CatenaTravel

Passport & Plate - Tjvjik (stewed offal with spices)

Turkey | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
Bull lungs - 1kg,
Bull liver - 1kg,
Bull heart - 1kg,
Bull spleen - 700g,
Onions - 3 (if you don't like onions, you can take 1 or 2)
Green hot pepper - 1
Tomato paste

Spices
- Mixed peppers (red, black, white),
- Turkish meat spices mix,
- Salt
- Rosemary
- Bay leaves

 

How to prepare this recipe
First, you should boil lungs in hot water, adding a couple of bay leaves. Meanwhile, you need to chop onion, add pepper, rosemary, salt, Turkish meat spices mix. For me in this dish the more spices the better, they reveal a gorgeous flavor altogether. Then you add tomato paste (again the quantity depends on your taste) and put it on a small fire and fry it till onion gets slightly yellow. Note, not red or pink, but yellow, or else by the end of preparing your onion will be overcooked. While it fries you slice the heart; don't forget to keep one eye on the onion. When it is ready, you add heart and a little water and stew it for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile, you slice the liver and add it to the heart after 20 minutes passed. By this moment lungs have already boiled, so you add it too. Besides, you should chop the hot green pepper and send it to the pan. Everything should be cooked for 7-10 minutes, which you spend by slicing the spleen. The size of the ingredients should be convenient for a person to eat it in one bite. After adding the spleen you open the pan cover and let the liquid in it evaporate. If you like to have some sauce left, you should cover the pan again. The spleen is very good for blood, so if people have problems with iron concentration in blood, they do not let spleen be cooked too much.
Well, the dish is nearly ready. You just need to put it on a plate, decorate with greens and pour yourself a glass of dry red wine. It will be perfect for this dish.
It is very easy, very healthy, and in many countries it is considered a regale!

 

The story behind this recipe
During our travel around Turkey my husband and I came to a small town Karahayit. By small, I mean a town that grew around one street. Loaded with backpacks we were strolling around looking for a hotel. Suddenly a young man appeared from a small snack bar and as we were obviously tourists, he suggested that I went to his snack bar while he and my husband would go look through some hotels. Ugur introduced me to his beautiful wife Esma. She treated me to delicious Turkish tea and apologized saying that she had to prepare supper and leave me alone for a while. Cuisine is one of the most important parts of travel for me, so I couldn’t help suggesting myself as an assistant. However, I had to regret my enthusiasm the second I learned the menu. Esma was going to prepare veal lungs, heart, liver and spleen. I am far from being a vegan; I cannot imagine my life without a big juicy steak, or marvelous slice of prosciutto, melting in my mouth. I eat everything, except offal. I tried to explain my “dislike” for this kind of food, but Esma took it smiling and said “oh you, Europeans!” Not that Armenia is Europe, but anyway. She made me chop onion as a half moon, add motley Turkish spices, fry it on a pan, spreading marvelous scent around the kitchen. I thought my mission was over, as I wasn’t going any further! Esma gently but firmly said that I couldn’t leave the work half done. And I didn’t want to offense her being so nice to me. I sliced everything trying not to reveal my thoughts and hoping men would be back soon, to rescue me. I suffered my worst minutes. As it happens only in movies, Ugur and Narek came just in time for the supper. Esma slyly whispered in my ear, that it would be a dishonor for Ugur if I refused to taste the meal. Either it were the spices, or Esma, but the food tasted so different and fantastic! Thanks to Esma I discovered a special new taste for me. On our way back home, I bought bunch of Turkish spices and now I prepare this dish at least once a month.