A KASHMIR KITCHEN

After the very successful 'A night in Singapore' and 'The Last Supper' we decided to take our foodies to Kashmir in Northern India. Regional cooking is extremely interesting and it's hard to find any place that specialises in food from Regions and not country. Therefore Saturday night will have us enjoying 'A Kashmir Kitchen'.

Maya & Kay’s Kitchen presents:

A Kashmir Kitchen
For Saturday 20th March from 7.30pm
Kashmir, Northern India – hugs the Himalayas warming itself with rich spices of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. The history of this specialty cuisine can be traced back to the fifteenth century migration of cooks from Samarkand to the valley of Kashmir. A large part of this region’s food is Lamb based and we will be presenting these very traditional dishes that you would need to otherwise go to Kashmir to sample in it’s entirety.

Kashmiri Chicken
(rich in almonds and cashew nuts)
Rogan Josh
(familiar with many. A dish of lamb heavily spiced)
Gushtaba
(lamb meatballs cooked with cream)
Kashmiri Naan
(stuffed bread with almonds and dried fruit)
Muji Chetien
(Radish in curry)
Veth Charman
(grilled cheese in a spiced gravy)
Baingan Tikka
(grilled stuffed aubergine)
Rice

Dessert (to be announced) will be served but will not be traditionally Kashmiri (only because you’d be getting green tea which is the traditional way they end their meal).

30tl per person does not include beverages but does include water (which you will need).

Reservations no later than Friday please on 212 2490679 or kayredkay@hotmail.com or 0533 3254334

Yeni Yuva Sokak no 20a
Cihangir
İstanbul

THE LAST SUPPER

A couple of nights ago some customers and friends came to the restaurant and they began to play Mafia Murder at the table and I joined in. It was a hoot and has inspired me to do a theme night this Saturday. Short notice I grant you but we know we already have enough of us to have some fun with this and it's good practice for when we official launch Saturday night Games Night.

MAYA & KAY’S KITCHEN PRESENTS : THE LAST SUPPER

A MAFIA MURDER DINNER PARTY.
Saturday 12th March 2010
At 8.00 pm sharp

Abby (graduate of the Juilliard Academy of Arts) will be our director at this event. You will eat, you will drink, you will participate and you will die (maybe).

We only have space for a few but we are hoping that this will be the first of many ‘last supper’ murder nights.

Cost : 30tl per head to include help yourself style food on the table. Our vodka house punch (unlimited, or until the house runs out) water, soft drinks. Come prepared to eat, drink and lay horizontal as a victim of the mafia or …the punch!

Yeni Yuva Sokak no 20a
Cihangir, Beyoglu
Reservations a necessity
0533 3254334
kayredkay@hotmail.com

A Night in Singapore

You think of so many things that you hope you have thought of everything and chances are there is always something missing. I concentrated so much on the food and seating arrangements for the Night in Singapore that I forgot to bring the camera to take pics of the amazing food I managed to put together which took 3 days. I kid you not. Singapore food is far harder than you think. The brochure I printed out at 3 in the morning sort of says it all. Well the night was a huge success. Better than I anticipated it would be. So much so that we are going with this theme night stuff more often as everyone enjoyed the idea. We have already linned up a Sri Lanka cook for a Night in Ceylon (yes some of us remember it by it's old name). I've got someone for the 'Road to Mandalay' night. Maya will be doing a Georgian night just as soon as her ingredients arrive from her home city. Yes, we like to make it authentic. None of this packet rubbish that you can put together at home. My laksa lemak was tedious to make but worth the effort as I bought, washed, deshelled and deveined the prawns and then crushed and cooked the shells to use as the stock. The fish balls I made myself (only cause you can't buy them here and strangely they aren't difficult to make, just expensive. The lemon grass we secretly grow in plant pots outside the restaurant. Everyone thinks they are just stalks of grass so no one steals them unlike the Jasmin plant that went missing one summer. Stay tuned for our next event which I am about to post.

Maya & Kay’s Kitchen
Presents
A Night in Singapore

Singapore cuisine is a fusion of food found in many countries from a far a field as Northern China to European countries such as Holland. Truly Singaporean cuisine evolved from these places to become known as ‘Nonya’. The food primarily from the Straits Chinese women.
Long before the large-scale immigration of the Chinese towards the end of the 19th century a number of Chinese traders settled in places such as Singapore and married Malay women. The children from these mixed marriages were known as Strait Chinese. Male offspring married other strait Chinese women and female offspring married men who came ‘straight’ from China. Thus today the Straits Chinese are almost pure Chinese except their cooking.
Nonya food uses basically Malay methods of preparation and is therefore often time consuming. So much of this style of cooking is disappearing with other demands on our time.
However, tonight it lives in a little Bistro in the heart of Istanbul.



Tonight’s Menu is dedicated to my father who is without doubt the best, most brilliant cook to have ever taken on Asian food.

We begin our journey with Laksa Lemak
A rich noodle soup with seafood.
This recipe I owe to two people. The first is the mother of my childhood best friend Lily. Lily & I met at school when we were both 7. Her father was a minister in Government and her uncle was the President of Singapore. Her upbringing was humble and very family orientated. Her mother did a lot of the family cooking. Her father sat around in a singlet and sarong telling funny jokes and I would often eat at Lily’s Muslim Malay household. One day I watched her mother prepare Laksa Lemak as we talked in the kitchen (buttering up the family before Lily presented her report card). When I tasted the soup later I placed it among my favourite dishes of all time. When I went to England my father’s need of Singapore food drove him to constant experimentation which involved me as his commi chef: grinding coconuts; chilies and prawn shells for hours. He did manage to produce an exceptional Laksa Lemak from scribbled notes and memory.
Lily and I are still friends today. She lives in Sydney and lectures at the university on Economics (she never passed a Maths exam when we were at school together). She writes historical political books on Singapore and will be in Singapore this summer to meet me for a reunion where we will, no doubt beg her mother to make Laksa Lemak.

AYAM LEMAK
Chicken leg pieces in rich coconut gravy. A very typical Nonya recipe which is often cooked with Nasi Lemak (coconut rice) but I figured we might be coconuted out by the end of the evening as it features in every course.
CUCUMBER PICKLE
In sweet & sour vinegar
TAHAU GORENG
Fried bean curd in sour peanut sauce. This was one of my father and my favourites that we bought from the hawker across the road from our house. Before my father left Singapore to live in England he went over to the guy and asked him for his recipe. The man extracted a promise from him that he would never reveal this to anyone since it was his only source of income. Tonight we have a chance to remember this man who shared his secrets with my father. Today this hawker station no longer exists.


BLACHAN CABBAGE GORENG
Cooked in the unique dried shrimp paste. The Amah (Malay word for servant) took care of our household and used to buy the fresh blachan from the market and I learned to love the smell of it as she dried it in the sun. Everyone who smells it in it’s uncooked state hates it. In fact, Maya won’t let me cook it in the restaurant when she is around. My Amah is no longer alive. She came to live with our family when my father was 2 and returned to her native China when I was 16. She died there 18 years later.
HAWKER STYLE CURRY PUFFS
Beef and Potato. Every hawker had his own particular recipe. My favourite curry puff was made from this Indian type of pastry using Malay curry ingredients for the filling. It has taken me years and several experiments to have found this combination outside Singapore.
***
There are hundreds of other recipes I would have liked to have shared with you tonight but I hope the few I picked delight you.

Maybe plied with drink again and given ingredients we can’t find here I might do ‘A night in Singapore Part II’.

A SINGAPORE NIGHT

Dear All,

Due to popular demand and having had too many drinks I agreed to put together typically Singaporean dishes from my native country for a one night only extravaganza.

TUESDAY 9TH MARCH 2010 FROM 7.30PM ONWARDS

In case you didn't know Singapore cusine is ONE , possibly THE most amazing cusine in the world. It is not to be mistaken for Chinese, Malay, European or Indian. It is a fusion mix of it's own known as NONYA.

HISTORY LESSON: At the beginning of the 20th century a number of chinese traders settled in Melacca, Penang and Singapore; there the men took Malay wives and the food they produced became known as a fusion of the two. This style of cooking uses basically Malay methods of preparation and is therefore often time consuming.

Our menu begins with SEAFOOD LAKSA - A soup noodle dish rich in chilli and coconut cream.

A VEGETABLE DISH with dried prawns (I am yet to decide upon the vegetable)

AYAM LEMAK - A famous Nonya chicken curry

TAHU GORENG - Hawker style fried bean curd in spicy peanut sauceHawker Style Curry Puffs

A pickle dish

The dessert is yet to be determined but will NOT be asian (ingredients make this impossible).

Price per person excluding drinks 35tl (a bargain given the ingredients and preparation time - hence the ONE TIME OFFER).

Reservations absolutely essential given limited spaces and ingredient buying. Reservation latest date will be Sunday evening 7th March 2010. So don't think too long or too hard. Kayredkay@hotmail.com0533 32543340212 249 0679