Turkish Recipes

Turkish cuisine is known for kebabs, baklava, Turkish delight, meze spreads, and the elaborate kahvaltı breakfast. Its foundations are yogurt (a Turkish word), bread and yufka pastry, bulgur, olive-oil vegetable dishes, and grilled meats. Heir to the Ottoman palace kitchen, it ranks among the world's great cuisines for sheer breadth, from Aegean olive oil cooking to Gaziantep's pistachio pastries.

It depends on the region. Western and central Turkish cooking is aromatic but mild, seasoned with mint, oregano, sumac, and sweet pepper paste. The southeast — Adana, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa — uses real heat from pul biber (Aleppo-style red pepper flakes) and isot, the dark dried Urfa pepper. Adana kebab is genuinely spicy; an İstanbul home dinner usually is not. Heat is regional, not national.

The two share an Ottoman repertoire — dolma, baklava, kofta, coffee — but differ in emphasis. Turkish cooking uses yogurt far more extensively, has a vastly larger kebab and bulgur repertoire, and uses butter and pepper paste alongside olive oil. Greek cooking is dominated by olive oil and lemon, includes pork (absent in Turkey), and features avgolemono and feta, which have no Turkish equivalents.

Menemen — eggs scrambled with tomatoes, peppers, and olive oil — takes fifteen minutes. Red lentil soup (mercimek çorbası) is the everyday national soup and nearly foolproof. Kısır, a bulgur salad with pepper paste and lemon, needs no cooking beyond soaking. Chicken şiş marinated in yogurt grills reliably. From there, attempt karnıyarık (stuffed eggplant) or homemade lahmacun.

Biber salçası (red pepper paste), tomato paste, pul biber, dried mint, sumac, cumin, and good olive oil cover the seasoning base. Staples include red lentils, bulgur, rice, yogurt, white cheese (beyaz peynir), and tahini with grape molasses (pekmez) for breakfast. Yufka or filo in the freezer enables the börek family. With these, most home dishes are achievable anywhere.