Customer Reviews

Sultan's Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the BEST cookbook! I am NOT an experienced cook, but I was even able to make the BREAD (from scratch!) for the meat filled pastry (Katmer with Kiymali filling)! I had no trouble understanding the instructions or finding the ingredients (they were ALL available at my local grocery!)! Another great thing about it is the photographs! There are a LOT! (If it looks good, then you want to cook it, right?) I have cooked my way through half the recipes and loved them all! This book made me a much more confident cook! Oh, I almost forgot to say, everything tastes GREAT! I don't even have to go to a Turkish restaurant anymore!

I have lived in Turkey and enjoyed the food perhaps too much. Also my hobby is collecting Turkish cookbooks and cooking Turkish food. This book is at the top of my list. Every recipe I've tried has been perfection. Not due to my cooking skills but because of the quality of the recipe. Don't hesitate to buy this book.

I am keen on collecting cookbooks. As I am Turkish I have a special interest in Turkish cuisine. I have 9 books on this topic, 4 of them in English. Ozcan Ozan's book is the best among them. Turkish food, definitely very tasty, but is not all that easy to prepare. Ozan explains each step very clearly and the measures he gives are very accurate. Apparently he genuinely put a lot of thought into it and wrote it in a way that everybody could apply.

When I ordered The Sultan's Kitchen on Amazon.com, at first I was skeptical because most cookbooks on Turkish cuisine published in English are not very authentic. But I was wrong; this book is full of authentic Turkish recipes adapted for use in North American kitchens. It is a beautifully produced cookbook, full of color and glossy photographs of finished dishes. No detail is overlooked in the production of this book. It is such a beautiful cookbook that one could easily display on one's coffee table. However, the real strength of this book lies in the precision of its recipes. The author who is a celebrity chef in Boston, has gone in great length in producing a Turkish cookbook that will allow even a moderately skilled cook to produce sumptuous Turkish dishes at home. This book is all about flavor. This is a kind of book that not only home cooks but professional chefs alike will find very beneficial. The recipes in the book harmoniously blend together, so one could easily mix and match various dishes in creating menus when entertaining others. However, the author even compiled suggested menus for different seasons of the year to ease the task of the reader.

Chef Ozcan Ozan's book does a good job in presenting the reader with an insight into rustic classical cooking in Turkey, but does not address the new style Turkish cuisine one finds in big metropolitan cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara and Adana in modern day Turkey. I guess with ever changing life styles, Turkish cuisine is also evolving all the time just like French and Italian cuisines. Turkish cuisine undoubtedly is one of the greatest cuisines in the world together with French and Chinese cuisines. One could find its influence on other ethnic cuisines all over Balkan countries and the Middle East, due to long rule of Ottoman Empire in that region. In fact, the origin of so many Greek dishes that we come to know in America lies in Turkish cuisine. Unfortunately, unlike Europe, Turkish food remains a relative mystery in North America because of the small size of the Turkish American community. But as the globalization deepens, we can expect to hear more about this flavorful and healthy South-East European cuisine in future. Turkish cuisine is one of the last fronts that American culinary experts have yet to discover. It is a cuisine that is at par with French cuisine if not better in sophistication, texture, flavor and this book provides us with a glimpse of that rich culinary culture. So far this book is my favorite Turkish cookbook published by a Turkish American author. Just try few dishes from The Sultan's Kitchen and you'll see what I mean!

Here is a list of what you'll find in The Sultan's Kitchen:

Preface
Introduction - Suggested menus
Turkish ingredients
Sauces and condiments
Appetizers (called Mezes in Turkish)
Breads and boreks (savory pastries)
Soups
Lamb, beef and chicken
Seafood
Pilafs (rice dishes)
Salads
Desserts, fruit compotes, and drinks
Resources and acknowledgements
Index

As you can see the recipes in this concise book are varied and wonderful and when you purchase the book, you will be in for a truly Turkish flavor blast. Many of the treats will linger in your memory long after you finish dining. One savors the Mediterranean aromas of herbs and spices and others that are uniquely Turkish in the dishes of chef Ozcan Ozan.

We're Turks living in the States. We have been using his recipes for over a year now. We don't feel homesick!!!!! We recommend this book whole heartedly.

I bought this book recently and I was very impressed. The recipes are largely practical. They contain everyday ingredients which are not difficult to source, and there's a wide variety of recipes for every taste. The bread section has many of interesting projects; I made the rustic chickpea bread with fermented chickpea starter and it was heaven. However the bread section is the source of my one caveat for the book - the recipes look delicious, but many of them are not very practical. There are breads and boreks which would take a pretty long time and some dedication to do, with all the kneading, folding etc. required. I'm an experienced Turkish cook and intend to have my own restaurant, so I like to experiment as much as possible, but even I'm not really up for many of the bread projects. That is the only negative I've got about the book though. It's a beautiful thing in itself, the photographs are excellent and really inspire you to make the dishes. However, it's also practical. I use my books to work from and their spatters attest to this! The page with the most spatters is probably the 'chicken in a clay pot' one, as that's my boyfriend's favourite. I would really recommend this beautiful book to both the beginner and experienced Turkish cook.

We had just returned from a month in Turkey and were looking for a way to prepare some of the fabulous dishes we had enjoyed. This cookbook was a real find and we have been dining on our favorites ever since its arrival. We highly recommend this cookbook.

I used to live in Boston and regularly dine at the Sultan's Kitchen. It is the only Turkish restaurant I've visited in the US that immediately transport's me to my Hala's kitchen in Istanbul. I'm thrilled to have this book available to me. It is one way for me to stay connected to family so far away. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Turkish food is delicious and The Sultan's Kitchen makes the best.

Most Turkish cookbooks written in English are very hard to understand since translating anything from Turkish to English can be quite a task. Most of the recipes in this book are very easy to understand and follow through. There are some recipes here that may be difficult to make (Su Boregi, Manti to name a couple) but thats because they are hard to make regardless of what language you try explain the recipe! The ingredients shouldn't be too hard to find and the taste you achieve by following these recipes is 100% authentic. You dont have to be in Istanbul to eat like the sultans anymore! Excellent for those homesick!

I love this cuisine so when I saw the author's restaurant in Boston I was thrilled. First I found the food there to be all I had hoped for--fresh, beautifuly balanced flavoring, authentic, and delicious. I knew I had to get the cookbook! It provides a wonderful range of authentic and easy-to-follow recipes and an engaging tutorial on ingredients. I can highly recommend this cookbook.