The best feature of Calkama is that no special materials are needed to prepare it. They have simple ingredients that are in every home that is constantly cooking. Especially if there are pieces of greens left in the house, it is a one-to-one recipe to collect and evaluate them.
For Calkama, you can use only flour, whole wheat flour or a mixture of flour and cornmeal, or a mixture of whole wheat flour and cornmeal. You can even make the recipe gluten-free by making it all with cornmeal. You can also make it vegan without using cheese in the filling. Because there are no animal products in the dough.
Because of its name, Calkama evokes a very simple, featureless recipe, and in fact it is. But it is also a dish that is seen as a heavy guest dish in terms of taste and can easily compete with the French dish quiche in terms of ingredients.
Materials of Calkama;
- 1 bunch of nettle
- 1 bunch of spinach
- 4 spring onions
- 1 onion
- 1 small teaspoon of olive oil
- 1 cup of flour
- 2 glasses of water
- 1 cup of curd or feta cheese
- Salt
Preparation of Calkama;
- Clean the spinach and nettle leaves, wash them with plenty of water and drain the water thoroughly.
- Chop the green part of spring onions, spinach and nettle leaves.
- Finely chop the onion.
- In a deep bowl, add olive oil and salt and mix all the ingredients.
- Grease the tray with olive oil.
- Spread the herb mixture by pouring.
- Add flour, water and salt to a bowl and whisk well to form a liquid slurry.
- Drizzle this slurry over the grass.
- Bake in a preheated 200 degree oven until golden brown.
- Take it out of the oven and serve it by slicing when the first temperature comes out.
You can use feta cheese or homemade curd cheese in Calkama. If you are going to use feta cheese and you want to see and feel that it contains cheese, definitely choose a fat-free, hard cheese. Because fatty cheese melts with the effect of heat and its presence is not felt while eating. In this case, it doesn’t make much sense to use cheese.
By the way, it is useful to know that the stinging nettle you use while preparing Calkama is very healing. If you’ve never consumed it before, let’s say it’s a spiky green. You should definitely taste it raw between the breadcrumbs while the Calkama is baking. Your throat will itch a little, but you will love it…
As Expat Guide Turkey, we will publish fast, practical and delicious Turkish recipes to our visitors in the Food & Beverage category. Stay tuned.
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