Tomato time in Turkey

Making Turkish salca (tomato puree).

It’s summertime here in Istanbul which means tomatoes. In everything from coban salatsi (shepherd’s salad) to plum tomato and almond jam

In fact, tomatoes are coming so fast and furiously to every market that people have begun making salca, a traditional Turkish tomato puree that is added to just about every savory dish imaginable.

To make salca, you take tomatoes—usually plum tomatoes—and ferment them in large plastic sacks or tubs, usually up on your roof. Then it’s rubbed through a sieve, mixed with garlic and salt, poured in to shallow troughs or tubs and put back on the roof where it is stirred every now and again until the liquid thickens and the water evaporates.

For those without the tomatoes (or space) to make their own salca, you can buy little plastic bags of ready-made salca in just about every market in Istanbul this time of year.

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