The Third Excellence: "Şakşuka"

Hello to all! l am Daniel :) 

For the third time a few Bremish Rotaractors met by my house, and were challenged to cook a meal called "Şakşuka" :)

After little problems fetching all the ingredients we needed and an extra tour to the local supermarket we were ready to start out.

Due to great teamwork on washing, slicing, cutting all those tomatoes, garlic hearts, potatoes and Zucchini. 

 

 

Me, cutting the Aubergines :) 

Everything was clear to heat the oven

So, roundabout 90 minutes time we were happy
to finally finish the little cups of Şakşuka

and also had lots of fun....

....while talking with our friends from RAC Galatasaray via Skype :)

Afterall, we enjoyed a very tasty meal (unusual for Germans: without any meat) full of all the healthy and tasty vegetables of nature. 

Topping all that, our late guest Johanna celebrated her birthday with us...and selfmade cake. 

Thank you once more for all of this and for a great recipe.

Daniel (me) - Jonas - Javier - Johanna - Emre - Jacqueline - Florian - Tim

Dinner Challenge No.2 - The Mystery Behind The "Cerkez Tavugu"

Hello again! :)

Now it's my turn to write some of my experiences regarding the latest dinner challenge that we've made on the 20th of October :)

Since I've got used to do the same type of evenings and meetings in Istanbul named "Ocakbaşı", I did not hesitate also for this time to welcome our club members in my very little flat (yes. believe me or not, while I was writing this blog entry, I've just made a step-calculation, the whole flat is about 8 feet or something...oh man, it is indeed tiny!) 

Jonas - me - Tim

This time our goal was to make another Turkish dinner, which as per our previous correspondences and phone conversations with our Turkish friends from Galatasaray Rotaract Club was simply called "Cerkez Tavugu" :) A historical chicken dish, which we as Turks normally eat as a "meze" or let us say a "intermediary meal" near the main course was in our hands to be prepared!


Jonas came first. He had brought a very nice white wine :) It could sound different to drink before meals for Turkish people, but we did here anyway :) After a couple of white wine and a couple of Hennessy, our president Tim came and he also brought a very nice red wine! My personal wine experts are currently Jonas and Tim, whom I have a big reliance on regarding wines ;)

Tim getting ready to cut the garlics :)

Jonas - pure expert in mincing the chicken!

Then, we started the preparations :)

- 1.5 liters of water
- 2 pieces of chicken burst
 (had 6...therefore we made from 6...and it became a main course! :)
- about 2 glasses of Walnut
- 2-3 pieces of garlic
- olive oil
- salt and red pepper

                                                           what we did?

boiled the chickens in water for 25 mins

cut the garlics + mixed with walnuts

made them little with a....ehmm...wine bottle

finally gathered all the stuff in one bowl...

       oh..and by the way...we also did not forget about liquid power :)

after the 25 mins of boiling...started mincing the chicken...

oh well...I was working too, don't worry ;)

then, two of our other members...

...Jacqueline and Kathrin came :)

and had a fantastic 3 plates of (yes..it was a lot! :Pp) Cerkez Tavugu

we had a lovely chat for a few hours - - and even drank Turkish Coffee :)

2nd Dinner Challenge

PRESENTING BLOG DELEGATE:
Dear fellows,
I thought our second dinner challenge is a great chance to write to our common blog.  Let me first introduce myself. I'm Ayşegül, 28 years old and born in Istanbul. I am a film maker and I also work as an assistant director in commercials and feature length films. Very recently, I started giving lectures on film in a university.  I've been a rotaractor for almost 8 years. For 2012-2013 term. I'm the president of Rotaract Club of Galatasaray.  It's a pleasure for me to make efforts to make the world a better place and I really enjoy to create and make new projects with my rotaractor friends. I'm married and I have a cat. I like science- fiction, swimming and writing my own stories. I also like listening to music a lot!


2nd DINNER CHALLENGE:
And as for the Twin Club activities;
We really enjoy doing new things and learn about your culture.
Last weekend(20th of October), we were at Sami's house for October House Party and we did our second dinner challenge with you, Bremen Rotaractors, who were on Emre' s house at the same time.
We start with the patatoes and then we put all the ingredients to a pan and we had ourselves a very great Bratkartoffeln. At the same time Bremen Rotaractors did circassion chicken with our recipe. (by the way, it really looked great on my cell phone:) ) We used our high- tech mobile devices again:) to communicate online and we passed information about the phases until we completed our dinners. This time, wifi was a bit problematic, but still we managed to keep up with 3g :)


We, of course, consumed it real fast, considering there were 20 people on the house:) It was delicious.
For the next time, we want to increase the excitement just a bit and send a more challenging recipe:) We'll of course do our part, if you send us a more difficult meal too :) I think we are ready for this:D

Here are some photos from the lovely evening:)

All the Best,
Ayşegül,
Galatasaray Rotaract Club

Preparing Patatoes

Using skype to communicate between Germany and Turkey

Having fun while doing it:)

Delicious Bratkartoffeln

Circassion Chicken looks real tasty on my cell phone:)

A Quiet Period? - Only to the Outside!

Sooner or later it was sure to happen: the first quiet period in our twin club experiment blog. Luckily nothing serious has happened, but time issues and summer holidays in both clubs were mirrored in the blog: we encountered the "summer hole".

But the communication thankfully didn't stop, it just went on via mail in the meantime, and a lot of planning was going on:

• the next Cooking/Dinner Challenge
• the visit of our Turkish friends to Bremen
• the exchange of minutes of meeting
• the setting up of the formal Twin Club Agreement

So, a quiet period on the blog? Yes!
A quiet period in the project? No!!
A problem that could endanger our experiment? Definetely not!!!

We are still on our way to a Twin Club Relationship and we are making big steps forward! :)

Dinner Challenge No. 1 - Site: Bremen

On Saturday the 25th of August, our two clubs finally had their first common event: the Cooking Challenge No. 1.

Bulgur wheat, tomatoes and lemons in Bremen

We had exchanged recipes (German Kartoffelpuffer for Istanbul, Turkish Kisir for Bremen), bought all ingridients and were ready to start.

There were some big differences though: in Istanbul around 15-20 Rotaractors had gathered with perfect summer weather, a big kitchen and an even bigger terrace, while in Bremen we were in five in a small kitchen and with the rain hitting against the windows.

Members of Galatasaray Club cutting potatoes

How could we know that? Well, we used modern technology to make it a truely joint event. Emre, the Bremen Twin Club Coordinator, brought his tablet and "installed" it in the tiny kitchen and switched on Skype.

Aysegül, president of Galatasaray Istanbul Club, did the same on her mobile phone. Both devices had cameras and therefore we could see each other.

Cake in the oven

While the Istanbul girls and guys were peeling and cutting potatoes and onions, we chopped parsley, cooked bulgur and fried onions. We had decided to also go for a Turkish cake, which we had prepared already beforehand. It was baking in the oven and smelled really good while we were preparing the Kisir.

Cooking

All present Rotaractors were involved in the preparations and it was especially funny to talk to our Turkish friends in the meanwhile and see them preparing a German dish.

Our Kisir started to actually look like on the picture sent by our friends :)

The frying president

As a "side dish", our president Tim had prepared some meat, which  he fried in the meantime.

Daniel and Tim presenting our dinner

While the Kisir was cooling down, we decorated our dinner table, inspired by our friends in Istanbuls, whose table looked absolutely stunning (they showed us via Skype).

And finally we had our dinner!

From left to right: Johanna, Javier, Tim, Daniel and Emre (taking the picture)

Conclusion: It was a great evening, we had lots of fun cooking, and some of us even could improve their cooking skills. But the best thing was definetely the communication with our friends in Istanbul!

For more pictures have a look at our Picasa Album:

1st Dinner Challenge - August 2012

Johanna
RAC Bremen

Recipe from Turkey: Kısır

Hi Bremen,

Thanks for the great recipe it seems simple enough to make!

Here is a healthy and yummy one our mom's love to make:

 

 

 

 

 

 

KISIR

1 cup bulgur wheat, large grain
60 ml olive oil
1 onion, diced
1-2 tbsp tomato paste
1 lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cumin

First put the bulgur in a large bowl and pour two cups of hot water on it (it should stay like this for 5 minutes). Meanwhile in a medium sized pot, place the onion and olive oil. Cook until the onions turn light brown. Add the salt, tomato paste, lemon juice and cumin.

Then wash and drain the bulgur, and mix it into the pot with a wooden spoon. Cook for about 10 minutes on medium-low heat. Afterwards, cover the lid and set aside for it to cool down.

When it's cold, add in the following:

3-4 tomatoes, diced
4-5 fresh green onions, diced
1 cup chopped parsley

 

Guten Appetit :)))

German Cooking for Beginners - "Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus"

Dear friends from Istanbul,

here you have the recipe for your house party on Saturday.

We had to think of a typical German recipe, which

• is good to be eaten in summer, as we guess that in Istanbul it's much hotter than here at the moment.
• should be without pork
• is typical for Germany
• which has ingredients that you for sure can buy in Turkey without searching too hard for them
• which is possible to translate into English without complications
  

We decided for a quite simple but very yummy one: "Kartoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus". This means more or less "potatoe pancakes with applesauce" (the internet says, it's a little similar to "Mücver").

Here is the recipe for the Kartoffelpuffer (for 4 people):

You need (for the potatoe pancakes):
12 large potatoes
3 onions
ca. 8 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
   salt and pepper
   oil

You need (for the applesauce):
2 kg apples
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ liter of apple juice
  some lemon juice
  a litlle ground cinnamon

How to prepare the potatoe pancakes:

Rub potatoes on a large grater and season with plenty of salt and some pepper. Add eggs and diced onions. Sprinkle with as much flour that the potatoe mass is covered (can be more or less than 8 tablespoons). Stir everything properly. Batch-fry potato pancakes (must swim in oil), drain on paper towels.


How to prepare the applesauce:
Peel the apples and cut them into eighths, remove the seeds free. Put 2 tablespoons of sugar in a saucepan and let it melt until caramelizes (about 2 minutes). Then add apple slices and stir vigorously with reduced heat until the caramelized sugar dissolves from the pot base (about another 1-2 minutes). Then add 0.25 l of apple juice, cover it and cook until the apples are completely soft. Then mash with a potato masher. For the final consistency maybe pour in a little bit more apple juice. Finally, season with sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon to taste. 

Serve the pancakes on a plate with applesauce. You can also put some salt (careful, only a little) or sugar on top of the pancakes, just as you like and if you prefer to eat it sweet or salty.

Guten Appetit!! :)

Presenting the "Blog Delegates" - Gautier from Bremen

Hello everyone!

I am Gautier Brunet. I am 27 years old and I have been living in Bremen, Germany for a year now.  I was born in Tahiti and grew up in a small town next to Cannes, in Southern France. I studied in Paris and Boston and acquired my initial professional experience in the Netherlands and in France. I am now working as a mechanical engineer on Ariane 5, which is the European launcher.

In my free time I enjoy playing rugby. I am very proud that the Bremen team just moved up to second division.

I am living proof that it is possible to learn the complicated German language in a year when you are motivated. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to go to be fluent but people more or less get what I'm trying to say.

I find this experiment really cool and look forward to meeting you all, in Germany or Turkey!

Bisous! :)

Gautier