How to Make Mucver

How to Make Mucver So now, it’s time to do a traditional and very popular hot appetizer in Turkish cuisine, it’s called Mucver. And Mucver are basically Zucchini patties. They are filled with delicious spices and seasonings and they’re really easy to make. So for Mucver, we are going to need one small onion shredded, half a cup of potato shredded, finely chopped parsley about half cup, one and a half to two Zucchini’s, two tablespoons of dill, some oil for frying, two eggs, some salt ,a little bit of baking powder and two tablespoons of flour. So, what you have to do first is just get your oil, really nice and hot. So, I’ll wait for the skillet to get hot before I pour my oil in there and we’re going to shred our Zucchini. Now, these are Zucchini patties. So, the more Zucchini you have, the better. But sometimes, you don’t know the size of the Zucchini after you shred them. You don’t know how much it’s going to be, so you may need more and of course you remember these Zucchinis, these are from a Dolma. We just scooped it out and we’re saving them. That’s how we like to utilize everything in a Turkish kitchen. So, we’re just going to take this, shred them up. And as you could see they shred really easily and you have to peel them first. And a lot of people even like to eat this with yogurt. It’s usually served with some dill and some yogurt on the side. You could do yogurt with a little garlic in there as well. People like to use it as a dip or you can eat it plain. And also our Dolmas are simmering up really nicely so you want to just keep checking that every now and again. Make sure they’re not exploding. Make sure your plate is not lifting. Just a low simmer. It’s very easy just to shred and you always have to peel them as well. Peel them first and then shred them. We’re going to add some onions and I like to grate the onions because you’re going to fry this up in the patty, almost like a kafta and I like when the onion is really ground up in there. You get the juices and the flavor. Now your potatoes, you may want to squeeze them. Give them a good squeeze because they accumulate water. So, give them a good squeeze where you put them in there and of course parsley. We love parsley, parsley and onions. We love parsley and onions in the Turkish kitchen. And then we’re also going to use just a little bit of dill maybe two tablespoons and I get great color in there and now the egg. The egg is essential because it’s what keeps it together. So, you wan to use two or three, just eyeball it, see your mixture, see how it’s going. And of course we’re going to have to salt it up. A very light teaspoon salted out and a little bit of baking powder. Now, not everybody uses the baking powder but I think it’s just the right touch for it to really fluff up when you’re frying them. And then this is already measured out, two tablespoons of flour. We’re just going to whisk this together and see the great mixture that it makes. Now, we could put our oil in our skillet that’s probably really hot. And again, our oil has to be flaming for us to spoonful the Mucver in there. All right, so you just want to whisk it all together and as you see you have a large mixture, just add more egg. And some people even like to add some cheese to it. You can do some crashed feta cheese or some kasseri cheese which is very popular. And our oil is getting really nice and hot, just want to take a tablespoon and throw it in there. And they’re going to from into patties when you fry them. Okay, give them a quick toast around. And if you want, you can grab a little teaspoon. And you could just flip it over and you see how they get a really great brown color. You can even smell it. It smells like just a fried crispy patty. Really delicious. And when you want to get a nice boiling going, always use a small skillet because when you have less surface area, it gets hotter much faster then you get that kind of like a rolling bubble boil of the oil and that’s what you need to make really great Mucver. So, you see how they’re getting golden brown. You just want to do that on both sides and then we could strain them on the paper towel. Now, once you see that they’re nice golden brown, want to get a plate ready with paper towel and then you want to gently take them out and let them cool. The paper towel allows to soak up all that extra oil without drying it out. So, let’s do that. So, just let this sit on the paper towel let them strain out and then I’ll get them ready to serve. So now, it’s time to serve our delicious Mucver. So, have a beautiful plate right here and we’re just going to gently take them. I like to take them with spoon because sometimes when you take them with the tongs you can break them especially at this point now that they are already cooked, this is much more gentle. Now, when you’re frying them, sometimes your oil may get old and start bubbling up. If that happens, just throw it out and then refresh it with new oil. That’s always a great trick. Otherwise they’ll all turn really dark brown. Okay, now we’re going to garnish it with some fresh dill because we’re already put some dill inside the Mucver and it’s going to be a great complement and we’re also going to garnish with some tomato. Now in Turkey, a lot of the times we grill a tomato. We grill it on the barbecue or on the open fire and it gets like a little bit black on the outside and really mushy on the inside. And now, we’re just going to slice it because our Mucver already looks like little slices anyway and then we’re going to get some fresh dill. Always break off the ends and also we have some yogurt because a lot of times the people love to dip their appetizer in yogurt. You could put a little salt in this yogurt, a little bit of garlic or you can just leave it plain. It’s kind of like a dip. So now, we’re to serve our delicious Dolma. I’m so excited, that smells so good. The aroma is filling the air. First, what we have to do is just take out this plate. Now, this plate is very hot. I just want to be very gentle when taking it out. Now, a lot of times when people make Dolma, what they like to do is just take maybe a bigger tray and then dump it upside down so that all of the juices flow and fall over the Dolma but we didn’t fill our pot all the way to the top. So, we’re not going to do that today, just going to gently take them out one by one. I want to take a dull spoon, very gently just take them out and then later on, we could spoon over the delicious sauce. So, once you have all your Dolmas on the plate, just get some finely chopped parsley and this is just for garnish so you don’t have to do it. But I always like to drizzle just a few pieces around the edges of the plate and then of course what we’re going to do is just take some of the juice. Just drizzle it all on top. It’s really delicious, it’s mouthwatering and it’s very healthy. Now, we’re just going to take a quick break and when we come back, we’re going to start on another delicious appetizer.