that all of the main course recipes are meat dishes with a meat substitute of either soya or tofu as the essential main ingredient. For me at least, this is not what I consider to be vegetarian cookery. If I wanted to cook like this I would just buy a general Turkish cuisine cookery book and adapt the recipes myself. The author also suggests using non-meat beef or chicken stock which I believe to be completely unnecessary. To be fair there are some nice side dishes, salads and rice recipes but I was expecting to find a lot more variety using beans (which the author states on several occasions, are used frequently in Turkish cooking) potatoes, mushrooms, eggs etc. all of which are hardly mentioned, if at all but are all important ingredients in Turkish cuisine.
I conclude that perhaps these recipes are taken from restaurants in Turkey rather than from what the Turks actually cook in their homes and I feel that the author has only just scratched the surface of what could be considered real vegetarian Turkish cooking.
