Ezme salad, spicy yoghurt and aubergine dip

Cut 300g aubergines into 2,5cm cubes and heavily salt them, then leave them to sit for at least 20 minutes to draw out any excess moisture.

Heat 750ml vegetable oil in a heavy-based, cast-iron pan or saucepan (you can also do this in a deep fryer; just make sure the oil is clean). You want the oil to be about 180°C. Pat the aubergines dry, so they won’t spit at you when frying. Fry the aubergines, in batches if need be, for eight to 10 minutes, until brown on all sides, then leave to drain on a rack or on top of some kitchen paper. Although you’ve already used salt to draw out the moisture, you need to season them again now, while they’re still hot.

Fry 100g long green peppers in the same oil for five to seven minutes, until they’re soft and the skin is blistered, then drain. Again, season them while they’re hot.

Peel and slice 150g potatoes into 2,5cm cubes and put in a pan filled with heavily salted water, bring to a boil and cook until they’re just done – don’t overcook them, or they’ll break down when you mix everything together later, and make the mixture thick and floury. Leave everything to cool.

Now make a tomato sauce. In a wide frying pan, fry 2 cloves of garlic gently in 30ml olive oil (a wide pan just means it will cook more quickly); you don’t want it to take on any colour, so give it only a couple minutes. Add 1 tsp aci biber salçasi and 1/2 tsp pul biber, and fry for a couple of minutes more – you just want to bring the spices up to temperature and cook the rawness out them. Add 250g grated tomatoes, turn up the heat, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes, until you’re left with a smooth sauce. Add the 1/2 tsp caster sugar and season with salt.

Leave the sauce to cool, then mix in all the vegetables, trying not to break up the potatoes. Tip into a bowl and leave to sit in the fridge overnight – the longer it chills, the better it gets; however, you have three days maximum to eat it.

<Then make the labneh, a strained yoghurt that’s served as a cold starter around Turkey and the Middle East. I find this works best with a clean pair of tights, but if you happen to have something more appropriate knocking about, such as cheesecloth or muslin, then go with that.

Spoon 325ml thick yoghurt into a bowl, add 1/2 tsp sea salt, 1,5 tsp caster sugar, 1 peeled and grated clove of garlic and the juice of 1/2 lemon, and give everything a good stir. Scrape the yoghurt mix into your fabric of choice, hang up and leave gravity to work its magic – I hang mine in the garden for at least two hours. The longer the yoghurt is left to hang, the stiffer it becomes; you want it to be a cream-cheese consistency.

Melt 30g unsalted butter in a saucepan on a medium heat and, just as the kitchen starts to fill with butterscotch smells and the butter has a slight golden colour, go in with 1 tsp pul biber. It’s important to catch the butter just at the beginning of the browning process; if it’s too hot, it will fry off the deep flavours from the pul biber. Give the pan a little swirl, take it off the heat and leave the pul biber to infuse and bleed out its colour and flavour.

When the yoghurt is ready to serve, whack it on to a plate, create a little well in the middle that the hot butter can sit in and serve immediately.

<Ezme is another kebab-shop classic. 

Finely chop a sweet pointed red pepper, 1/2 cucumber, a peeled medium tomato and 2 spring onions individually, then run the knife over them again until they are super fine and put in a bowl. Add 2g sea salt, 1/2 tsp sumac and 1/4 tsp smoked sweet paprika. Chop 10g parsley leaves and 2,5g mint leaves herbs as finely as you can, then add them, too, before stirring in 25ml good olive oil, 5ml balsamic vinegar and 10ml pomegranate molasses. 

Serve with flat bread

(Here Big Has' original recipe)