Istanbul Cult Recipes Review

Turkish food isn’t something I’m overly familiar with, and yet there’s nothing I love more than trying out new ideas and cuisines in the kitchen, so the idea of getting hold of a copy of Istanbul Cult Recipes most definitely appealed to me. I was expecting a book with some Turkish meal ideas in, but this book is so much more than this. It’s a beautiful tour round Istanbul, looking at not only the food, but the culture and surroundings of the city, and while the food itself initially looks like it could be tricky to make, a few experiments later and our opinion had most certainly changed.

While some of the ingredients are a little fiddly to source (you’ll need to deviate from your usual trip to Morrisons for several of these recipes) most just need you to be a little more imaginative. A lot of meat will need to be fetched from a proper butchers, and for the genuine ingredients a Turkish or international food shop will be a useful place to have nearby – not an easy task if you live away from the bigger cities. Recipes do offer good alternatives though, such as “standard” Greek fetta cheese being a good substitute for the wonderfully named beyaz peynir, a handy inclusion if you want to try things out without going too far out of your way. There are also some great, clear instructions on how to prepare certain items throughout the book, with some great photos of Turkish chefs doing their thing to help you get the most out of the recipes.

The food is great though, and while it won’t become a regular part of my weekly cooking this is most definitely a book that I’ll have easily to hand in case we have people over and want to try something slightly different, or if we just fancy a twist on our usual family food evenings. Either way it’s a beautifully made book which, if you fancy the idea of Turkish cooking, will certainly strike a chord.