After each morning’s run along the Bosphorus or the Golden Horn, I’d reward myself on my return to our small apartment via the simit-seller. One of hundreds here in Istanbul. Sometimes I’d buy a simit (on the left), sometimes an açma. Simit -- known by different names and slightly different recipes throughout Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania -- are small “fun size” circular breads coated with sesame seeds. Chewy, crispy, depending upon where you happen to be. This one was chewy. Nice. Açma, which I prefer, are also yeast-risen, but slightly sweet, enriched with egg and consequently more cake-like. Because I live within a few hundred yards of Armenian bakeries here in Watertown, MA, I have access to these bready treats all the time without having to locate my passport. Simit? Açma? Can’t decide? Have both.
"Can't decide. Have both." The story of my (culinary) life.
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