Borulce Salatasi - Bean salad
We offer a fabulous food tour in Turkey, an expert led food holiday aboard a traditional gulet. We have also created a marvellous escorted food tour in Sicily.
Recipe
Guests on our Alexander the Great tour devoured this zingy traditional Turkish salad on a recent sunny day in Göcek, where many of our gulet cruises start. It’s fresh, vibrant, and full of Mediterranean sunshine. It was a major hit - so much so that everyone wanted the recipe. It is incredibly simple to prepare, but leaves your tastebuds tingling with its tanginess!
Ingredients: Serves 4/6
250 grams black eyed beans (fresh if possible, or soaked overnight if you’re starting with dry beans)
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (can be varied with lemon juice, but the orange gives a hard to decipher extra sweetness)
Dash of pomegranate juice
A good slug of olive oil (make this good quality, aromatic, cold pressed extra virgin oil)
1 teaspoon sea salt
Red pepper (only a couple of slices required)
White onion (just a tiny amount very finely chopped)
1 clove of garlic (very finely chopped)
Preparation
If using dried beans, soak in water over night (boil plenty of water, pour over the beans, let cool overnight), then continue as follows.
Rinse beans well, then pour into a medium sized saucepan, cook for approx 20 minutes, or until the beans are softened. This may happen sooner with fresh beans, so keep checking to make sure you don’t overcook them and see them turn into a mush.
Drain off the water, rinse the beans well, and leave to cool. Then mix with all the other ingredients in a bowl and serve. It’s as easy as that. You can garnish with a little dill or a few sprigs of flat leaf parsley, but the salad should do the job pure and simple.
This salad is conjured up, with a number of variations, up and down the Aegean coast of Turkey. Further inland, in central Anatolia, it turns into a heart warming bean stew. Look out for this hearty recipe during the winter.
More Recipes
For more wonderful recipes visit our main Turkish food page
Find out about our Turkish Gulet Cruises. See our full schedule of escorted holidays in Turkey.
