Cheese & Honey

Turkish cuisine is a wonderful thing. But like so many aspects of eating, it can be distinctly circumstantial.

While traveling in Turkey food highlights included; picking a pomegranate straight from the tree for breakfast in a forgotten valley on the southern coast, drinking a warm sour yoghurt drink and actually thinking it was good and sitting on a sunny pavement in Istanbul tucking into one of the most delectable of heavenly food experiences – Bal Kaymak.

Bal – honey

Kaymak – a buffalo milk clotted cream.

The turks do love their honey and as with all honey you can find varying degrees of floral  and woodland tones depending on where it originates. On this occasion I was lucky enough to get a slice off a comb, something that is far more common over there than it would be here. The Kaymak was fresh (as it always is) and unctuously smooth. Kaymak is only good for 24 hours and is therefore made every morning, formed into roulade shaped cylinders and slices are scraped off onto the plate. Accompanied by some bread and the ubiquitous glass of sugary tea, watching the world of Cucurcuma go by on a warm sunny morning in early October, it was so simple, so good.

So with a slight tip of the cap to the Turks we have come up with an Irish version Cáis & Mil, which on a rainy day in Dublin, could take you to any sunny pavement in Istanbul in a heartbeat.

Irish Buffalo Ricotta, Wicklow Honey, Le Levain rustic toast, fresh cucumber