A lokanta, or “tradesmen’s restaurant,” is where you can find delicious home-cooked style food in Turkey. This dish is a healthy, vegan, roasted vegetable stew. Other than the butter beans, the lokanta stew feels like an everyday vegetable dish to me. Notably, the allspice-infused butter beans give it a whole different spin.
The lokanta stew speaks to the history and culture of Turkey. In fact, lokantas have a rich place in the Turkish narrative. They offer homey food, a convivial atmosphere and a cornerstone to many communities.
Until the 19th century, the Ottomans were not familiar with paying for food among strangers in a public place. Later in the Ottoman era, a major change in it’s food culture came. Initially, the lokanta developed around the European embassies and offices in Istanbul.
Their purpose is to serve traders and artisans – traditionally only men – with simple but nutritious dishes at lunchtime. (The “hot food to go” scenes in our local supermarkets come to mind.) For hundred of years, the working people of Istanbul have been eating this way out of necessity.
The lokanta might not be very fashionable, well designed, or with nice furniture. But it’s a place for the common people. What you’d get is very authentic food, based on vegetables and olive oil. Everything is cooked daily in the morning. They close in the afternoon when there’s nothing more to serve.
Next time when you visit Istanbul, look for the lokanta to start your culinary tour — or to refuel quickly. From cold olive-oil dishes to kebab varieties, grilled meats, seasoned pilafs and soups, there is something for everyone. Nowadays, you find men, as well women, eating in lokantas. It’s a cultural phenomenon; you want to go and eat there!
I roasted the onion, bell peppers and tomatoes in a 400°F oven for about half an hour. Added the spiced butter beans for another 20 minutes. Nigel Slater roasts his for an hour and a half. My vegetables turned nice and golden brown in less than one hour. Therefore, I pulled them out of the oven in less time than specified. It was enough oven time for me.
Lokanta Stew
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 6 peppers, assorted red and yellow, deseeded and quartered
- 400g/14oz tomatoes assorted sizes and colours
- 20 thyme sprigs
- 8 tbsp olive oil
- 2 x 400g tins butter beans
- 2 tsp ground allspice
- 350g/12oz green beans
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
Transfer the onion and other vegetables to a roasting tin with the whole thyme sprigs and trickle over the olive oil. Roast the vegetables for 1 hour.
Add the butter beans and ground allspice to the roasting tray and mix well, making sure that any dry parts are well coated in olive oil. Bake for a further 30 minutes.
Cut the stem ends off the green beans. Cook in a pan of boiling salted water for 4 minutes. Remove and refresh in a bowl of iced water.
Fold the green beans into the roasted vegetables. Season with salt and pepper and serve.
Notes
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/lokanta_stew_91668
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