Cooking Demonstration Hosted by Pita House Owner/Chef

The Sayville Public Library recently hosted a Mediterranean cooking demonstration for patrons featuring Joff Sahin, owner/chef at Patchogue-based Pita House.

Sahin showed attendees how to make two of his most popular dishes from the restaurant, red lentil soup and bulgur pilaf. He even brought samples of both dishes so everyone could taste them before they learned the recipe.

Sahin has been in the restaurant business most of his life and opened the Pita House almost 20 years ago. “It took me almost seven years to make it in this business – to make more money than my dishwasher,” he said. “It is hard work to get an independent restaurant to make a profit. In your towns, the more mom-and-pop shops you have, the better off you are. The more chain stores you have, the worse off you are. It’s important to support your local businesses and your local economy. Sometimes you may be paying a little more, but you are getting your money’s worth.”

The Pita House was only the fifth Turkish restaurant established in 1993. It is the No. 1 Zagat rated for its cuisine and everything in the store is homemade, with the exception of the pita bread. The restaurant sells four different types of homemade soup and even in the summer, Sahin said, they serve approximately 200 gallons per week.

The first recipe Sahin made was a red lentil soup. “This is the most popular soup in Turkey,” he said. “If you go to a Turkish restaurant and they don’t serve red lentil soup, it’s probably not a real Turkish restaurant.” The red lentil soup can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks, and only gets better as time passes. Sahin took the cooking demonstration step by step, frequently passing the pot around the class so everyone knew proper consistency through the different stages.

“I will tell you the foundation of the recipe but play with it and see what you need,” he said. “I will tell you what ingredients you can’t touch but after you make it four or five times, you should start dancing around with the ingredients a bit.” Sahin said he cooks by eye, not by measurements or time. For the red lentil soup, you need: 8 ounces of red lentils; half of a small onion (diced very fine); 48 ounces of water; 4 ounces of corn oil or butter; 2 tablespoons of flour; 1 tablespoon of tomato paste; 1 tablespoon of pepper paste; 1 ½ tablespoons of mint; and a pinch each of red pepper, cumin, black pepper and salt.

“Western cuisine uses a lot of spices to add flavor but not a lot of fat, oils, butter or heavy cream,” Sahin said. “In the end, we found out that it’s good for you.” Feta cheese, yogurt and lamb are the most popular items.

Every dish has the one essential spice, Sahin said, and in the red lentil soup, it’s the mint. “You know when you taste something, that flavor comes right to you,” he said. The recipe only took about 25 minutes from start to finish. As the soup sits over the next few days, it becomes smoother as the water evaporates.

The next recipe was the bulgur pilaf, which can be used as a side dish to just about anything. Ingredients for the pilaf are: 8 ounces of bulgur (thick grade); half of an onion (big chunks); 2 cloves of garlic; half a tomato, green pepper and red bell pepper; 2 ounces of corn oil; 1.5 ounces of olive oil; 2 ½ cups of water; 1 tablespoon of tomato paste; and a pinch each of cumin, red Turkish pepper, black pepper and salt.

The taste in this dish comes from the garlic, Sahin said. As you are cooking, don’t add too much water; you can always put in more afterward, he told the audience. The restaurant started making the bulgur pilaf to appeal to the healthier crowd. “We added healthier options, like whole wheat pitas and turkey gyros. It gives me another edge over my competition and customers have really responded to the healthier choices,” he said. To find many of the ingredients in these two recipes, Pita House has a small grocery store located next to the restaurant.