Green almonds are in season. If you fancy sour food/fruits and can get a hold of those green almonds, consider yourself lucky! Don’t forget to dip them in salt, though. While living in Turkey, buying them from street vendors and hoping their season would not end as quickly as the previous years was one of standard spring activities for me. Thanks God, Iranians have the same taste and they sell them in their stores! The challenge now is of course to find a Middle Eastern store that would carry them. Now that I mentioned Iranians, before I forget I should also mention that the words used for almond and green almond in Turkish (badem and çağla respectively) are borrowed from Persian.

Last weekend, during our visit to Bay Area I purchased some and before I finished eating them all I set some aside to try out this dish I read about last year. Unfortunately the only thing I remembered about the recipe was that it was made using olive oil, onions and eaten cold. So, I kind of had to make up my own ingredients and wanted to keep it simple.

All I used for this recipe was green almonds, green garlic & onions. I am sure if you were to omit the garlic and replace them by scallions, it would be ok.

• 200 gr ( 7 ounces, about 1/2 lbs) green almonds
• 2 green onions
• 2 green garlic
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1/2 Tbs sugar
• about a tsp of salt

Wash the green onion and garlic well, cut in 1/2 inch size, set aside. Wash the green almonds, cut them lengthwise, remove the seeds (which would be the real almond part if you let it grow.) In a small saucepan, add the olive oil and the green onions, garlics. Cook them for about 2 mins, add the green almonds, put the lid on and let it cook on low heat, tossing the saucepan gently every now and then. After 5 mins, add some water (not so much more than enough to cover), sugar and salt, cover once more and let it cook for about 10 mins on low heat. When cooled, transfer into a dish, put into fridge and enjoy it when it is thoroughly cold.

I have learned these cookies from a Turkish blogger, Sibel of Sibel’in Kahvesi. Since she published them it has been baked by many of us several times and has been a total winner. Whoever I served them for asked for the recipe.

Sibel said that they are reproductions of a famous cafe in Ayvalık, a city on the Western Turkey on Eagean coast. Since I have not had a chance to eat the original ones, I cannot judge how authentic they are but I know for sure that they are great!

These cookies ask for two unusual ingredients: mastic gum and lor cheese:

Mastic gum, resin from the mastic tree grown in particular areas on the Eagean sea coast, adds amazing flavor to these cookies. We usually add it to milk based desserts and always is associated with sweets. Looks like little gems, these are just wonderful in flavor. You will be able to fin them in little jars in Greek or Middle Eastern stores.

The other ingredient in this recipe is lor which is a Turkish cheese quite similar to ricotta or Indian paneer. Original recipes for lor and ricotta call for whey left over from the cheese making but one can make similar cheese by adding yogurt/salt/vinegar to boiling milk and let it curdle. In order to make 400gr (14 oz?) of lor, you need about 2 quarts of milk and one of the ingredients below:

• 1 tsp of white vinegar
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 - 3 Tbsp kefir
• 1 - 2 Tbsp lemon juice

For the sweet recipes that uses lor, I usually try to use kefir or vinegar only. Sometimes it is so hard to get the milk curdle for some reason. Even though I have given those measurements for the acidic ingredients, I find myself putting more of them for some hard-to curdle milk. Not sure why some are resistant to curdling, if you have any ideas, let me know.

Having said that lor is similar to ricotta, I have never made these cookies with ricotta. I am sure the result will be perfect.

Now comes the recipe for the mastic gum lor cookies. :)

(Makes about 15 - 16 cookies)

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 250 gr lor/ricotta
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs (keep one egg white for brushing the top)
• 1/4 lemon’s juice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• approximately 2 cups of flour
• 2 small pieces of mastic gum
• about a cup of sesame seeds

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F), grease baking sheets
2. Mix the olive oil, lor (or ricotta), sugar and eggs in a bowl. Dissolve bakings soda in lemon juice, and add to the mix along with flour. Stop adding flour until you have a soft but not sticky dough
3. Crush the mastic gum into powder, add to the dough and knead some more
4. Take pieces from the dough, about 2 walnut size, shape them and dip into egg white and then to sesame seeds, put onto greased baking sheets about 5cm (2 inches) apart
5. Bake for about 30 - 35 minutes, until golden brown. It will be soft when you take out of the oven, let it cool before eating.

Enjoy!