Turkish cuisine is one of the largest and most varied in the entire world. The numerous Mediterranean ingredients with an enormous territorial extension and a very ancient history inherited from several centuries of splendor of the Ottoman Empire are united in this culture. That is why it’s impossible to summarize all of its culinary offerings here, but this guide will serve as a comprehensive introduction to its most popular foods.
Breaded, pastries & pastas:
- Simit, Acma and Poğaça: these are three types of bread that we can buy in any bakery or even from street vendors. The first is shaped like a ring and is covered with sesame seeds. The second is similar but its dough includes milk, and the last is usually circular in shape and its preparation includes egg. Simit can be slightly sweet, while other breads may have some savory filling, such as olive paste or cheese.
- Lavaş and Bazlama: these are two types of flatbread that are not baked, but are usually cooked in a pan. The second is somewhat taller and after cooking it is usually painted with butter and sprinkled with spices.
- Gözleme and Börek: they are two breads prepared with yufka (phylo or puff pastry dough) and a filling that can be spinach, cheese, meat, etc. The first is prepared in a pan and after adding the filling it is folded on itself. In the second case, the ingredients are covered with the dough, brushed with egg and baked.
- Manti: they are a kind of ravioli filled with meat, served in a yogurt sauce. Due to their very small size, they require a lot of work to make, and therefore considered a delicacy.
- Pide and Lahmacun: they are bread products close to pizza. The first is shaped like a flat boat and is filled in a variety of ways, with vegetables, cheese, meat or pieces of sausages, etc. The second, on the other hand, has a circular shape like the classic pizza, and usually has ground meat, tomato and spices.
Vegetarian dishes and meze:
- Meze: it’s not a particular dish but a concept: the table is covered with different small plates with varied preparations (both hot and cold), cold cuts, salads, cheeses, spreads, fresh vegetables or pickles, etc.
- Menemén and Çılbır: two egg dishes that are usually eaten for breakfast. The first presents cracked eggs over a very spicy tomato sauce, while the second consists on poached eggs served over a yogurt sauce. It’s also very common to simply fry eggs with some slices of pastirma or sucuk, which are probably the two most appreciated sausages.
- Patlican Salatasi: a preparation of grilled eggplant, then ground with a knife and dressed with lemon, olive oil and spices. Sometimes it’s completed with other grilled vegetables, such as peppers, tomatoes and onions.
- Cacik: a dense yogurt-based paste with olive oil, lemon, cucumber, mint, dill and salt.
- Zeytinyağlı Enginar: artichoke hearts, sometimes strikingly large in size, cooked with olive oil and usually accompanied by diced potatoes and carrots and peas.
- Dolma: The term dolma refers generically to any preparation of a main ingredient filled either with rice or with rice and ground meat. The most common are stuffed peppers, cabbage leaves, eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, but those made with wines leaves are probably the most emblematic ones.
- Imam bayildi: a very popular traditional dish, made from eggplants stuffed with tomato sauce, onion and peppers. Also not to be missed is the version that includes ground meat in the filling, called karniyarik.
- Bamya: a highly appreciated vegetable but not so well known in many latitudes, called okra in English. It’s prepared in a stew with tomato, in which some type of meat is also sometimes added, usually chicken.
- Ezogelin: a delicious vegetarian lentil-based soup.
- Çiğ Köfte: This dish originally refers to a meatball made with highly spiced raw ground beef. Its sale to the public has been prohibited due to sanitary measures, which is why restaurants now offer a vegetarian version based on bulgur.
Meat dishes:
- Döner, Dürüm, Kebab: three very popular terms, thanks to the countless fast food stands, which is why abroad they are often confused and used as synonyms. Döner actually refers to meat that is stacked and cooked on a rotating grill, which is then cut into thin slices; Dürüm refers to the method of wrapping ingredients with a flat bread and kebab is the generic name for any meat cooked on the grill.
- Şiş Kebap: grilled pieces of meat cooked on a şiş, that is, a skewer.
- Iskender: a very popular döner variant, characterized by the yogurt sauce that accompanies the meat.
- Adana Kebab: a very widespread type of kebab, original from the city of Adana. The lightly spiced ground meat is rolled onto a skewer, which is then placed on the grill.
- Köfte: grilled or baked meatballs, usually with onion, parsley and spices (mainly cumin).
- Icli Köfte: a variant of meatballs that can be fried or grilled, similar to Arabic kibbeh. They have an oval shape, with a meat heart and an outer layer of bulgur, which makes them crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.
- Hünkar Beğendi: an absolutely exquisite dish, consisting of a meat stew in tomato sauce, served on a puree of roasted eggplants.
Fish and seafood:
As in many other Mediterranean countries, it’s very common to find restaurants that offer grilled fish, especially Çupra or Çipura (sea bream) or Levrek (sea bass). It’s also common to find Istakoz (lobster), Barbunya (red mullet) or Hamsi (anchovies). But what probably attracts tourists the most is the street vendors’ offering of Midye Dolma (mussels stuffed with rice).
Miscellaneous:
It is impossible not to mention Turkish coffee, prepared in the typical container called cezve. Some street vendors prepare it over the fire of a grill, which gives it a very particular additional touch.
Meat dishes are usually accompanied with Ayran, a drink based on yogurt diluted in water and slightly salted. Instead, it is traditional to drink Raki (a spirit similar to Italian grappa) with meze or fish dishes.
Finally, it’s very possible that at the end of a meal we will be treated to a piece of Baklava (a yufka-based sweet dipped in syrup and with pieces of pistachios) or Lokum (a transparent sweet made from gelled syrup).