Le Nonne

In kitchens across the world she is a staple and without her special touch dinners would be dire indeed. It seems collective truth but held within the palm of her hand are the memories of your childhood and the very same cooking paths you have developed in your own kitchen. She is no mystery: she is your grandmother.

Le Nonne: who are they and where are they

In a landscape of towering natural stone chimneys, rugged valleys, snaking rivers, and villages clinging to impossible hillsides, to enter Cappadocia is to step into a fairy tale world, a region beyond history, where history began.  Turkey’s famed region is also the home to a cuisine spanning thousands of years, and where the Nonna towers nearly as tall as the region’s famed “fairy chimneys” in the both hearts & stomachs of their communities.

Nonna Dirican is the grandmother of Caffé Palladio chef Buket Dirican.  This Nonna is an indomitable force where cooking is concerned.  Her cuisine is one simple, traditional, informed from the land, rustic, yet steeped in generations of taste. In this Cappadocian kitchen, Nonna Dirican keeps alive the recipes of the Ottomans, both her history— her Grandfather as the Ottoman Governor of Egypt and a Father a cavalier under Atatürk’s command—

and her recipe books a record to Turkey’s modern history.  Nonna Dirican, at the age of 82, tends daily her garden, bakes bread in her wood fired tandoor, cures olives, presses oil, dries herbs, tomatoes & peppers all in the service of her cuisine.  Now that is the true soul of cooking.

What is the dish Chef Buket continually craves and the real star of Nonna’s kitchen.  Yaglama, a dish of ten layered lavash breads topped with a scrumptious topping of ground lamb and red peppers.

Yaglama

For the Dough

460 gr/1 lb./4 cups plain flour

7gr/2tsp. dry yeast

3 tbsp./45 ml olive oil

2 tsp./10 ml sea salt

300ml/10 fl oz. warm water

For the meat & vegetables sauce:

500gr/1lb 2 oz. ground lamb

30ml/2 tbsp. olive oil

2 large onions, finely chopped

3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 medium tomato, finely chopped

15 ml/ 1 tbsp. concentrated tomato puree

10 ml/ 2 tsp. Turkish hot pepper paste

300 ml/12 fl. Oz/ 1 ½ cup water

Handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

Salt and ground black pepper to taste

Plain or garlic yoghurt to serve

1.  In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt and yeast and mix well. Stir in the olive oil and warm water and knead into a soft dough by hand (if it’s sticky, you may need a little extra flour to shape the dough).  Once quite soft cover the dough with a dish cloth and leave to rest and rise at a warm spot for 45 minutes or until it doubles the size.

2.  While the dough is resting, prepare the filling. Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Stir in the onions and garlic, cook until soft for a few minutes. Add the ground lamb and cook for 2-3 minutes, mixing well. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato and red pepper paste and combine well. Add the water and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover, turn the heat to medium to low and cook for about 30 minutes.

3.  Once all is cooked, stir in the chopped parsley, give them all a good mix and turn the heat. The filling needs to  have quite  a bit of liquid to cover the flat breads so add a little more water if needed.

4.  Once the dough has risen, divide the dough into 11 pieces and roll into 11 small balls (each about a size of a small tangerine). On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball into a thin, round circles of about 23cm -9” in diameter. Dust each of these circles with flour so they don’t stick together and keep them covered with a damp towel so that they won’t dry out.

5.  Cook the flat breads on a wide non-stick pan or griddle, flipping over them as they begin to go brown and buckle. Pile them on a plate.

6.  Now it is time to assemble the dish. Place a flat bread on a wide, circle serving dish and spread a thin layer of the ground meat sauce over. Then place another flat bread on top and spread the sauce again; continue this layering until all the flat breads are finished with the remaining of the sauce spread at top.

7.  Cut the Yağlama all the way through into 4 equal pieces, and serve immediately. A few spoonfuls of garlic yoghurt goes very well with this dish.

Afiyet Olsun