Does anyone know where I could take a Turkish cooking class in Istanbul?

Unless you want to become a professional cook, few practice runs can take you to many of the more common Turkish dishes in very short term.

Almost all hot vegetable dishes will follow the same cooking pattern. Here is a general recipe to my taste; you can suit it to yours with practice.

-Put little olive oil into the pan and heat

-Put shredded onions (and shredded green peppers, if necessary) into hot oil and fry them to golden color

-add meat into slightly fried onions and peppers and fry

-add shredded (and preferably peeled) tomatoes and stir.

-add tomato paste (and red pepper paste), mix thoroughly and wait until paste is cooked

-add salt and pepper to your taste

-add  cleaned and washed and drained vegetables (whatever the vegetable) and stir thoroughly

-add little butter, let it melt and mix thoroughly..give the pot about a minute of stirring.

-add boiling water to cover ...lower the flame ... wait till cooking is complete (take trial bites from time to time to check) --serve

Try it you will see that it works....GOOD LUCK !

Thank you AlphaF! I know this method pretty well, although I have never added butter. I am also interested in knowing how to make the salads that go on kumpir and how to make simple kebaps. Any suggestions?

Closest I get to "kebab" at home is not really a kebab, but a close substitute. It is called ÇOBAN KAVURMA. (SHEPHERD´s FRY)

- Tell the butcher your intention is to make çoban kavurma while buying the meat. Make it kuzu meat (young sheep). Leave the choice of the meat, size of cutting, and fat content to the butcher, if you trust him.

- if the final product does not taste good, change the butcher.

- put very little olive oil into frying pan. add a small tea spoonful butter. let them heat.

- wash the meat and drain.

- add the meat into the pan and let it thorughly and evenly fry (in what little fat you added and its own fat) until all water is lost from the pan (no burning allowed).

- serve kavurma hot,  with rice, salad and and cacık (cacık is a mixture of yogurt, shredded cucumber, salt and garlic).

- provide a mixture of powdered hot red pepper,salt and cummin for those who like to dip their kavurma pieces into that mixture. ifr they so like it.

This sounds delicious! I will try it. I also know how to make cacık and have made it many times. It´s lovely with so many things!