Turkey's OTHER desserts
The only Turkish dessert I knew of before coming here was baklava; it was also the only Turkish menu item on my Turkish Airlines flight from JNB. Oh yeah, I guess I also knew about the chewy ice cream, which I tried at the Aichi World Expo in 2005.
So, I was delighted to discover a whole new class of desserts, which are loosely in the pudding/dairy family. A lot of cafes serve both baklava as well as puddings, but some specialize in one or the other.
One of the cafes I tried was Bolulu Hasan Usta (BHU), which gives out this handy picture guide to the desserts. Here's the rundown of the ones I tried (from left to right, top to bottom):
1. Ekmek Kadayıfı - very dense spongy cake, extremely sweet, with clotted cream on top. So sweet, I got tired of it half way through.
2. Krem Karamel - didn't try this one (I think I can imagine what it's like)
3. Sakızlı Muhallebi - also didn't try this one
4. Şekerpare - we made this in one of my cooking classes. Made with semolina, it tastes a lot like #1, only with a gritty texture.
5. Tavuk Göğsü - this one deserves a bit more explanation; see below.
6. Kazandibi - this is the one that turned me onto this whole class of desserts, when I had it at the cafe called Mado! It's basically like a chewy Crème Brûlée.
7. Aşure - it's a grain-based pudding with a bunch of dried fruit and candied fruit and nuts in it. Called "Noah's pudding" because the story goes when the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat in Turkey, bits and pieces of leftover food was found on the ark and made into a pudding. It has the texture of Chinese babaozhou (eight treasure rice gruel), with the taste of Christmas fruit cake.
8. Keşkül - made with almonds and milk, very comforting.
9. Krem Şokola - I didn't try this one either.
10. Güllaç - this wasn't available at the cafe I went to.
11. Profiterol - in Turkey, it's basically a few cream-filled profiterole submerged in chocolate sauce (pudding-like chocolate sauce). I had this at Mado, and since it was already prepared, the profiterole were hard and not that tasty.
12. Fırın Sütlaç - basically a rice pudding, tastes much like what we have in the US but with a baked crust on top.
So #5, Tavuk Göğsü, has got to be the most unique desserts I've ever tried. Also one of the few desserts I probably will never order again (and I tried it at Saray; founded in 1935, it's supposed to specialize in pudding desserts). Tavuk Göğsü is made with shredded chicken breast. It only tasted faintly of chicken (since there's also milk, sugar, etc.), but it was the texture that I just couldn't get used to. See how stringy it is?
