The Turkish Cookbook

WOW! I am blown away by this book. I feel inspired every time I open this book thanks to the brief but important stories of these dishes and beautiful photography. I appreciate that Musa Dagdeviren makes note of the regional variations in some dishes. The recipes I have tried so far have turned out exceptional. Some recipes are just a tad light on the instructional direction which I have no problem supplementing with a quick youtube or google search. Also, my book did arrive slightly scuffed up from transit, I would recommend ordering this book elsewhere as Amazon didn’t ship it with any protective wrappings in the box.

I bought this for my wife for Christmas. I’ve been to Turkey before and loved it and she’s been learning more about the culture and language in preparation for a trip together.This book is way more than I expected! Some of the cool features:- Every recipe has an English “name” and a Turkish name- Almost every recipe has a little “backstory” or context- Every recipe has a marker like “dairy free”, “vegan”, “less than 30 minutes”, “less than 5 ingredients”, etc (which is super helpful because my wife is allergic to dairy)- There’s lots of pictures of recipes and even “cultural pictures” of the landscape and people- The book is beautiful and has an embossed, fabric-like coverThis is by far the best gift I saw all Christmas!

Great for those who love Mediterranean cuisine

I saw this Chef on Netflix and I loved the way he cooks. When I found out he had a book at Amazon, I had to get it and I have not been disappointed. His recipes are clear and easy to follow, and even if I am not from his part of the world, he has a lot of vegetable recipes which makes this a wonderful cookbook. I am very impressed with his recipes and his book!

When friends visiting Istanbul ask me where to eat, I send them immediately to Musa Dağdeviren’s restaurant Çiya. I’ve been waiting for a very long time for a cookbook to appear in English that does justice to the food in Turkey – this is finally it.The thing about food in Turkey is that home cooking can be quite different than what you find at most restaurants in big cities, or for that matter what’s known internationally as the “national cuisine” of Turkey – which in the estimations of a lot of people I’ve met abroad is little more than döner kebap. In fact, regional cultural and culinary variation is huge in Turkey, owing to millennia of influences from different neighbors, religions, trade partners, waves of immigrants, fertile grounds and many climates (allowing a larger variety of ingredients). For years, Çiya served recipes direct from the homes of families living all over Turkey – just like it’s made traditionally in that specific location. Musa is not only a chef but also a kind of food anthropologist. Motivated by a worry that regional food culture is in danger of being lost forever, he has travelled over the years to many towns in Turkey and meticulously documented their culinary secrets.This isn’t a cookbook, it really is something of an encyclopedia. It’s Joy of Cooking / Larousse Gastronomique sized. It’s about 500 pages and more recipes than that – a steal for the price. There are some gorgeous pictures in the book, but that is definitely not the main focus – no space wasted on lavish pictures of intermediate steps. The recipe text can be sparse for a beginner though descriptive enough if you have some cooking experience. The recipes range in difficulty from sub-30 minute to extremely involved. There’s often a few notes on the cultural origins or context of the recipe. The ingredients are laid out in a very clear and standardized way, in both weight and volume measures, which I appreciate very much. The recipes are also categorized into dairy free, vegan, vegetarian, one-pot, quick, etc etc. I’m relieved to see that the translation is good, because quite often a lot of the terminology can get butchered. The index at the end is comprehensive, and you can search for recipes by ingredient, which is very helpful.The recipes are accurate – if a recipe is made using clarified butter, that’s what it says and you’re not going to get bullshitted about it or get some oversimplified version. You can choose whether you want to take a shortcut or not. My litmus test is usually the “rice pilaf” recipe, which is absolutely NOT merely adding rice and water to a pot – here they describe all the details and variations I know, and on top of that there’s a whole section of rice-based dishes, to shame an entire generation of cookbooks.A lot of Turkish food is what I like to call “accidentally vegetarian” – it just so happens that the dish doesn’t have any meat. Meat is definitely a big part of Turkish food, but there are 14 recipe chapters in the book and only one for red meat, one for offal, one for poultry, one for seafood. Of the remaining, more than half of them (eyeballing here) are marked vegetarian, which makes this a great choice if you are too.The recipes themselves are absolutely brilliant. I’m over the moon to find almost every hard to find recipe I can think of, but being born and raised in Turkey, there is plenty in there that is unfamiliar even to me. I’m also happy to note that some favorites I recognize from the restaurant are in there too. Almost every recipe has some flavor or technique or detail or combination that is intriguing, and it’s a great source of creative ideas for your own recipes too. In short, I think book is one of a kind and is a worthy purchase. Five stars easily.