Sarika's Creme Caramel

Every Friday night, Amir and I would have Shabbat dinner with Sarika, Amir's Grandmother. She lived in Nisantasi, a busy shopping area of Istanbul. Traffic is dangerously chaotic and noisy on most evenings but on Fridays especially, the journey that would normally take 15 mins to drive, would sometimes take an hour and a half. 
It was difficult for Amir to come home from work, pick me up and then drive on to his Grandmother's apartment so I used to take the dolmus to his work place to meet him or make my own way to Nisantasi.  The dolmus is a type of minibus, I dreaded the journey. Being a foreigner trying to speak Turkish, I stuck out like a soar thumb.  When the dolmus comes along you sit where ever there is space and then pay whilst the driver is driving (that would be illegal in England!) If you sit at the back , you have to tap the shoulder of the person sitting in front of you, give your fare money to them so they can pass the money down from person to person till it reaches the driver. If you need change, the driver gives it to the person behind him and then the change is passed from person to person all the way back. I hated getting a seat in the middle, I was forever passing other people's money backwards and forwards in the hope that nobody spoke to me. The worst of it is that you have to shout out to the driver when you want the dolmus to stop. There are no designated stops like a bus would have. In the beginning, I was so shy, I knew that when I called for the driver to stop it was guaranteed that everyone would look at the foreigner! I prayed that someone else would shout at the driver to stop near to where I needed to get off so I could just slip out quietly.
Still, I suppose it was a better experience than getting the bus. Like a typical, orderly English person I would queue to get the bus. What an idiot I was....no-one queues for the bus in Istanbul, it's a free for all, you have to push and shove to make your way to the front. Once on the bus you wonder why every one was in such a hurry, you could never get a seat anyway, you had the pleasure of getting to your destination with your nose squashed up against the window, some ones elbow stuck in your ear and I really don't know if I was being paranoid or not but I felt sure that even without speaking the other passengers knew I was foreign. Still, the journey was always worth it. I would have ridden across the desert on a camel to get there.
On arrival at Sarika's apartment, she would always be sitting on her narrow balcony looking out on to the main street waiting for us. She always looked troubled and distant in thought but the moment she saw us her face would light up and her arms would be stretched out ready to receive our hugs. The love between Amir & Sarika was beautiful, always caressing each other, holding hands and kissing each others face. What filled me with warmth the most was when I used to catch Sarika sitting on Amir's lap. Amir teased her all the time by tugging at her ears and rubbing her ear lobes, she used to giggle when he did that.  He would then give her shoulders a deep rub and the giggles turned in to yelps of pain, but in a nice way. 
This is dedicated to Madame Sara Soryano. Known as Sarika.

1 Litre milk

6 eggs

1 glass sugar (approx 300g)

1 lemon rind

2 packets of vanilla sugar (10g)

Heat oven to 180c

You will need an oven proof dish that can also be used on the hob. 

(I use a ceramic dish 7 inches wide x 3 inches deep).

Sprinkle about 2 tbls of sugar in to the dish until the surface at the bottom is completely covered.

Heat very gently until melted and caramalized. Take off the heat to harden.

In a saucepan put the milk and sugar to boil till frothy.

In another bowl put the eggs, vanilla sugar & lemon rind. Whisk until light and bubbly.

Place the saucepan next to the bowl. Very slowly you are going to combine the two liquids as follows:

Take one soup ladle of milk mixture and pour it gradually in to the bowl of eggs. Then, take a ladle full of egg mixture and pour it gradually back in to the saucepan of milk. You will repeat this process  a number of times slowly increasing the amounts of ladles from one to the other until all the liquid ends up in one bowl.

Pour in to your oven proof dish on top of the caramelised sugar.

Place in the oven and cook for approx 45 mins until golden brown. 

Let it completely cool then place in the fridge.

When completely cold, run a knife around the edge and shake the dish from side to side to loosen the edges.

Take your serving plate and put on the top of the dish then turn upside down. The creme caramel should just slide out easily.

Tip: The creme caramel will be surrounded in caramel liquid so choose a serving dish with a slight dip so it doesn't overflow.

With each slice, scoop a spoonful of the caramel liquid on the top.

In loving memory xx