Lost and Found II / Kayıp Eşya Bölümü II

Sometimes a plant becomes loaded with so many memories that it's hard to imagine not growing it, and there is one such plant in our family.

Years ago, when I was maybe 8 years old, my grandmother gave my mother what looked like nothing more than a pot of dirt and said, "grow this." My mother asked what it was, and all she would say was "something beautiful!" Mom never did know just what it was supposed to be, but what did come up was a seedling of an evening primrose with larger and more fragrant flowers than any I have ever seen. I sent seeds to somone for identification and he told me it was Oenothera biennis. I'm not convinced though, because I've never seen an O. biennis with 1) such large flowers, 2) such fragrant flowers, and 3) such a frequently branching habit. It does sometimes get a bit tall and gangly but when it's growing well, it also branches frequently.

The plant seeded itself in the rocks on our back patio, and each evening new flowers would open like time-lapse photography, releasing a heavy scent of jasmine tea into the humid Iowa summer air. When we had summer parties, there was always a crowd of people gathered around the stand of evening primrose (which we just called "night flowers"), watching in anticipation as the buds swelled slowly, then suddenly opened completely over the course of about 20 seconds, the sticky pollen stringing between the anthers in wait of the hawk moths who would be visiting, almost immediately. It turned out their larvae also liked to eat it as much as they did tomatoes.

When I moved to Seattle, I made sure I got seed of this plant that was such a part of my childhood, and grew it in the front garden of the first house I live in. It did beautifully there, and even produced one almost-white flowering plant which unfortunately did not recur. I moved to a second house and the night flowers followed me there too. Finally I moved to the last house I'd live in Seattle, where I gardened for nine years. I planted some older seed I'd saved, but it didn't come up - evidently I hadn't kept it dry enough. I went back to my old place to find a seed pod, and the entire garden had been dug up and replaced with a vegetable garden (oh, the horror!). My mother had since moved to Arkansas and though the plant will grow there, it seems to be a favorite of the deer, and she's given up. (The local O. biennis survives though, which also makes me suspect it's something else.)

So I got desperate and searched through the lawn near where my flower garden had been, and found three tiny seedlings. They became the parents of a new overgrowth of evening primrose. This time I was sure to share seed with friends as well!

When I came to Istanbul, I had no garden, but after a year or so I was living in a place with a balcony and tried growing seed I got from a friend back in Seattle in pots. It didn't like the pots, or more likely the insubstantial fluff that is sold as "potting soil" here. I saved the rest of the seed, and when I found a place with a garden a few years later, one of the first things I did was to plant "our" night flowers! And once again, the seed was no longer viable. This time, finding seed was a bigger adventure. On my next trip to Seattle, I called all my friends, and one person did have one plant growing in the garden. About to leave town, he told me he'd leave a stem of it on the chair on the front porch. A day later I went by...there was nothing there. He later said he'd put it there but evidently a housemate had been cleaning... I couldn't find anyone who had any, so in a last-ditch attempt, I went to my old house. And there, right on the edge of a sidewalk, in among the weeds, was a stem with about 8 seedpods in it. I nearly threw my back out, I leaned over to grab it so fast!



So now I've learned that it has a name here too - "Ezan Çiçeği" - the ezan is the call to prayer, which no doubt refers to the fact that it starts opening about the time of the evening ezan. I've seen seed of it offered, but it's not quite the same as mine, so I don't grow any other varieties. It's now seeding happily around my garden, so it appears that this plant will be with me for a while to come.

Squash Flowers - Stuffed / Kabak Çiçeği Dolması

Better late than never! They ended up being with meat. I suppose I could have appended this to the previous post but that would have meant 10 minutes spent removing tags....



My filling is with chopped meat, rice, parsley, grated tomato, tomato paste, pepper paste, cumin, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. As my mom would say, it's "almost good enough to eat!"

Edible Weeds - Amaranth / Yenilebilir Otlar - Sirkem-Horozibiği

In the States, Amaranth is best known as the holy grain crop of the Andes, where it was the staple grain of the Incas. It was also an important ritual food; cakes of it were made with the blood of sacrifices and this led to it being forbidden by the colonial priests. It's an incredibly productive plant, the large grain varieties can produce over a pound of seed per head.

There are also several ornamental amaranths; "Love lies bleeding" is one of the best known. I'm growing one grain Amaranth - Orange Giant (which I planted way too late so it's not "giant" at all...maybe next year...), and a beautiful deep red one called "Hopi Red Dye," that has seeded itself prolifically each year since I first planted it in my last garden several years ago. It was used as a source of red dye for ceremonial foods. My apologies for the really bad quality of the picture here. The plants are quite puny as well since it's being grown in the dry flower bed, but it goes to show just what a tough plant it is!

But there are local, native Amaranths in Turkey too, and they are just as tough. None of them are showy, they are green plants with green flowers, some with red stems. They are mostly considered weeds here, and will come up in waves wherever the soil is watered regularly and lots of places where it is not.



I would probably be trying to eradicate it entirely if it weren't for the fact that it's one of my all-time-favorite summer greens. Istanbul is not such a center of wild green lore as other parts of Turkey, and many local people just pull it out without ever thinking of eating it, but in the Aegean region, "Sirkemotu" is a very well-known and popular wild green. It, along with purslane, are two of the very few wild greens that are edible throughout the summer. You can pull off the tender last few inches of stem along with whatever leaves are there, and it will immediately branch and come back improved. If it's happy, it can get up to a meter and a half tall though usually it's shorter. Mine would get that high but I tend to keep it in check, otherwise I'd have nothing else growing in the garden. It produces a lot of seed. So much that I will not consider requests for seeds of these plants...I don't want to inflict it on the southern U.S.! Don't worry, plain old Love Lies Bleeding is every bit as good to eat, and actually preferred in many Greek gardens, where it serves as both an edible and as an ornamental. In Greece, it is known as "Vlita." Vlito is also a slang term for someon who is not too bright, due to the fact that if you eat a really large amount of it, it is said to make you a bit foggy-headed. I wouldn't know, pretty much any good meal does that to me anyway and I don't consider "food coma" to be an entirely bad thing!

You can use Amaranth in almost any way you'd use spinach - raw in salads, as a filling for pita (a friend in Naxos made a really nice "vlitopita") or boiled/steamed as a potherb and drizzled with olive oil and lemon. A little crushed garlic mixed in is not bad at all. Just be sure not to overboil it; just like spinach it will become mushy if overcooked but I think overcooked Amaranth is even less appetizing.

Today I made a very Turkish dish out of it - gözleme. It's a bit of work but not all that hard. I started with a plain dough of flour and water with a little oil mixed in and a bit of salt. It should be about the same consistency as bread dough or, as they say here, "like an earlobe." Knead it for around ten minutes, then cover it and let it rest. After 15 minutes or so, divide the dough into pieces about the size of a large egg and let rest again. (You might want larger or smaller, depending on the size of your frying pan.)

By the way, if you don't feel like dealing with dough, you could also take two flour tortillas and do this as a quesadilla. But it won't be nearly as good!

Meanwhile make your filling. Chop the amaranth leaves fairly finely. Chop an onion finely and sautee it, then add it to the Amaranth (the amaranth will cook later). The rest is up to you; I mixed in a handful of crumbled beyaz peynir, Turkey's take on feta cheese, some red flake pepper and some paprika, some salt and black pepper and that's pretty much it. You could also add kashar cheese, or boiled and semi-mashed potato.

Heat a heavy frying pan. In Turkey they use a "sac" (pronounced "saj"), like a shallow convex wok placed over hot coals. But a cast iron frying pan or griddle will do just fine.

Take a piece of dough, generously flour your counter and roll it out into a long oval about 1 mm thick. Here they use a thin dowel-like rolling pin called an oklava to do this, but you can do it with a regular rolling pin as well. You'll have to be a bit more patient though. Once it's open, take a generous spoon of the filling and spread it over half of the oval of dough, then fold the uncovered side over the filling. Press the edges to seal. Add a bit of oil to your pan, and put the gözleme in, and brush some more oil over the top. Once the bottom is browned, flip it over and cook the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Gözleme filled with various fillings is a common wedding dish in E. Turkey, and I saw gözleme filled with Amaranth in the weekly market in Söke near Kuşadası. By the way, Kuşadası is pronounced "KOOSH a-da-suh," not "koosaDAWsee!"

Another great way to eat Amaranth is with eggs. Fry some onion in a generous amount of olive oil, add chopped Amaranth along with pepper if you like and saute till the amaranth is soft. Add salt to taste, then pour beaten eggs over the Amaranth, cover and let cook till the eggs are cooked through. Afiyet olsun!

Kabak Çiçeği Gibi... Squash Flowers

I'm not much of an early morning person... Actually I love early morning but early morning doesn't like me. But today I did decide to rise with the chickens (well, somwehere) and get out into the garden to photograph - and then collect - one of the treats of summer: squash blossoms. I set the clock for 8:30 but for some godly unknown reason woke up at 7, and coffee in hand, stumbled out into the garden. There was no sound except birds, a dog barking somewhere and the rumble of distant thunder. As soon as I finished shooting, the first drops began to fall.

Ben hiç bir anlamla erkenci değilim. Aslında erken sabah vaktini çok seviyorum fakat o beni sevmiyor galiba... Yine de bugün yazın sunduğu güzelliklerinden bir tanesini fotoğraflayıp toplamık için tavuklarla (nerede olursa olsunlar) kalkıp bahçeye çıkmaya karar verdim. Çalar saatimi 8.30'a ayarladım fakat nedense 7'de uyandım; kahve elimde bahçeye tökezledim. Kuşlar, bir yerden havlayan bir köpek ile uzakten gelen gök uğultu sesinden başka bir ses yoktu. Bitirir bitirmez yağmurun ilk damlaları etrafıma düşmeye başladı.

I love to grow winter squash. Summer squash is nice and I'll eat it gladly; it's arguably a more useful thing to grow in terms of the sheer amount it produces. Everyone remembers their neighborhood's dreaded "zucchini lady" who was always coming around with armloads of zeppelin-size zucchini to palm off on the neighbors. That would be my mom. ;) But the fun in growing winter squash is the incredible variety of different shapes, colors and flavors. I've resolved to try at least one new one each year.

Balkabakları yetiştirmeyi çok seviyorum. Yeşil kabak da güzel, seve seve yerim, hem de ürettiği miktara göre belki biraz daha verimli bir kabak olabilir. Amerika'da her mahallenin korkulan, toplamayı unuttuğu kocaman kabakları komşulara yüklendirmeye çalışan bir "kabakçı kadını" oluyordu... yani annem... :) Fakat balkabağı yetiştirmenin zevki daha çok sonsuz şekil, renk ve tat yelpazesinden geliyor. Her yıl en azından bir yeni cins denemeye karar verdim.

The flowers are also a draw; winter or summer, there's not much else in the vegetable department that produces anything quite as voluptuous as a squash flower. In Turkey when a formerly well-behaved boy starts sowing his wild oats and going a little wild, they say "He opened like a squash flower." It's an apt description because they are there to do one thing and one thing only - sex! Not only are the flowers beautiful, but they have a delicious fragrance that reminds me of tall bearded iris. They're edible to boot, but more about that later.

Bir de çiçekleri var, ister yeşil olsun ister bal kabağı olsun, bu kadar albenisi olan bir çiçek yoktur sebze bahçesinde. Zaten "kabak çiçeği gibi açıldı" deyimi hiç tesadüf değil! Gerçekten çok iyi bir benzetmedir çünkü bunların bir fonksiyonu var - bitki seksi işte! Hem güzeldir hem de süsen aromalı çiçekleri mis gibi kokuyor. Yenir de, o konuya daha sonra değinelim.

In my old garden I grew the local one, known as Adapazarı, for the town east of here where they are grown extensively. It's a BIG squash, with deeply-ribbed gray "pumpkin" type fruits weighing up to 20 kilos. The trouble with growing such a large squash is that although they keep well, once you've cut into it it's like slaughtering a sheep. If you don't have a spacious freezer you have to make a lot of pumpkin pie fast! So now I'm preferring slightly smaller squash.

Eski bahçemde pazarlarda yaygın olan Adapazarı cinsini yetiştiriyordum. Çok lezzetli bir bal kabağıdır ancak öyle kocaman bal kabaklarının desavantajı, çok iyi saklanabilmesine rağmen bir kestin mi kurban kesmek gibi olması! Ya büyük bir derin dondurucunuz olacak ya da bütün mahalleye dağıtacaksınız. Yine de kendinizi komşularınıza beğendirmeya amaçlıyorsanız bal kabağı dağıtmak hiç kötü bir fikir değil! Fakat şimdi biraz daha küçük cinsler tercih edip, Adapazarı kabaklarını pazarcılara bırakıyorum.

This year I'm growing three - a Japanese one called Black Futsu, a old French variety called "Rouge Vif d'Etampes" and an Italian heirloom type called "Marina di Chioggia." The Kabocha went in a little late but it's catching up fast. It produces small squash with a (supposedly) chestnut-like flavor. I'll be looking forward to that! Vif D'Etampes looks to be a beautiful thing, with broad, flattened brilliant red-orange fruits. Marina di Chioggia is definitely the "oddball" of the bunch, with dark gray, warty fruits. Both have started to set fruit now.

Bu yıl ise Siyah Futsu adlı bir Japon cinsi, Fransa'nın eski ve meşhur bir cinsi olan Rouge Vif d'Etampes ile İtalya'nın bir sahil kentinden gelen Marina di Chioggia olmak üzere üç tane yetiştiriyorum. Kabocha'yı biraz geç ektim fakat yetişiyor. Ürettiği küçük boylu kabaklarının tadı kestaneye benziyormuş, onu dört gözle bekliyorum! Çarpıcı turuncu-kırmızı yayvan meyveleri ile Rouge Vif d'Etampes çok güzel bir şeye benziyor. Koyu gri "siğilli" kabakları ile Marina di Chioggia ise kuşkusuz grubun garibidir, okuduklarıma göre en lezzetlisi de.

As long as you provide a few basics, winter squash aren't too difficult to grow. They want sun, decent soil with plenty of organic matter, and a good supply of water. You'll do yourself a favor if you dig in a healthy amount of manure in the fall, supplemented by compost. This year I added "green manure" in the form of fava bean stalks; I just chopped them up into the soil below where the vines were to be planted.

Birkaç temel ihtiyacı yerine getirirseniz bal kabakları yetiştirmesi pek zor değil. Güneş, bol organik madde içeren iyi bir toprak ve bol su istiyorlar. Sonbaharda toprağa bol gübre artı compost (çürümüş yaprak, çim, mutfaktan kabuklar v.s.) katarsanız çok iyi olur. Bu yıl ise "yeşil gübre" de kattım: sonbaharda yoğun olarak ektiğim bakla gövdelerini kürkle ufalayıp kabakları ektiğim toprağın içine karıştırdım.

The common knowledge is to grow them in "hills," but I'm not really sure why. One thing squash really resent is dry soil, and hilling IMHO makes it more likely for the soil to dry out, especially when the plants are young. I just dig the soil deeply and plant at the normal level. The American Indians of the Southwest actually planted them in deeper depressions so that they would have a better water supply. If the soil is moist, the vines will root readily at the nodes, and you can help this along by mounding the soil up every 8th node or so. The large leaves of squash plants transpire quickly and this way there are more roots to help quench their thirst. In the picture at left an emerging root is visible.

Türkiye'yi bilmiyorum, Amerika'da hep "tepelere" ekilmesi öneriliyor. Nedenini pek anlamıyorum açıkçası, balkabağı kuru topraktan nefret ettiğine göre tepelere ekmek, kuruma olasılığını daha da artıyor. Ben toprağı derine kazıp, toprak seviyesinde ekiyorum. Hatta Amerika'nın güney batı bölgesindeki Kızılderililer, suları eksilmesin diye küçük çukurlara ekiyorlar. Toprak nemliyse gövdelerden de kök salar, bunu teşvik için 5-8 boğumda birini toprakla hafifçe gömebilirsiniz. Geniş yaprakları, sıcak havada bol su kaybettiği için ne kadar kökü varsa susamışlığını o kadar iyi giderebilirler. Soldaki resimde bir kök görülür.

Once the vines get to the necessary size, they'll begin to produce flowers, and lots of them. Squash have separate male and female flowers, and the male flowers are produced first. This ensures that when the female flowers come along, there will be plenty of male flowers to ensure that they get pollinated. If the flowers don't get pollinated, you get no fruit. We have a beehive in the garden so the deed was done long before I ever got out there, but if you have a dearth of bees in your area, you can help them along by pollinating them yourself. You'll have to get up early in the morning though; as soon as the heat sets in the flowers shrivel and close.

Bitkiler yeterli büyüyünce çiçekler de açmaya başlar, hem de çok. Kabakların erkek ve dişi çiçekleri ayrıdır, ilk çıkanların hepsi erkek oluyor. Bu durum, dişi çiçekler gelince tozlaşmayı yerine getirebilecek kadar erkek çiçekleri olmasını sağlıyor. Çiçekler tozlaşılmazsa kabak da olmaz. Bizim bahçemizde bir arı kovanı olduğu için ben çıkmadan çok önce iş işten geçiyor fakat büyük şehirlerde arı eksikliği ciddi bir problem olabiliyor. Durum öyleyse tozlaşmayı siz de yapabilirsiniz. Yetişmek için erkenci olmanız gerekecek ama; sıcaklık basar basmaz çiçekler solup kapanıyor.

How to sex a squash flower?

Kabak çiçeğinin cinsiyeti nasıl tespit edilir?

The male flowers, which you'll see first, are fairly simple affairs and borne on tall thin stems. The flower in the photo to the right is male. Notice how it's held high up (though they aren't always above the leaves), and the base of the flower is fairly simple.

İlk önce göreceğiniz erkek çiçekler oldukça sade olup, yüksek gövdelerde yer alıyor. Sağdaki çiçek erkektir. Çiçeğin dibi sade, her zaman öyle olmasa da gövdesi onu yaprakların üstüne yükseltmiş.

Inside is a single anther (actually a group of them but they appear as a single unit). The produce a lot of pollen, enough to generously cover the bees that are irresistably drawn to them.

Çiçeğin içinde tek bir ercik başı var. Aslında 5 tane var fakat birleşmiş haliyle tek gibi görünyor. Cazibesine karşı koyamayan arıları tatmin etmek için çok polen üretiyorlar!

The female flowers, which start to appear a bit later, are always in the minority. They are borne close to the stem, and are atop a round swelling - the ovary - which will grow into a squash if the flower is pollinated. Below are newly developing female flowers of Marina di Chioggia and Rouge Vif d'Etampes side by side for comparison.

Biraz daha sonra çıkmaya başlayan dişi çiçekleri ise her zaman daha az oluyor. Ana gövdenin çok yakınında açıp, tozlaşma gerçekleşirse kabak olacak yuvarlak bir tohumluğun üstünde yer alıyor. Aşağıdaki fotoğrafta kıyaslayabilmeniz için Marina di Chioggia ile Rouge Vif d'Etampes'ın yeni gelişen dişi çiçekleri görünüyor.

They grow fast, and a few days later they're open and ready for business! Just hush up about those weeds...

Çiçekler hızlı büyüyor, birkaç gün sonra ise açık ile işe hazır olacaklar! Otlara gelince...yorumlar istemiyorum!

Their insides are also different. On the left is a male flower - notice the shower of pollen on the bee inside. On the right is a female flower; to get to the nectar produced in the base, she has to squeeze in between the three-lobed pistil and the walls of the flower, ensuring that the load of pollen on her back will be rubbed off.

İçleri de farklı tabii. Sol taraftaki erkek çiçeğidir, içindeki arıyı kaplayan poleni farkedin. Sağdaki ise dişidir; tam dibinde üretilen nektara ulaşmak için çiçeğin duvarları ile 3 kısımlı dişilik organının arasında sıkışarak sırtına yapışmış olan polen yükünün dişilik organına yapışmasını sağlanır.

Success!

Başarı!

If pollination is successful you'll know it within a couple days, because the stem whill thicken and the ovary will begin to grow at an astonishing rate. Here are flowers just two days after pollination; Rouge Vif d'Etampes is almost golf ball size already.

Tozlaşma başarılı olarak gerçekleştirilirse bir iki gün içinde gövdenin kalınlaşması, tohumluğun şaşırtıcı bir hızla büyümesinden belli olur. Yukarıdaki fotoğraf, çiçeklerin tozlaşmadan sadece iki gün sonraki durumunu gösteriyor; Rouge Vif d'Etampes'ınki bir golf topunun boyuna büyümüş bile.

Aborted Flowers

Düşen Çiçekler

Often in my experience the first one or two female flowers abort without opening. I'm not sure why, but if they continue to abort it may be that the weather has gotten too hot, or your plants aren't getting enough water. I have fairly well-drained soil, and give them a good soaking each morning. If your female flowers make it to blooming size and then abort a day or two later, they were most likely not pollinated, or under-pollinated and the plant "decided" that it was not worth it to expend the energy to produce a big honking squash for the sake of a few seeds.

Genelde bende ilk çıkan dişi çiçekler nedense açılmadan kuruyup düşüyorlar. Fakat sürekli düşüyorlarsa sebep, havanın fazla sıcak olduğu veya susuzluk olabilir. Benim toprağım fazla yağlı değil, her sabah iyice suluyorum. (Burada akşam suluyorlar genelde fakat gecede yapraklarda kalan su damlaları, mantar sorunlarına yol açabilir.) Eğer dişi çiçekler açılıp sonra dökülüyorsa, büyük ihtimalle ya hiç tozlaşılmamış ya yetersizce tozlaşılmış. Bu takdirde bitki, bir avuç tohum için kocaman bir kabak üretmenin faydasız olduğunu "karar" veriyor.

Hand Pollination to Maintain a Variety

Bir Cinsi Korumak İçin Elle Tozlaşmak

If you want to collect seed from an heirloom variety for next year and are growing more than one variety of squash, you'll want to hand pollinate. Start by selecting a female flower and bagging it with some cheesecloth or gauze to keep the bees out, or you may get a cross with the others you are growing. When the female flower opens, take a male flower (preferably from a different plant of the same variety), peel off the petals leaving only the stamen in the center, rub the stamen all over the pistil of the female flower, and replace the cheesecloth. You can do the same thing with a small paintbrush. Once you're sure that you've gotten pollination and the flower fades, you can remove the cheesecloth. Be sure and mark your fruit to remind you which one it is.

Eğer birden fazla cins yetiştirirken tohumlarını gelecek yıl için saklamak istediğiniz beğendiğiniz bir cins varsa, melezlememelerinden emin olmak için elle tozlaşmanız gerekecek. İlk önce gelişen bir dişi çiçek seçip, arıların girişini engellemek için bir parça tülbentle hafifçe sarayın. Çiçek açılınca aynı cinsten fakat tercihen başka bir bitkiden bir erkek çiçeği koparıp, sarı yapraklarını tamamen sökün. Geri kalan ercik başını dişi çiçeğin dişilik organına sürünüz. Sonra tülbendi bir daha yerine bağlayıp bekleyin. Tozlaşma işini küçük bir fırça ile yapabilirsniz. Tozlaşmanın gerçekleştiği, çiçein solduğundan sonra tülbendi alabilirsiniz. Hangi kabak asıl tohumunu içerdiğini hatırlamak için mutlaka etiketleyin!

Eating Them

In villages on the island of Mytilene in Greece, kids coming from the garden with big boquets of squash flowers was a common sight. Their mothers would stuff them in exactly the same way as peppers or grape leaves; you can use your favorite mixture but I think if you do it without meat the flavor of the squash flowers will come through better.

You can also fry them, either dipping them in batter or dredging them in egg then flour before they hit the oil.

Another way I found, from a YouTube comment no less, is to make a quesadilla out of them. Put a tortilla in a hot pan, sprinkle on grated cheese, a bit of hot sauce if you like, arrange the squash flowers over the cheese, then cover with a second tortilla, and cook, turning occasionally, until the inside is cooked and the tortillas are lightly toasted. I was going to take a picture but Blogspot adds endless "div" tags every time a photo is added, and I worked so long to get the spaces right!

Nasil Yenir?

Yunanistan'daki Midilli Adasının köylerinde bahçelerde gelen, ellerinde kabak çiçeği demetleri tutan çocuklara sık sık rastgeliyordum. Anneleri tıpkı yaprak sarması veya biber dolması gibi yapıyordu. Zaten Türkiye'de de yapılır, özellikle Ege bölgesinde. Bence çiçeğin tadını daha güzel ortaya çıkardığı için zeytinyağlısı daha lezzetli.

Ayrıca güzel bir meze için ya hamura, ya da ilk önce yumurtaya sonra una batırıp kızartılır.

YouTube'da bırakılan bir yorumdan öğrendiğim bir yöntem daha, "quesadilla"sını yapmaktır. Artık her yerde satılan tortilla ekmeğinden bir tanesini hiç yağ katmadan kızgın bir tavaya yerleştirin, sonra üzerine rende peyir ve isteğe göre acı sos serpin. Sonra peynirin üzerine kabak çiçeklerini dizip, ikinci tortilla ile kapatın. Tavada birkaç kez çevirerek, içi pişmiş, dışı biraz çıtır hale gelinceye kadar pişirin. Herhalde gözlemesi de çok güzel olurdu.