Turkey is a popular tourist destination for many Australians. The common bond forged via Gallipoli is ever strong and many Aussies go to Anzac Dawn service, followed by the sights and sounds of Istanbul.
The founder of turkishgrocery.com.au Cenk Baban remembers how much he was surprised to find out how strong this bond is. Conversations around Turkey started with this and were quickly followed up by people’s love of Turkish food.
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Cenk is passionate about Turkish food and Turkish cuisine. He believes it is among the world’s best and constantly craves the tastes and flavours of Turkey he enjoyed growing up.
Living in Sydney for many years, he realised finding favourite Turkish food products can be time consuming and hard. You might like to cook an epic Turkish breakfast on the weekend, only to realise you ran out of sucuk, or follow a recipe only to find out that you’re missing the spices or the pepper paste.
That’s when he decided to launch his Sydney based startup turkishgrocery.com.au
“Launching during the lockdown was a challenge. Rules and regulations were constantly changing. But it was worth it. We truly felt we were able to bring joy into people’s lives. It was like being Santa Claus, delivering packages to people’s homes and they were so happy to see us!
He was surprised with the amount of Simit sold. Simit is a ring-shaped bread roll covered with sesame seed and it is the most popular street food in Turkey. Simit is generally served plain, or for breakfast with tea, feta cheese, tomato, olives and cucumber. Turkish Grocery gets their simit fresh, straight from the bakery, and people love that freshness.” Turkish ex-pats and people who love Turkish food have rediscovered the joy of eating their simit fresh with their other favourite Turkish Groceries” he said.
Yet he wasn’t surprised with how popular sucuk was at all. “Sujuk or sucuk is the Turkish relative of Chorizo. I might be biased but it is much tastier than Chorizo as it is packed with subtle flavours and easier to digest” he said. Sucuk can be used in many dishes in Turkish Cuisine. Some add it to their pasta, or into their stew. Yet the most common way to enjoy it is with eggs and as part of the breakfast.
Turkish breakfast, what can we say, other than EPIC! When you visit a typical Turkish home over the weekend, you’ll be treated to a scrumptious breakfast which can easily have around twenty items or more. An egg-based dish like an omelette, eggs with sucuk or menemen (Turkish version of shakshuka) would take the centre stage. Surrounding it, there will be copious amounts of feta cheese, other cheeses, olives, tomato, and cucumber for savoury. You would also have jams such as strawberry, fig jam and quince jam, honey and clotted cream. Yes, there would be even fruit, depending on the season, you can see grapes, rockmelon, watermelon. If the cook is talented, there would borek -a pie of filo pastry filled with cheese, spinach, or minced meat or gozleme. It might take a couple of hours to eat, and you’re strongly advised to skip lunch and have a light dinner!
Naturally, you can find nearly all of the Turkish breakfast ingredients on the Turkish Grocery website. The website even has its “breakfast and spreads” category and many types of gozlemes and boreks are listed on the frozen food section of the website.
Turkish desserts also deserve their category on the website as Turkish cuisine is world-famous for its desserts! The most popular dessert is the kunefe (Knafeh) coming from the kunefe capital of Turkey, Hatay. Kunefe is a layer of cheese baked between two layers of crispy pastry threads and drizzled with syrup. It is frozen, so you only need to heat and make a simple syrup. Those of us who can cook can make their own Turkish desserts classics such as Dr. Oetker Sutlac Rice Pudding, Dr. Oetker Sakızlı Muhallebi Mastic Resin Pudding, Dr. Oetker Keskul Almond Pudding and Dr. Oetker Kazandibi Pudding via the Dr Oetker selection.
The heavyweights of Turkish cuisine such as manti, cig kofte and icli kofte feature on the website as well. Manti is a traditional and widespread boiled dumpling dish in Turkish cuisine. Traditionally it is served with a yoghurt sauce and red pepper or tomato and garlic sauce. Icli kofte is the Turkish version of Kibbeh. It is usually served as a hot appetizer or meze before a meal of spicy kebabs. Balls of dough made from a mix of fine bulgur, potato, and spices are used as the outer shell. Favourite fillings include ground beef or lamb combined with ground nuts like pistachios, walnuts, or pine nuts along with spices.
Cig kofte consists of vegetarian meatballs made from bulgur, onion, tomato or red pepper and isot pepper. They are oval rather than round and each bears the handprint of their maker. Cig kofte can be eaten as a snack or light lunch. It is served on some fresh lettuce leaves with a squeeze of lemon juice, all of the flavours blend seamlessly!
We asked about the logo and found out that it features Sucuk and Simit, no surprise there as they are among the most popular Turkish foods. We found out about the plans for the website:
“We keep adding new products to the website and we have some grand ambitions about bringing very popular food straight from Turkey. We’d like to be more than your favourite online grocery store. We aspire to become a hub for Turkish cuisine. We will share our favourite recipes, bring news from popular chefs, recommend cookbooks and introduce the best authentic food suppliers in Australia. If you are a Turkish food fan, you’ve come to the right place!” he said.
To check out this great new website click here: https://turkishgrocery.com.au
