SIVEYDIZ

This is one of our favourite dishes of my husband and me. A couple of days ago, I posted the recipe with the green almonds and fava beans (see here). This recipe is almost the same; however prepared with green garlic instead and it is much tastier, I have to admit!  

The season for the fresh garlic is April. End of March I have seen it already on the stalls in the open air markets; however, these days, when you bring a visit to the market, fresh garlic will make sure you know he’s there! Such an odour with such self-confidence :-) 

green garlic

To talk about the dish, it is a local dish of Gaziantep. This city has just hundreds of great recipes, and siveydiz is just one of these. I got to learn the dish from a local restaurant which serves Anatolian cuisine and since then I am a big fan of it (both of the restaurant and of the dish itself)

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

300 grams of meat, cut in cubes

20 green garlic sliced 2-3 cm. each. The upper white parts and the green leaves we will keep separately

green garlic cut

Half a glass of chickpeas, boiled

300 grams strained yoghurt

2 table spoons of flour 
1 egg

1 liter water (5 big glasses of water)

False saffron

Salt

Method:

1. Pressure-cook the meat with 400 ml. water (about 2 big glasses) for 20 minutes. If not soft enough, pressure-cook 5 minutes more.
2.  When the meat is cooking, you can work with the yoghurt. Add the cold water to the yoghurt and mix till creamy and soft. Then add the flour and break the egg in it. It is very important that this mixture is evenly mixed so I prefer to mix it by the help of my blender.
3. Add the meat in the pressure cooker, the chickpeas and cook for 5 minutes more (I don’t bother with pressure cooking at this moment as the chickpeas are already soft.)
4. Add the white parts of the green garlic and pressure cook for 5 minutes. After that, we will turn off the cooker. Add the green parts of the green garlic and mix.
5. Time to cook the yoghurt. This is a process in which you have to be very careful otherwise the yoghurt will lose its even texture. We will pour the yoghurt mixture in a pan and heat the pan in low heat. We will continuously stir the yoghurt mixture until it boils and this always following the same direction. Otherwise you will lose the creamy texture. When the mixture boils, you can turn off the fire.
6. Another step that we will have to be careful about is that when we add the yoghurt mixture to the vegetable and meat that we cooked. It is all about to have a nice texture with the yoghurt!
7. Before you pour the yoghurt mixture into the pot with the meat and the vegetables, add a spoon of the broth to the yoghurt mixture and mix it well. You can do this a couple of times. And then you pour the yoghurt mixture into the pot with the meat and the vegetables. Don’t forget to stir fast when you do that!
8. Now, you can add the salt to your liking.
9. The last step is about the decoration: for that we heat a saucepan and melt the butter in it (As I don't want the butter to burn, I always add a few drops of olive oil to the butter). Then add the false saffron and fry it a bit. This you can pour it on the dish. 

meat ready to be cooked (step 1)

everything mixed (step 7)

siveydiz ready to be served

false saffron fried in butter (step 9)

happy ending!!!