Winter drinks in Turkey

I was just writing a letter and was mentioning some special drinks that appear in Turkey during the winter season. One is especially interesting to plant people because it's made from the root of an Orchis species common throughout Turkey and Greece. It's variously known as Sahlab, Sahlep, Salep, Salepi, according to country and region. Sometimes it's made with water, but my favorite is with milk.
It's sold both at cafes and on the street by vendors, who pour it from a huge brass container.

SAHLEP

2 teaspoons of pure sahlep powder (available at middle eastern groceries,
make sure you have the pure stuff and not the ready mix, which is
inferior)

2 teaspoons cornstarch

2-3 tablespoons sugar, or to tast

3 cups milk

Mix dry ingredients, and add enough milk to make a paste, then slowly add the rest of the milk. (If you add the milk all at once, the sahlep can lump.)

Slowly heat the mixture, stirring constantly, till it comes to a bare simmer, and cook a couple minutes till thickened.

Serve in cups with cinnamon or ginger or both.

You can make this with just cornstarch but sahlep has its own particular texture and flavor.




The other drink is boza, which is Mediterranean only because it reached here with the Turks, it's really a drink that is made by nearly all the Turkish peoples and made from various grains. It's fermented but is not alcoholic, or only very slightly so at most. It's considered to be very healthy. Istanbul once had scores of shops selling boza and nothing else; now only one remains in the Vefa district. A familiar sound of winter is the "bozaci", or boza seller, walking through the neighborhoods at night, yelling "booooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO-za!" It's a bit of work to make it at home but if you are a boza-lover far from Istanbul, it's worth it!



BOZA

Many recipes for this call for starting it with yeast, but I find that it causes the wrong kind of fermentation, going quickly alcoholic. The best is to get your own culture started.

Start with:

1/4 cup millet

Cover the millet in water and soak several hours or overnight. Boil till the millet is broken down and mushy, the consistency of a thin rice gruel. Run it through a fine sieve (or if it's hulled, you can put it in the blender but it's not quite the same).

Add 1/4 cup of sugar, and let it stand in a cool place, stirring several times a day. By the third day it should start getting fizzy, and get a bit of a sour taste. Technically it's edible now but the first batch isn't usually that good. Best to use this as a starter. Repeat the process with 1 cup of millet. After it cools, run through the sieve and add one cup of sugar and enough water to get a consistency of a milkshake. (If it's too thick, it will overflow when it ferments instead of just bubbling!) Add the starter, it should be ready in a couple of days. Refrigerate when it's ready.

Boza was traditionally served with ginger, nowadays people usually have it with cinnamon and (really!) roasted chickpeas on the top.

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