Thinking about what to eat in Turkey? Ready for some different turkish food other than the usual kebap routine? Well, here is an extraordinary list of what Turkish cuisine can offer that will take you out of touristic route in Turkish kitchen.
1- Kuru Fasulye & Pilav
This is a classic! You have to know that we are not eating kebaps at home everyday, our hearts are not that strong. But I am sure this menu tops the list of what Turkish people really eat in their daily lives.
For some; Kuru Fasulye might look like a soup or for others it can even be a mexican dish but for a typical Turkish person this is the speciality of their masterchef's; mothers. This can also be delicious example of vegeterian food that you can try in Turkey but double check before you eat; some restaurants prepare it with meat.
Made with dried beans; kuru fasulye is the thing that you have to try if you're looking for a real cultural journey in Turkish Cuisine. Do ask for a portion of Pilav (roasted then boiled rice cooked with butter) next to it as we consider them best friends on their journey to your stomach.
Yes, it looks like dumplings, some people even call it "Turkish Ravioli" which sounds awful. In reality Mantı is far from both, and more tasty. Hehe.
Mantı is also a usually home made Turkish food, hard to fabricate and the best if your grandmother prepares it for you. Dont worry if you dont have a Turkish grandmother, there are some of them who turned the taste of their hands into business and if you really want to try Mantı, its easy to find them as they tend to open up their business on popular Turkish travel routes.
May be its the hard process of preparing it that makes Mantı one of the favourites. You need to work on your dough until its reaches to a very specific level of hardness then prepare your meat. But the real slavery comes next. You've got to put the correct amount of meat in each one of your dough pieces. And again, as the grandmothers say the smaller the pieces are, the better.
3- Pide
Turkish Pizza? No way!
Keep your pepperoni for yourself, we have our own. And it’s not
only the shape of it that makes it unique, it’s the taste!
Besides, please forgive my ignorance but I have
never heard butter involved in the preparation of pizza? Or is it?
The best of pide's are considered to be cooked in the
Northern, Black sea region of Turkey (Karadeniz). So if you are travelling in
Turkey on route to black sea region, you will definitely find the best pide
there. Don’t worry there are many good restaurants in Istanbul or other
cities in Turkey who prepares good pide too.
You have many different options in terms of ingredients from sucuk
(spiced sausage similar to pepperoni), pastirma (dried smoked beef), yellow cheese,
ground meat... Ok I agree it’s Turkish pizza.
4- Cig Kofte
Try googletranslating the word please. The name might
not sound that appetizing. Ok don’t bother, It’s my job: Raw meatballs.
It's called like that because it never touches
fire on the process of preparing it. Cig kofte gets cooked by mixing, smashing,
punching the meat for literally hours with a lot of hot spices, cracked
wheat and spices and hot spices... Did I mention the spices in it? :P
The emphasis on how spicy and hot cig kofte can be
is never enough. So If you're a fan of hot tastes don’t go back from Turkey
before trying Cig kofte, it is really delicious.
Many places also prepare cig kofte without real meat inside and
only with cracked wheat. So if you think
that it is dangerous to swallow raw meat, ask for cig kofte without meat. Optionally
you can have it served like a durum/kebap or inside lettuce leaves. Both are
great tastes.
5- Iskembe Soup
So you have had a little too much of drinking and trying to find
out how to recover from your hangover in Turkey? Our secret is here; Iskembe
soup.
It’s made from a special part of lambs stomach and tastes even
better with some garlic and vinegar addition in it. It doesn’t matter in which
city that you are in Turkey, after a party even at 4.00 am in the morning you
can definitely find a soup restaurant that serves Iskembe soup and if you think
that you cannot handle the spicy Turkish kebap at that hour, then Iskembe soup
is the best option for you.
If you still can’t dare to try iskembe soup you would definitely have
smoother options in the restaurants so do not worry, dive in.
6- Midye dolma – Stuffed mussels
Yet another strange food from Turkey. This time it’s a real street
food. How clean and healthy midye dolma can be is a good question and even we
can’t answer that. But the taste is great again.
The people who sell midye dolma appear on the streets usually late
in the evening, around the bars, pubs. So this is also a drinker chow. You will
definitely notice them and wonder what they sell, why not trying it too?
Midye dolma is basically made with the mussels collected from the
sea. After a questionable cleaning process they keep the edible part of mussels
inside the shell and stuff cooked rice in it. Of course a lot of spices join
the process too. Depending on how big the clams are you will have different prices
per mussel. But they are quite cheap, you can get two of them with one lira so
it is a good way to spend the Turkish coins filling in your pocket.
7- Kokorec
The last addition to the list of unusual Turkish foods is kokorec.
Kokorec exists in Greece too with different good serving methods and I have no
idea who found it first. The taste is what counts for this list.J
Kokorec also comes from a strange part of the lamb; the
intestines. You shouldn’t worry this time because they really clean it good and
if you want to make it sure; go for the popular restaurants with a huge human
crowd that only sell kokorec. It must be good if it is crowded right? Number
one rule while you are travelling.
On preparation of kokorec they grill the intestines and then you
get a slice of it inside your bread with some tomatoes and again different
kinds of delicious Turkish spices. Again; you will see a lot of Kokorec
restaurants and I can assure you that it is worth trying a bite.
That’s definitely not all Turkish food can
offer as you would imagine but I think it would be a very daring start for you.
If you can make it to the end of this list during your journey in Turkey then
you can really be proud. Because you have managed to steer out of the typical,
boring tourist route of Turkish food and made the eating part of your Turkish
trip a real adventure.
As this blog is a very fresh one your comments and feedbacks will be greatly
appreciated. Please let me know what you think before or after you travel to
Turkey and let’s see if the list is really worth going through.
Enjoy!
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