Baklava is a sweet dessert, made from layers of filo pastry and melted butter, and layers of nuts (pistachio or walnut). It’s cut into rectangle, diamond or triangle shapes then baked. Once baked, a syrup is poured over, making it sticky and sweet. The thin, crispy filo pastry is softened by the syrup as it penetrates through every layer. It’s often served with ice cream or cream and sometimes has more pistachio nuts finely ground on top.
So naughty, but so nice!!
Lahmacun is a very thin round flatbread. The dough is rolled thin and topped with a minced meat mixture – lamb or beef mixed with very finely chopped tomatoes, onions, parsley and spices.
It’s served with salad and lemon. You squeeze the lemon on to the Lahmacun, put some salad on it then roll it up and eat it! So delicious, and because it’s so thin it’s not too unhealthy!
Ok, so not really a dish, but I thought it was interesting to write about. There’s an assumption that chips are only served with breakfast in holiday resorts in Turkey to please tourists, but that’s not true! Berkay’s family often serve up chips for breakfast, but usually cold, either leftovers from the night before, or freshly cooked. They even have them smothered in garlic yogurt with grilled peppers. Above is a photo of a breakfast we had in the village – boiled eggs, tomatoes, grilled peppers, chips, olives, sucuk and aubergine!
Çay is probably the most popular drink in Turkey. It is strong, fragrant black tea, grown in the black sea region. It’s brewed in a special teapot, called a çaydanlık, and you can get really beautiful decorative ones! The tea is served in small tulip shaped glasses, usually a cube or spoon of sugar is added.. It is drunk literally everywhere, in all seasons and at all times of day but especially at breakfast – it’s just not breakfast without a glass of tea! When visiting the village, I am served tea all day long, and it’s considered rude to refuse. By the end of my visit I’m pretty sure I have tea flowing through my veins!
When I first moved to Turkey I didn’t like çay at all, but there’s only so many times you can politely drink something you dislike before actually growing to love it. I absolutely love it now and we often drink it at home here in London, although it just does not taste the same here!
Apple tea has become associated with Turkey too, but it’s mostly a tourist thing, very few Turkish people actually drink this.
Kuzu şiş (lamb shish) is a simple kebab dish, but delicious. Marinated cubes of lamb on skewers, cooked perfectly and served with special flat bread (which is hiding some of the meat in my photo above), rice, grilled peppers, onions and tomatoes, and raw onion salad with sumac sprinkled on top. Perfect when the meat is tender! My photo above was taken at Mozaik Bahçe in Fethiye, their presentation is especially impressive.
I always feel like ordering lamb or chicken shish kebab is so boring when eating out, but it’s so tasty I can never resist!
A Turkish döner kebab is nothing like the ones you’ve come across in the UK. I’ve never had a lamb one, but chicken döner is one of my favourite fast foods!
The name relates to the way the seasoned meat is cooked slowly on a vertical rotisserie. As the outside layers of meat get cooked, they are carved off and served. There are various ways the meat is served – over rice with salad, in a wrap (dürüm) or in a half-bread like a sandwich (yarım ekmek). We usually get the half-bread – the perfectly cooked chicken is shaved off and put inside along with onion, tomato and lettuce.
It’s served with a side of pickled hot chili peppers. The English in me means I sometimes order chips, cover them in salt and vinegar and stuff them inside too!
Konya Etli Ekmek is a cross between pide and lahmacun. A thin, flat bread topped with ground beef and peppers, cooked in a stone oven. We had this in Fethiye and aside from the taste, the most impressive thing was the size of the etli ekmek – 1.5meters long!! Served with spicy acılı ezme and salad and all for 10tl (although this was 2 years ago, it may have increased in price since). Despite being so long, it’s quite light since it’s thin. Delicious!
Manti are tiny little dumplings, filled with ground meat, similar to ravioli. Sheets of dough are rolled thinly and cut into small squares, then a small amount of filling is added and the sides pinched together, to form little dumpling parcels. The manti is then boiled and served covered in garlic yogurt with a spicy sauce, made from oil or butter and chili flakes.
Making it from scratch is a lot of effort, so when they decide to make it, women in Turkish villages invite each other around and they’ll sit in a group forming a little production line, gossiping whilst making hundreds of manti for their families.
I like it, as long as it’s not too soggy, but I still struggle with the concept of yogurt on dinner foods!
Gözleme is a popular street food in Turkey, marketed in holiday resorts as ‘pancakes’ even though they aren’t really pancakes at all, they’re more of a flat bread. It’s made with flour, water and salt, which forms a basic pastry dough. The dough is rolled very thinly on a special low round table, then filled, folded and cooked on a metal plate. Traditional fillings are savoury – mincemeat, parsley and onion, cheese and spinach or potato and onion etc, but in some areas you will find sweet flavours too – lemon and sugar, nutella and banana, etc, flavours which have been highly influenced by tourist crowds!
My favourite is mincemeat and potato, and our favourite place go for one is the Korkmaz family’s stall in the Fethiye area weekly markets!
Adana kebab is a spicy lamb kebab, named after the Turkish city. The meat is minced together with spices and pepper then moulded around a thick, flat skewer and grilled over coals. Usually served with with rice and salad, with sumac to add to the flavour!
I like this dish but sometimes find it a bit fatty/gritty, some are definitely made better than others.
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